Hospital homecoming

It's hard to believe that Arden has been home now for just over two weeks, after spending only 7 days in the NICU. She's already gained a full pound! Mason still doesn't really understand what it means to have a sister, nor the concept of being "gentle" when he touches her, but he is getting used to having her around and has even learned her name.

We've had a number of visitors already, several of whom have brought us delicious home-cooked meals (and all of whom have brought yummy sweet treats, like cupcakes, brownies, macarons and chocolate chip cookies).

Here are pictures of some of the highlights of the past couple of weeks.

Getting stronger every day

Jane Arden is officially in the "step-down" area of the NICU, which is where the healty babies go when they are ready for discharge. She's out of the incubator, and the only devices she has attached to her right now are those monitoring her heart rate, oxygen saturation level, and respiration. She's free of everything else! She's breastfeeding like a champ already, though we are also supplementing with pumped breastmilk so that we can ensure she's getting enough fluid and calories.

If all goes as expected over the next 24 hours, we expect to be taking her home tomorrow afternoon!

Welcome Jane Arden

There are some things in life that you just can't predict, such as strange pregnancy complications that arise out of nowhere and land you in the hospital with a new baby 6 weeks before her due date. Of course I'm talking about what happened to us this past Wednesday night. Just after I'd finished updating the blog with my post about our trip to Florida, I started having severe abdominal cramping. When it didn't go away after 90 minutes, I called my doctor, who said I should come to the ER. Good thing I followed his advice, and did so expediently, because it turned out that my placenta was pulling away from the uterine wall. If I had waited much longer, the baby may not have made it, and in the worst cases of placental abruption, the mother dies too! Yikes! So it was a very dramatic entry for little Jane Arden. She was born by emergency C-section at 1:46 a.m. on Thursday, March 31st, and weighed in at 5 lbs, 3 oz. Since I was only 34 weeks along, her lungs weren't quite fully developed when she came out, so she was on oxygen for two days following her birth. They were able to take the oxygen tube off this morning, which was a major milestone for her! She now has to be in the tanning bed for a couple of days due to jaundice - something very common in preemies. If she continues to progress at this rate, we may be able to bring her home as early as next weekend.

This wasn't at all the birth day we'd envisioned for our daughter, but we now realize how incredibly lucky we were to have trusted our gut and followed the doctor's advice. The medical team that did the surgery was really incredible, and all of our family and friends have been so supportive. Thanks to everyone for your visits to see us, calls, emails, texts, FB posts, etc. We are extremely blessed to have you in our lives!

Stay tuned...posts on Jane Arden's progress will follow as often as possible.

Sunny Florida

I'm happy to announce that I do not have to get on another plane until August - yay!

My last flight until after baby arrives was two weekends ago with Adrian and Mason. We went down to Cocoa Beach, Florida, to visit Adrian's grandparents.

Coincidentally, it just happened to be his grandfather's 92nd birthday, so we were lucky to be there to celebrate with him.

Also present were Adrian's Dad and step-mom, brother Trent, sister Christel and her sons (Erkki & Akseli), Adrian's Uncle Pete, Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dick.

Adrian and I took Erkki to a Washington Nationals (vs. Detroit Tigers) spring training game. He got his baseball autographed by two Nationals starting pitchers, which was pretty cool.

Despite having perfect weather, Mason was hesitant to walk on the wet sand or get in the water. We did warm him up to building sand castles, though. All in all, it was a fun weekend and a great time for us to escape to much better weather.

Ostrich Ranch Visit

Mason and I spent five days with my grandmother in Casa Grande, Arizona. About 30 minutes down the highway, there's a little town called Picacho that has a relatively famous ostrich ranch. Mason loved the fallow deer and the donkeys but was a little scared of the Lorikeets. If you're ever on the road between Phoenix and Tucson, this is a worthwhile stop.

Demon in the subway

We went up to the upper west side a couple of weekends ago to visit our friends Javier, Marina and Marinita. Of course we forgot to get the camera out while we were there, but we did get some good shots of Mason in the subway on the way home.

Snow, snow and more snow!

We've had lots of snow in New York since the Christmas blizzard and are expecting even more in the next couple of days. The babies still don't really know what to do with it, and of course they're somewhat prohibited from moving much in their bulky snow outfits, but they sure do look adorable!