Christmas Spirit!

We got in the Christmas spirit at our house today and put up our tree.  Avery is loving looking at all of the lights.  She just stares at all of those twinkling little lights.  We may just have to leave the tree up all year.  We all tried to take a few pics of the little one to use for a Christmas card/birth announcement, since I haven't done that yet.  I think we got some cute ones.  I just love all of those expressions!

Loving her tree!

I love how these next two look like she is dancing!

Visitors!!

Today Grammy and Grandpa Bahn, Cousin Conner, Aunt Jess and Uncle Joe came down to visit us, since we didn't make the trip up for Thanksgiving.  We had a yummy dinner and Conner and I got to play all day!  I wasn't too sure about sharing my play mat, as I haven't had to share any toys yet.  We did good though, and as you can see, it really tired me out and I had a good nap that evening.

All tired out

Playing with cousin Conner

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving..and a happy one it is!  I think Cullen and I have realized this year more then ever before, just how much we have to be thankful for.  We had the best day ever.  We decided we wanted to just hang out the three of us, and not do anything to elaborate or head out anywhere with the little one.  We just made a nice dinner here, and hung out.  Avery pretty much just slept and snuggled the day away and we wouldn't have had it any other way.  The family did come over for a little while tonight, and they got some snuggles as well.  I can honestly say it was the best Thanksgiving ever!

All snuggly after a bath

Spiky, fluffy hair after her bath.  She even wore a cute outfit for the day - all preemie size and so tiny, yet they are big on her still!

Avery loves her soothie and her glider

No mom, please -  no more pictures!

My Growing Belly

I don't have too many belly pictures from my pregnancy with Avery.  I had good intentions of doing them weekly, and started out doing really good, but then I kind of stopped remembering, and the weeks went by too fast!   I would highly recommend it, and hope to be better the second time around.   It is so fun to see that baby grow!  But I do have a few and thought I would come back and add the ones I do have to my blog, as she might like to see them someday.  I didn't want them at the beginning, so I'm putting them here!

This one is the last one I have and was taken at about 30 weeks.  She was born at 33 1/2 weeks, so I got a little bigger, but not a whole lot.  I never really did get to that hugely uncomfortable stage.

This one was at 29 weeks

16 weeks

12 weeks - starting to show more

8 weeks

Just found out..4 weeks...SO excited!

We're Here!

We are officially home, and it feels AWESOME!  Cullen of course, drove us very carefully from Minneapolis to New Prague!  He did say he was pretty nervous.  I sat in the back to keep the little one company, but of course she slept the whole way.  We did think it was important we capture the memory of the place we called home for the last week or so.  So here are a few pics of our sleep room!  There are also a couple of Avery in the carseat ready to go!  She looks SO tiny!

Home Home Home!!!

YEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!  Our second sleepover was a success!  Avery was a trooper through the night.  I don't think Cullen nor I slept a wink.  She is a noisy little sleeper and we were pretty nervous the entire time, but she did it!    We are packing up now and will be headed home later this morning.  Thanks again for all of your love and support through this whole process.  We couldn't have done it without you.  Let's bring our baby home!

Sleepover #2!

We are going to try it again!  Everything has gone well the past two days.  They adjusted her meds, and got her back on one of the ones they took her off before and that seems to be doing the trick, so we get to try to room-in again tonight.  We are pretty nervous after last time, but also super excited again.  Because once again, if this goes well, we will be headed home tomorrow hopefully!  Keep your fingers crossed for us!  We will update you tomorrow!

Didn't Go So Hot :(

Well last night didn't go a planned, and much to our dismay, we will not be leaving today.  At about 11:00 or so, Avery started acting kind of how she was acting last week in Waconia.  She was really jittery and super fussy.  I think we both didn't want to admit it, or maybe though it was our imagination.  Anyway, around 3:00 or so, we brought her down to the NICU, and sure enough, her heartrate was super high again.  So they gave her some more medicine and kept her there to monitor her for the rest of the night.  I'm pretty much a wreck all over again today.  We so had our hopes up to go home, but that isn't happening.  The doctor said we can possibly try again tomorrow night, if today and tomorrow go well.  We'll see.  We will keep you posted.

Our First Sleepover!

We got the news today that we have been waiting for!!  Avery is continuing to do really well, and they are beginning to get things ready for her discharge.  YEA YEA YEA!!!!!!!  She will ahve to go home on some meds that we will have to give her, but home is home!  Tonight we get to have our first sleepover!  We have been anxiously awaiting this.  Basically, this is what you have to do before you get to go home!  We went down to the cafeteria to eat supper, since there will be no leaving the room, and then we went to pick her up!  We have Avery in our sleep room with us.  She will hang out here all night, and if everything goes well, we may possibly get to bring her home tomorrow.  It is actually kind of comforting knowing that we have the nurses right down the hall.  But so far, so good!  We have just been hanging out in our tiny, little space.  We are enjoying some much needed, private snuggle time that we haven't been able to have yet.   Yea!  Our first night, just the three Bahns!

This is how Avery was hanging out in the nursery when we went to get her for the night!

Snuggling with Nana..and a sweet hat!

Nana came up today and hung out with us, because Cullen had to go back in to work today.  It has been nice he has been able to be here with us so much.  I think they pretty much just snuggled most of the day away!  We did take a run to Babies R Us while Avery napped in the morning and picked out some treasures for her.  The best news of the day is that she no longer has to take the iodine!!!  This was one of the meds she was on for her iodine and it was horrible!  It was just iodine, and she had to take it orally.  I hated giving it to her because she hated it so much, but we knew she needed it.  So it was good news to hear that one is no longer necessary.  Things also continue to look good, and they are even mentioning possibly going home this weekend!  Yea Avery!!!

A funny hat they gave her at the NICU..looks pretty funny!

This is pretty much what Avery and Nana did most of the day!

You can see the scale in the background..we weigh her before she eats and after to see how much she is getting each time. We do a little victory dance when it's a good one! 

Avery's Baptism

Here are a couple pics from Avery's baptism tonight.  Aunt Dana and Uncle John came up with Noah and Ansley.  Dana and John are Avery's Godparents, so that is pretty special.  She looked so sweet in her gown, though yes it was quite big!  She got a cute hat from the Chapel at the NICU as well.  It was a very nice night.  We all went out to dinner afterwards for a nice meal, so that was nice too.  We are going to have another ceremony at Church when she is home and a bit bigger, but this was definitely a very special night.

What a big girl!

Avery, her Godparents, and Pastor Barb

Yes, Cullen and I look just a little tired :)

Avery and her Godparents - Aunt Dana and Uncle John

Avery and her Godmother (Aunt Dana)

Avery's Big Day!

Avery is continuing to do well and respond really well to the thyroid meds.  Her heart rate has stayed down too, so that is the big thing.  We are still trying to determine what exactly caused this, and it's looking like it has something to do with my thyroid as well.  Kind of crazy....Avery has a fantastic endocrinologist, Dr. V. and he has referred me to one as well so we can try to get to the bottom of this.  The positive news is that is sounds like in about 3 months, her own little thyroid will completely take over, and she will be totally fine, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that that is what happens.

We did decide to go ahead and have Cullen's pastor from home, Pastor Barb, come down and baptize Avery.  She is the one who married us, so that is special.  We just decided it was something that we want to do, with everything that has gone on.  We will post some pics after.  I'm excited because she gets to wear the beautiful gown that her great Aunt Rachel made for her from my mom's wedding dress.  It is beautiful and so special, though it might be a little big!

Bad Day..Back to Childrens We Go :(

So as the title says, we are back at Children's.  Yes, this is a HUGE step backwards.  Yesterday we were hanging out in our room, watching the Vikes and just relaxing.  The doctor ordered a couple of tests yesterday because she was still a little concerned as to why Avery isn't gaining more weight, and her heart rate is still pretty high.  They actually ran a thyroid test, to test for hyper-thyroidism and it came back showing that seems to be the problem.  They first told us we would be coming back here this morning, but then they called back and said they were going to send a LifeLink out to Waconia to get her right away.  They wanted her up here as soon as possible.  Talk about an emotional wreck..both mama and daddy.  We really had no idea what was going on, or why it was so serious at that point, but clearly it was.

We've learned a lot in the last 12 hours or so.  Turns out she has the opposite thyroid problem that I have.  Her thyroid is working way too fast.  This explains why she has been eating like crazy and not gaining weight, and also why she has been pretty fussy, and most importantly why her heart rate has been so high.  It was pretty scary finding out what was going on.  When we got back here last night, they put her on some pretty heavy heart meds right away to get that heart rate down as soon as possible.  Then they started treating her thyroid with a couple different things.  She will get her levels checked again today, and each day for awhile, to make sure the meds are working.  We got up here at about 11:00 last night.  They had a sleep room for us when we got here.  We went down to check on her at about 3:0o this morning and her heart rate had already dropped so that is great news.  Now we just wait and see I guess.  Poor little thing.  We thought we were so close to going home, and it just feels like we've gone backwards.  At the same time, we are beyond thankful for her doctor for going with her gut that something just wasn't right.  We know she is in the best hands here.  Kind of funny, she is even in the same spot in the NICU that we left last week.  We will post more when we learn more. 

Avery and Daddy on Sunday before we got the news we were heading back to Children's.

Baby Shower and Lots of Visitors!

Today was a really fun day!  My sister had  baby shower for Avery for my side of the family, and we got to see lots of family and friends.  We pretty much had the whole Brekke clan up from Iowa.  It was so nice to see everyone.  They all came to the hospital today too to see Avery, and we were quite a scene! We didn't take her out of the nursery.  The nurses thought it might be too much with so many people, and we totally agreed.  So imagine everyone just peeking through the nursery window..it was pretty funny!  We got so many wonderful things, now we just need to get the little one home to use them!  We went to the hospital this morning before the shower, and Cullen stayed there with her.  Grandpa Dale and Cullen hung out with her all morning.  Cullen got to give her a bottle too, and she at nearly the whole thing.  Even though it was only like 60mL, it was a big deal!  The doctor saw her today also, and gave us another pretty good report.  We did the carseat test tonight, as well as hearing and she is good on both of those.  So it sounds like home could be in our near future!  I'm packing up tomorrow and will start staying overnight here, so that I can nurse her through the night.  They will give me a room, so that is nice.  Cullen will stop in and see us before school, and then come back over after.  It will be tough to be away from home, but so worth it to be near her, as leaving each night is still pretty hard.  We will do it this way until she gets to come home.

One Week Old!

Happy one week birthday to Avery!!  Wow, what a week it has been.  Today was nice.  We got to hang out in our room again for awhile.   I had to bring her back in to the nursery every once in awhile to get hooked back up to the monitors, but it was nice to have that privacy again.  She is nursing great and that is going really well for both of us.  The doctor saw her this morning and she is gaining weight, but not quite as fast as we would like.  She is still under 5 lbs, but they said if she keeps eating as well as she is, we could be going home very soon!  She is doing her carseat test tomorrow to make sure she can breathe okay in the carseat.  We had lots of visitors again today.  Grandpa Kauz stopped by this afternoon for awhile, and then Aunt Dana and the kids stopped in as well.  I cried like a baby when we had to leave tonight, as I always do.  That isn't getting any easier.  We have lots of family coming up tonight for Avery's baby shower tomorrow!  That is when it was scheduled for, so we decided to keep with is, even though she is already here!   It will be fun to see everyone.  We are coming by the hospital first, since we can't go more then a few hours without seeing her!  But overall it was a good 1 Week Birthday today!

Finally caught those big eyes open

First Family Picture!

Today we got to take Avery out of the nursery into a normal room with us for awhile.  This is really the first chance we got to have her to ourselves in semi-privacy to just hang out.  It was so nice.  We had lots of snuggle time, and some visitors today too.  Nana stopped in this evening, as well as a couple of friends.  It was a great day!

She look SO tiny snuggled up on Cullen in this one!