It's in the genes

Normally when we eat dinner Heather puts her laptop on the empty chair next to her to get it off of the table. While we were eating tonight, Ryan was scooting around under the table and out of the blue we hear the clicking of keys on the laptop keyboard. This is what we found...

Happy 1st Birthday!

Well, as you may know by now Ryan just turned 1! It's amazing that it's already been a year. She's come a long way from her low weight of 2.3 lbs. She's now 20 pounds and healthy as can be! I decided to update her blog with a bunch of pictures and a few videos in honor of the occasion and since I've been quite the slacker in getting it updated. I think there are 8 posts total so you may have to go to the next page or use the Blog Archive links over there on the right in order to see all of them.

Here are a couple of videos of her birthday cupcake. Please forgive the awful singing or mute your computer for the beginning of the first one. :) I split it into 2 parts so that it wouldn't get rejected.

11 Month Video...

Learning to crawl and not necessarily happy about it. :)

10 Month Pic...

9 Month Pics...

Happy 4th of July!

8 Month Pic...

The girls at the Atlanta Temple

7 Month Pics...

6 Month Pic...

5 Month Pics...

Baby Barf Pancake :)

Ryan's Nanna whipped up this little goodie. I'll let you guess which Nanna.

We're Back!

So shoot me, things have been a little busy around here. It's been ages since I posted but fortunately nothing too newsworthy has happened. As of two weeks ago, Ryan was 11 Pounds! I was looking through some old pictures and it's amazing how big she is now compared to those first few weeks. Other than her reflux still acting up (normal for premies but still annoying) she's doing great. She's a little behind schedule for stuff that a 4 month old would normally be doing but if she were 6 weeks old (like she should be) she'd be right on schedule. Here are some pictures that were taken in the last few days...

Brooke actually took this one :)

This one just made me laugh.

Another funny one... Looks kinda Psycho :)

Day 60 - Mama I'm Comin' Home

Did I just quote an Ozzy song? :)

Yes, it's true - we have a date for Ryan to come home! She'll be leaving with a monitor so we have training on that tommorow afternoon and I'll be rooming in with her Tomorrow night. If that all goes as planned I'll be bringing her home with me on Friday. Normally this would all be Heather's territory but given our current circumstances I'm filling in for her. Here's a video from last night (shot by Sam and Madi).

Day 57 - No Tubes!

That's right, Ryan had her feeding tube removed today so she's all bottles now with no backup system in place. She's been growing like crazy too, weighing in at 5 lbs. 4.5 oz. It's amazing how much she has changed. Here are a couple of pictures from tonight...

And a little reminder of where she started!

Day 56 - Busy Week

This has been a really busy week for us with Heather having to make the trek down to Emory University Hospital several times. I've had a hard time getting updates posted so you'll have to forgive me. Ryan is still doing really well. She weighed in last night at 5 lbs. 1.5 oz! They obviously can't give us a time frame on when she'll be coming home but it appears that there is a reasonable chance she will be cut loose by the end of next week. My mom is coming back to town tonight so that should free up some of my time for doing important stuff like posting on the blog ;).

This video is from last Sunday, Nov 9th.

Day 47 - Are We There Yet?

So, could day 47 bring better news than day 46? Perhaps. Ryan is now 4 lbs. 10 oz.! That's not the news but it is a great sign. The real news is right here inside this video. Make sure you watch it BEFORE you go on to read the rest of this or it will ruin the fun...

Okay, so little miss "on my own agenda" has had a history of just deciding out of the blue that she's ready to do something. For example, one day she was on her air (and needed it) and the next day she went without it and has been going along perfectly ever since. It seems that today is the day she decided that she's ready to drink from a bottle. Literally 24 hours earlier they were concerned about her reflux and how long it might take before she could actually hold an entire bottle in without ralphing it back up. Those are some powerful prayers you people! We went to see her today and she had already had 2 bottles without any problems and Heather fed her a third while we were there (she eats 35cc every 3 hours). She's had two since that one and not one spit-up today. That might explain the 4 oz. weight gain. Her nurse told us that given her sudden desire/willingness to eat that we should start looking for our car seat so that we can bring it in and get it approved. Yes, they do have to check it and approve it before they will let her leave. I don't know that it necessarily moves her go home time frame up any, but I would think that it makes it much more certain that she'll be spending Thanksgiving with us. So it begs the question... What constitutes a miracle? ... and ... Are we there yet?

Day 46 - Short Timer?

Okay, a quick update...

We saw Ryan today but I forgot the cameras at home so I don't have any new pics. While we were there we talked to one of her doctors and during our discussion she made the comment that Ryan should be ready to come home in TWO to THREE WEEKS! That's before Thanksgiving people! She is doing really well. Her one hang up is that she's still having some reflux that needs to get under control before she comes home. So, if you remember to, please pray that she'll get over that and will be able to keep her food down the way she is supposed to.

Oh, and as promised, I checked on her length and she is now 16 1/2 inches and still floating around 4 lbs. 6 oz.

Day 42 - 4 & 4

Lots of updates coming in today. Ryan weighed in at 4 lbs. 4 oz. last night! She's been gaining weight steadily lately which is awesome. You'll also notice in the video that her nasal cannula is gone! They took her off of it yesterday morning and she's been doing great. It's nice to see her with just the little feeding tube and hopefully that will be going away soon as well. Her nurse called this evening just before she left and said that they moved her out into the big room. That's actually really good news because the next move she makes will be HOME! That may also indicate that she's going to be starting up the bottle feeding before long. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Day 39 - Two In A Row

Look at me go! 2 days in a row now. Heather had her thyroid surgery today (everything went great) so I went down and hung out with the baby for a little bit.

Day 38 - Bad Daddy

Okay, I've been REALLY bad about the updates this past week. I can't explain it, just been busy. My Mom is about to go crazy though so I thought I'd better get an update on here. Ryan has been growing like a weed lately. She's nearly 4 lbs. now! 3lbs. 14.5 oz to be exact. I talked to the nurse when I was in last night and she said she expected them to try and start feeding her from a bottle soon, possibly in the next week. She's starting to act like she wants to suck (while eating) so they've been giving her a pacifier along with her feedings to try and satisfy it. They probably would have given it a shot already but she still has a little bit of reflux so they're trying to hold off as long as possible. Thankfully we haven't had any big surprises from her so all I really get to do is post pictures and tell you how much she weighs. I hope it stays that way. Here are some pictures...newest on top...

Brooke saying "Hi" to her baby sister (Day 35)

Me and my girls! I'm in a little bit of shock, hence the scared stupid look on my face. (Day 35)

Brooke doing her scrub. We have to do this each time we go into the NICU. 2 Minutes each, finger tips to elbows with a surgical scrubber. Gotta keep those babies healthy!

A Big Girl Bed! Ryan is wearing clothes now and sleeping in a regular bed. No added heat other than 15 or 20 blankets and a hat. :)

Ryan laying on Heather - a good size reference - That's a regular newborn diaper swallowing her up (from Day 33)

(Day 33)

Just snoozing away (from last wed Day 32)

Day 31 - 1 MONTH!

Today Ryan is one month old! She weighed in at 3 lbs. 6.7 oz. tonight so she is progressing really well. They have been trying like crazy to get her off of the air but she can only maintain her breathing for a few hours before she starts desaturating and they have to put it back on. They have cut the flow in half so hopefully she'll get the hang of it and we'll have a mostly untethered baby soon.

It's hard to believe that it's been a month (well, 5 weeks really) since this all began. Time has REALLY flown by for us for obvious reasons. Hopefully the next 5 will go by just as quickly and we'll be close to bringing Ryan home!

I'm kind of a slow poke with updates now that I'm not hanging out in a hospital room everyday. Sorry about that. There are 3 new videos below that you can check out.

Day 30 - Big As A Bass

Ryan is 3 lbs. 5 oz. today! That makes her as big as most of these bass, which is sayin' something. Although I'm not sure what. My boss did tell me that I should take up fishing with everything that we've had going on. Maybe it's just on my mind. Anyway, she's been gaining about an ounce a day for the last several days and is looking great. She's really starting to fill out as you will see.

I snapped this quick video so you can see how her color has changed and she doesn't look quite so scrawny now.