Well...

Life is so great!! Today we are on a 12 hour request what does this mean you ask...it means Brantley is coming home SOOOO soon!! What it also means is that for 12 hours straight I get to feed Brantley with every feeding when ever HE wants to eat. We can let him go as long as four hours before we have to wake him up to feed him, but he is getting so close.

I have had some amazing showers the past couple of weeks and got some absolutely fantastic things. I will post pictures later. I have some fantastic friends and family. Thank you to everyone!!!

Brantleys room is almost complete. I found a boarder that matches his bed set and I also painted some letters for his name. I can't wait until it is done!!

Brantley is now 37 weeks old and 6 pounds 7 ounces from the last time they weighed him two days ago. He is looking so good and is so cute I just can't get enough of him. Soon we will have him home and I can hardly wait!!!

Today is a great day...Brantley is one month old and making WONDERFUL progress.

Well to start off Brantley did very well breast feeding today. Not at first, we were struggling until I had this thought to pull out a nipple shield that the nurse gave me a long while ago. I hadn't used it but maybe once before. After I put that on he did great. He got 50% of his feeding. So the nurse said he has done so well with his bottles and gets about 50% of his breast feedings that she moved us to 4-a-day feedings. YAHOO!! I am so proud of our little man! He is doing so well and if he keeps up the wonderful progress he could be home sometime NEXT WEEK.

*Brantley Update*

WE ARE GETTING SO CLOSE TO COMING HOME!!! There are still lots of things that need to happen, but we are to the point where the talk of home is a regular topic. But let me update on what has happened since the last update post.

Brantley had his acid reflux test and ijt came out that he has it pretty signifcantly. He is on medications to help him and his heart rate and oxygen saturation. The medication took about 5 days to kick in so they put him back on oxygen until the medication kicked in.

They took him off the oxygen last night and the nurses are just watching him to see how he does.

We moved to 3-a-day feedings, so I have been feeding him at 10:00am 4:00pm and 10:00pm. I started doing two bottles and one breast feeding. But the doctor told me that I needed to do two breast feedings and one bottle. But Brantley hasn't been doing well at all with breast feedings. I know it is because we gave him the bottles but I have been getting so frustrated. I know breast feeding takes time and he is still really little but I want him home so badly. Once he is eating 75% of two of his feedings and 50% of the third that is when they will move him to 4-a-day feedings. I don't want to give up on breast feeding but he does so well with the bottles I have struggled not doing bottles exclusively. I don't want to give up on breast feeding. I feel it is important so I will keep doing atleast one breast feeding a day.

David gives Brantley a bottle at night. I LOVE watching him do it. He is the sweetest daddy. There is nothing in the world like watching David smile and hold Brantley and talk to him. I can't really put it in to words. He is absolutely wonderful!!!

He now weighs 6 pounds 2 ounces. But he still feels so tiny. We are so proud of how he is growing! We sure do love him.

Oh How Brantley has changed over the past couple of weeks....

We had just given him a bath and his hair was so fuzzy! The pictures don't do justice.

These pictures are from the test I mentioned in the previous post.

The poor boy was miserable with all the extra tubes.

The first (real) bath David and I got to give Brantley

He loved it

We didn't even get a real whimper from him during the whole thing.

Brantley loves being held by his daddy!

being held by his dad

Just chillin

I love this picture...he looks like he is laughing!

I absolutely love his picture it just makes me smile!

So wide awake after his feeding! Such a cute little man!

I can't believe how much love I have for him!

and I thought we had it bad....

So the NICU has what they call a parent support group. This group puts on a dinner every Tuesday night with pizza and salad. David and I decided to go for the first time on Tuesday. While we were there some of the couples were talking about their baby's and I was blown away with how blessed David, Brantley, and I have been blessed. One of the women had her baby at 26 weeks and the other at 27 weeks. Both baby's were under 2 pounds. The 27 weeker has been doing fantastic and is now over 5 pounds but they have been here for quite a while and will still be here for a while. They are from Price so the mom brought their 5-wheel and has parked it in the parking lot across the street and lives there most of the time. She only occasionally goes home. The other couple just had there baby a week or two ago and she hasn't even been able to hold her baby yet. They can only touch and that is at a bear minimum. They also live quite a ways away and will be bringing a trailer to park in the parking lot across the street also. I couldn't help but to count my many blessing. Brantley was born at a small but great 4 pounds 6 ounces. We were able to hold him right away. We live so close that I am able to come and go as I please and continue to do the things I need to at home but come and see Brantley as much as I want and need too. The thought just kept coming to me of "no matter how bad I have it, someone always seems to have it worse." and that is so true. We really have been so blessed. Brantley is healthy and strong (for the most part) and he is eating well and continuing to grow and improve. We are so glad to have him as part of our family.

So....

Here I am sitting in the hospital wishing I could hold my baby, make him all better, and take him home, but I can't and he is here with tubes down his nose and mouth. Like I had mentioned before Brantleys heart rate would occasionally drop and his oxygen would drop A LOT well today the doctors are running a test on him because they think he could have acid reflux. This would be the cause for the drop in oxygen and heart rate and if it was the case it is an easier fix. They would just give him some medication. This is great news. The sad news is that he got a brand new tube in addition to the feeding tube put in his nose and another tube in his mouth and down his throat. These stay in for 12 hours to test for the reflux. He looks pure miserable. I can't hold him for fear that we would move the tubes and I can't feed him. I almost started crying when the nurse told me I couldn't hold him, but whatever I have to do to make him come home sooner is what I will do. Other than that everything else is the same. We are still on the two-a-day feedings and everything else seems to be going fine. Tomorrow we will try doing a bottle feeding to see if he will be able to do both a bottle and nurse. If he can do a bottle this could help him come home sooner so hopefully he will do great!

Patients...

Brantley has come so far but he still has a long ways to go. These past couple of weeks I have been amazed at how much Brantley has grown. I feel like he is getting so big and he is for Brantley but compared to anyone else's baby that isn't in the NICU he is still tiny tiny. Brantley is now over 5 pounds AND we have started actual breast feeding and he is doing so well with it. The nurses are all very impressed with how well he latches on and eats for as little as he is. The past couple of days I have been allowed to breast feed him twice a day, and each time he gets about a half an ounce before he becomes to exhausted and can't go on. After he is able to eat more at a time we will go to 3 times a day and then 4 times until the last couple of days where we will stay at the hospital and I will feed him on his schedule and then he can come home. He is doing so well but David and I still have a few concerns. His oxygen level and heart rate drop quite a bit. The doctors and nurses don't seemed to concerned right now and they say that these kind of things happen often with preemie babies and he should grow out of it. But as for David and I who have never gone through anything like this before, we are terrified. But we trust the nurses and they have a better knowledge than we do and have probably has baby's like him before and know when to get really concerned. But anyway we are so proud of Brantley and the progress he has made and continues to make.

and as for me I am doing well. Healing just fine. I feel great, which can be a slight bit of a problem sometimes because I think I can do way more than what I really can right now. The incision is great and healing. The itching has stopped and it is now just a long scar. I also am now an official stay-at-home mom. I signed my final papers at work. It was a bitter sweet moment. I am really going to miss the people I work with and even some of the people that came in. But I will love being able to just spend all my time with Brantley when he comes home.

Life is good. Brantley is already teaching me some valuable lessons. One of them is patients. Another is the fact that I can't make him or anyone really do what I want. People have their free agency and with Brantley I just have to realize that he is the only one who will decide when he comes home. I can't make him eat, or develop at my pace. He will come home when he is ready and we will be so excited whenever that day comes, but hopefully it won't be too much longer!

Whats new??

Well not a whole lot, which is happy and sad news all at the same time. The nurses warned me from the beginning that what keeps preemie babies in the NICU the longest on most cases is their ability to learn suck, swallow, and breath and to just be patient. I thought to myself, "That won't be the case with Brantley, we will be out of here in no time." Well the nurses were right and patients has never been one of my very strong points. I struggle knowing that the only thing that is keeping Brantley from coming home is his eating ability. I want him home so bad but there is nothing I can do about it. I can't make him eat. Right now I can't really do anything but hold him and change an occasional diaper and take his temperature. I feel helpless. Not like a real mother. But on a positive note Brantley is now over is birth weight. Just barely but hey we are so happy! I am also healing very well. I itch like crazy across the incision, but I can sleep comfortably once again. I can lay on my belly and back and sides. It is fantastic! Life is still a little crazy and feels a little empty. Ever since I was in the hospital my days have been all mixed up and so has my schedule. But I don't' think life or my schedule will be complete or normal until we get Brantley with us all the time. We sure do love that little guy!

Another Brantley Update

The doctor called today. Brantley is doing great!!! He did have a little set back with his feedings. Since Brantley was born so early he hadn't developed the whole suck and swallow mechanism yet. So I have been pumping and taking my milk to the hospital where the nurses take it and add calories to it. Well he had been on what the hospital calls full feedings but then he started throwing up. Sometimes it was 1/3 of what they gave him. They tried giving him the feedings over 45 minutes instead of a half hour, but he was still throwing up. So they took him off full feedings and started giving him feedings over an hour. He also has been on caffeine to help his breathing from when he was born because he wasn't breathing when he came out. BUT when the doctor called she let me know that he hasn't been throwing up hardly at all. So they are putting him back on full feedings and taking him off the caffeine. She also told me that all he has to do to come home is learn to eat and keep growing! YaY!! It is always so good to hear that he is improving! We still have weeks until he comes home, but I know things happen for a reason and he will come home when he is ready!

~Miracles~

I have been wanting to post this earlier but things have been kind of crazy and I wanted David's input and we were able to sit down together and talk about all the many miracles we have seen.

1. Back in February and even a little while before that, I was feeling a little lost in my life. Between work and school and home life I felt that there was something more that I was supposed to be doing. So I started praying that I would know what I should do. The next month I found out I was pregnant. We weren't planning on him, but I know he was planned to come to us.

2. Soon after we found out we were pregnant I started talking to my co-workers about where to deliver the baby. My choices were Utah Valley Regional Medical Center or Orem Community hospital. I kind of wanted to go to Orem Community because the rooms were bigger and you didn't get moved around from room to room. But then we heard that Utah Valley has one of the best NICU's around so in case something went wrong we were right there and we would have the best of care. If we went to Orem Community and something went wrong they would have to transport us to Utah Valley anyway so we decided to be safe rather than sorry and chose to go to Utah Valley. We have had some of the best service there!

3. I wasn't going to go deer hunting with David at all, I had turned in my tag and didn't want to sit in the trailer all by my self all day, but my mother decided last minute to go and watch my two nephews so I decided to go also. Where we go deer hunting there is no service. David would have stayed over night up on the deer hunt and I wouldn't have been able to get a hold of him to tell him that I was in labor.

4. While we were up on the deer hunt it has started snowing. There is a pass we have to get across to come home that is so bad when it snows. Well earlier that day it had snowed, which was the reason we weren't planning on coming home that night. But an hour and a half before David got back to the trailer after hunter it had stopped snowing. Allowing us to make it over the pass with the little amount of snow that was up there.

5. Before we left for home I was able to get a blessing from David and my brother Cameron. In the blessing I was told that I would not have the baby at a time when medical attention was not available and that I would also have time to prepare for the baby. Which meant, you can go home and take a bath and a shower to get cleaned up.

6. On the way home David was able to find enough service to call the family and ask them all to pray that everything would turn out okay.

7. David is my miracle. It was his persistence that got me to the hospital in the first place and then when we got there and were waiting in the parking lot with out any contractions for at least 15 minutes. I had given up and told David to take us home, but he said no and to wait a few more minutes. This wait gave me enough time to have another contraction and got us into the hospital. I really don't know if I would have gone to the hospital on my own being as stubborn as I am and thinking that they were all just fake contractions.

8. After the two nurses had felt me and decided that I was dilated to a 5 and 90% effaced we needed to get a hold of our doctor to decide what to do. He took about 10 minutes to get to the hospital and we were able to get into surgery with in a half hour.

9. David was able to get a hold of his parents in Cambodia. They were in a room where they were able to talk to him. When usually they would have been away doing other things.

10. Brantley is still with us because of the miracle of medical technology and advancements and also because of all the very skilled doctors and nurses that work on him everyday.

11. Brantley came off his respirator/ventilator and oxygen the next day and was off all IV's with in the week.

12. Doctors were worried about the sutures in his head that they were fusing together, which would mean surgeries to cut them apart so his brain can grow, they took and ultra sound and found that they had not and that his head was growing the way that it should and they aren't worried about it anymore.

We know all of these miracles have happened because of prayers and fasting on our behalf from family and friends. We know that they power of prayer works and Heavenly Father is watching over us everyday and never leaves us alone. We are so grateful to have Brantley here with us! He truly is a miracle in our lives.

Thank You To Everyone!!!

This week has been one of many miracles and blessings. We have wonderful family and friends who have been so great to us! We have definitely felt the power of prayer and seen many miracles come from it. We have also been the recipients of much kindness through dinners and flowers and well wishes!

Thank you everyone, you will never know how much that means to our little family!

My wonderful friend Sarah made Brantley this blanket! She made it out of John Deere fabric because she said that this material just said us! Little did she know that was the theme to Brantley's room! I was so excited!!! I love it!!

Thank you Sarah!!

Brantley's 1st Halloween...among other things!!!

So, it wasn't much of a Halloween, we didn't get to dress him up or take him out to see family or go trick-or-treating BUT he did get to have his little belly line taken out! He is now completely IV free!! The only tube is his feeding tube that he has through his nose, and hopefully by next weekend we can have that taken out!! But that is my hopeful thinking!! He really is doing very well though. We did have a little worry about the sutures of his brain fusing together now (which really shouldn't happen for many many years to come) but we had an ultra sound done and everything is looking great!! His head and brain are growing the way that they should! Just waking up so we can change his bum, take his temperature, and hold him!
Special one-on-one time with daddy

He was wide awake! He would just watch David and his eyes would follow him where ever he would go!

The before bed, you can see is jaundice light, the IV's and the heating bed!

He has graduated to a better baby bed, an open crib! He is holding his own temperature well and all of his IV's are gone and so is the heat and jaundice lamps.

He is so tiny, but is gaining his weight back!

We love our little guy!!!