Hello again.

Well, it’s the end of our first week with a baby in our house and it’s been GREAT! She’s now 5lbs 9oz! She’s grown a whole 8oz since she came home so we must be doing something right!

It’s been hectic this past week. But it’s also been really really good. I think we’re handling the whole thing pretty well. I’m proud of Theresa and myself for how we’ve managed. A lot of the credit, though, has to go to the nurses in Special Care who taught us so much without even us realizing it.

Jade really is the perfect little baby. She barely ever cries. When she does it’s because she’s really hungry, or bum is exposed to the cold (relatively) air or something. 90% of the time she’s either just lookin’ around and grumbling/grunting/cooing… or fast asleep.

She’s also getting a lot better at taking milk from the breast. Theresa says she’s latching on and sucking a lot more strongly now.. a good sign. Hopefully that means that in a couple weeks she’ll be able to take her whole feeding from the breast and we won’t have to prepare bottles of formula. Hopefully Theresas’ milk comes in along with it too.

Lets’ see.. what else has gone on.

Well, Baby Jade is pretty much fully equipped now. She loves her stroller and car seat… she falls fast asleep when we put her in her crazy mechanical swing thingy. You name it, she’ll sleep in it, or on it.. or with it, or on top of it. She’s pretty easy going.

Thanks to the many wonderfully kind donations and gifts by friends and family, Theresa and I are getting more and more equipped too. Jade now has a beautiful dresser… and T and I were given both a real Blender and one of those nifty Hand Blenders! I highly recommend hand blenders for making refried beans from scratch! Just dump in a can of beans into a pot.. let them boil for a bit with spices and stuff and then blend them up with the blender right in the pot! Works like a charm!

Oh.. and another thing.

There is one appliance that could not possibly have been invented by anyone. It is truly an Act of God.

That appliance, is the Dishwasher.

Bless it’s mechanical heart.

Theresas parents showed up at the door with this thing… I installed it with some key help from Cliff… and now we have a clean kitchen and sterilized bottles! WOO!

While we’re on the home improvement kick… I spent all of Wednesday installing Laminate flooring in the Bathroom upstairs… I think I did a pretty darn good job! It looks great… Thankfully, that’s the last of the major house work that needs to be done..

And, that… is the end of this entry.

Have a great weekend, and if you’re in BC… happy BC DAY!

Hi everyone.

Well, it’s been another busy weekend and start to the week.

I’d like to take this opportunity to announce that Theresa and I are now married!

We were married at Amphitrite point near Ucluelet and Long Beach, BC. The weather cleared just as we were starting the ceremony. Made for some wonderful pictures. I’ll be posting more as the I get them back from the many photographers. It was a very small simple ceremony and turned out incredibly well.

I personally think the Bride was stunning. We had a wonderful dinner afterwards with the family and stayed the night (and the night before) at the Tauca Lea Resort.

It was a perfect day.

The day before we managed to make it to Long Beach and do some body surfing. Theresa had never swam on the West Coast before and was pretty impressed by the current that tried to sweep us away. She didn’t want to go in at first, but after her legs went numb, she suddenly understood that the water isn’t so bad after all!

…

That was Tuesday…

The next day, we rushed home to pick up our Baby! The nurses/doctors wanted to send her home on Tuesday, but we explained the circumstances and they understood.

So, there we were, in the Special Care Nursery for the last time. Her last weight was 2290g or just under 5lbs and 1oz!

The nurses let us take home almost everything from her little cupboard. Bottles, blankets, soothers, everything. They have to throw it away anyway, so they made sure we took everything.

We said goodbye to all the nurses. They were all so good to us and especially to Jade. They were sad to see her go and in a way we were sad to have to take her away.

Walking out that door for the last time was truly liberating. It was like we were freeing Jade from jail. When we walked out the door, the sun hit poor Jade in the face and she squinted like she had never squinted before! Whats THAT!

That’ll be a question she’ll be asking a lot from now on.

Yesterday was the end of one part of her life, and indeed, the end of a part of ours.

Today is like a new beginning. So many things await us. We are prepared, or at least we think so, and we’re excited. We’re so happy to have her home. Our lives will never be the same… this will only get better and better.

Don’t worry, I’ll keep updating the site.

You might notice that there are less pictures in the Jade Pictures link. I’m going to split them up by month. So when you click on that link you’ll only be getting the pictures from the past month.

I will add links to the previous months pictures so that you can still see those.

This way I don’t need to transfer nearly as many files onto the website. It’ll be much more efficient and should make updating the site a lot more reliable.

Talk to you all again soon!

Chris

4lbs 12oz!!

On Thursday I went to see Jade… Theresa was already there. I walked up to her basket and said hi to Jade and Theresa said. “Notice anything?” I looked around, looked at Jade. Couldn’t see anything at all different.

Then Theresa whispered, “Look, she has no oxygen”

Sure enough, her prongs were gone out of her nose! Now that I saw it, she looked like a completely different baby! She looks so wonderful without it.

Theresa whispered because she didn’t want Jade to hear… if she had she likely would have de-satted (oxygen level would have gone down). It’s weird, but premies do that.

Anyway, she’s now been almost completely off of oxygen for the past 3 days. They put her back on a couple times while she was digesting after a big feed… but 95% of the time she’s been off.

What does that mean? Well, it means she’ll be coming HOME next week probably! Just in time for my holidays!

We’re bringing in her carseat tomorrow so that we can make sure she fits and hthe nurses will show us how to strap her in. We’re getting bottles so that the hospital can sterilize them and we can take them home.

So this time next week I’ll probably sitting on the couch updating this blog with Jade beside me! How cool is that!!

I have to run. But have a great weekend!

Chris

I just got a message from Jades Granddad (moms side). Ahh, the wonders of the Internet.

He finished her crib today, I have yet to see it in person, but I’m already speechless.

more on Jades progress later.