Big Boy

Cole continues to pack the pounds on and weighed in at 6 pounds 3 ounces today.  Best part is that he's doing it all on his own.  Hasn't had a feeding tube in quite some time now.

More news is that we might be bringing him home next week!  He's got a few more hurdles to clear, but if all goes well we'll be introducing him to his new best friends (see picture above) shortly.

Here's a couple of photos I got today after his record breaking feeding of 80 cc's (almost 3 oz).

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great thanksgiving here in Seattle with Kate, Cindy, Pam, Reed and of course Cole.  Spent the morning at the hospital, then back to our house for turkey dinner, then back to the hospital for a bath (Emily's first bath time) and a bottle.  A great thanksgiving.

Cole is pushing 6 pounds, just another day or so.  Another big milestone is that he's lost his feeding tube.  He's taking all feedings from Em or by bottle, so we're one step closer to home.  Here are some pictures from the day.

Cole, always closing his eyes for the camera...

 Cole with Grandma Pam

Cole with Grandpa Reed 

Auntie Kate!

Bath time is not as intense as this looks

Hitting the bottle, as usual

Cole and his cousins Maggie and Jack.  Jack is wearing a puppy dog hat and holding a sign that says "Happy 1st Thanksgiving Cole!"  Missed you guys over here, but can't wait for the cousins to meet!

Happy 1 Month Birthday

1 month ago Cole made his debut into our world and it has been a whirlwind month!  Full of lots of excitement and fun as we watch him grow and learn important baby skills.  We're still counting down the days until he gets home, but cherishing every day that we get to spend with him at his home away from home.  31 days after his birth, Cole is up to 5 pounds 10 ounces.  In another week, he'll probably have doubled his weight! 

Here are some photos from our 1 month birthday party at the hospital this evening.  What did he get?  A clean diaper, a change of clothes and a lot of time with Mom. 

A good weekend

Weekend is over, but we got to spend a lot of good time with Cole.  He was up to his usual business of sleeping, eating and pooping.  But mostly sleeping.  He also acquired a new accessory of some air tubes into his nose.  Nothing to be too concerned about, just a little reminder for him to breath.  We'll hope to have the nose prongs off soon, but its not too much of a bother for him.  We're all looking forward to a short week of work and then 4 days off. 

 Sleepy as usual

 Cole loves to try to pull his feeding tube out

 Back to sleep

Caught him with his eyes open!

5 pounds, 7 ounces

Cole keeps trucking along and gaining weight.  We can't believe how big he is getting in such a short time!  He's almost grown out of his preemie clothes, in fact we may have to cut him out of the onsie he's wearing now.  No joke.

Grandma Pam came up for a short, but very helpful visit!  We got some homecooked meals, fresh laundry and steam cleaned floors.  What a treat!  I think the boys also appreciated having a little company around the house.  Thanks Mom!

More pictures

Here are a few pictures to share that I've snapped off of my phone.  Not much to report on this end other the standard daily progress of weight gain and taking bottles.  Cole's a champ and we couldn't be more proud of him.

5 lbs!

A couple more milestones were reached today - not only did Cole reach 5 pounds, he also had his first full feeding from a bottle!  Our nurses have explained to us that a close comparison to a preemie taking a full feeding from a bottle is us running a marathon.  Cole was exhausted for the rest of the day (barely opened his eyes for either Drew or I), but it was still an amazing step - once again Cole has managed to amaze me : )

Here are a couple photos over the last few days...

11/12/2011

On Saturday, Drew's Uncle Karl stopped by the hospital on his way to a meeting in Seattle. Cole and I had a pretty bad night on Friday that seemed to carry over to Saturday morning.  As soon as Karl got a hold of Cole his numbers stabilized and all was well once again. I think I know who I'll be calling the next time Cole decides to cause a panic attack! 

11/13/2011 - starting to look a bit more like Mom. My family can all attest to the fact that I had the chubbiest cheeks of all times - looks like Cole might have inherited that trait from me : )

11/13/2011

11/14/2011

Dad Time

Cole and I had quite a night on Wednesday, so I can't help but share. It was supposed to be a special night in that I had planned to do his first bottle feeding at his 8 o'clock feeding, but I had no idea what was in store. You always do a diaper change before feeding, so I started on that when I got there. Nothing new, pretty standard diaper, but about halfway through, I caught a smile on his face and next thing I knew there was projectile poop exiting all over clothes, legs, medical equipment and me. The nurse came back a couple minutes later to observe the mudroom Cole had created and quickly went to grab the bathtub. While I was trying to do damage control and clean up a little bit, he iced the cake with a solid squirt of liquid on my shirt. We had to throw out the monitoring leads and security bracelet. Nice Cole.

The good news is that I got to give Cole his first bath! He is definitely a fan of bath time, so it was fun to see him enjoying it. We didn't get any pictures of the bath time, but our nurse Sara got a few shots of drying off time. And guess who peed on me again when I was changing him from towels back to diaper. Three biological events in one night is definitely a crash course in baby changing.

So at 9:15 (75 minutes late), Cole got his bottle and did great. Here are some pictures of the aftermath.

New bed

Here's a picture of Cole in his new digs.  He graduated from his open incubator and is in a new smaller crib.  Pretty exciting stuff happening at the NICU.

another day...more weight...

Not much to report today. Cole weighed in at 4 lbs, 5 ounces this morning (1 lb more than he weighed at birth...pretty impressive considering he's only 19 days old).  He also got his first bottle last night from his night nurse. Rumor has it he did a great job taking the bottle!

His night nurse also took advantage of some downtime last night to snap some photos of our Little Man and put a collage together. I love these photos - I'm really hoping we'll be able to get the soft copies...

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Progress Continues!

Cole weighed in this morning at 4 pounds 4 ounces.  He's picking up a couple of ounces each day, so he'll be up to a normal weight here in no time.  We continue to be amazed at the new faces and sounds he picks up on a daily basis.

On the same front, Cole is also starting to feed on his own.  This is a pretty important milestone, since they won't let him leave the hospital with a feeding tube.  Don't worry, I didn't include picture evidence below, but there are a few pictures from hanging out tonight.

A big day for Cole!

Today was a huge day for Cole, during Drew's morning visit he was informed that Cole weighed in at a whopping 4 pounds 1 ounce!  We are so excited that Cole reached this new milestone - while we appreciate he still has a lot of growing to do, we are so proud of him for packing on the lbs : ) 

My dad and I went to the hospital twice today.  Upon our first visit, Cole's nurse let us know that he was ready to try clothes and get a new bed.  Now that Cole is able to control his body temperature a bit better, he was able to be removed from his incubator and is now in a bassinet type bed.  In order to help him maintain his body temperature, and to avoid him burning too many calories trying to do it on his own, Cole is also now able to wear clothes.

My not so great attempt at getting Cole into clothes for the first time - thankfully the nurse was standing by to help!  While it might have taken a while, the great news is Cole didn't cry once during the process : )

Cole in his couple-sizes-too-big sleeper

Cole sleeping peacefully in his new bed

Grandpa Jensen's visit

This weekend my dad finally had an opportunity to come visit and meet Cole.  While the visit was only a little over 24 hours, we managed to squeeze in 3 visits to the hospital and he was able to hold Cole each time.  Cole was fascinated with his grandpa and was quite alert for his first holding but soon got into his normal routine and slept quite soundly.  We look forward to future visits from grandpa, he seems to have the magic touch : )

 

Happy 2 Week Birthday!

Today marks 14 day since Cole made his early entrance into the world.  It feels like a lot longer than 2 weeks, but it has been nothing but bliss. 

We couldn't be happier or more proud of Cole's progress.  Still. Long way until he's home, but we'll be counting down the days.  Here's another picture of dad and son, since apparently I don't do a great job of getting pictures of Cole and Emily!

3 pounds 12 ounces

Not much to share today, which is always good news.  Cole's continuing to pick up weight and is going at a pace of about 50 grams per day (that's almost 2 ounces for those of us that haven't converted to the metric standard).   The nutritionist said most babies gain 30 grams per day, so we'll keep hoping for this pace!

G & G Visit

Grandma and Grandpa Hadley returned from visiting Melissa, Jason, Jack and Maggie in Japan and came straight to the hospital to see how Cole was doing! This was also the first time they've been able to hold him as he was a little too fragile to be held in his first few days. Cole was quite interested and entertained by Grandma but slept the whole time with Grandpa. I'm sure that will change very soon.

It was great to have a quick visit before they headed home. I'm sure there will be plenty more soon!