He's Growing!

 Evan is growing!  Here are two pictures taken 20 days apart that show how much he's grown.  In the May 1st picture, on the right, you see less of the car seat behind his head.

Evan is a very good eater, he eats every 4-5 hours and is an enthusiastic eater.  If I don't stop him from nursing, most of the time he will keep eating until he gets sick.  If he roots around for more I'll let him eat more, but usually if I stop him after 20 minutes he'll go to sleep.  He's been a pretty good sleeper at night too.  I generally feed him around 11:00 and then again around 4:00, but for some reason every single night after the 4:00 feeding he becomes a really loud sleeper.  He grunts and moans and makes all kinds of noise that makes it impossible for Eric and I to sleep, but he will sleep on until 8:00 or 9:00.

His eye contact has gotten really great this week too.  Evan and Nadie even had a starring contest this morning.  He's also starting to smile.  He's always been a smily baby--his reflexes I guess, but this week he has actually smiled at me, which is just too cute!

Watch Me Grow!

Welcome to our blog!  I have created this blog so family and friends can see pictures of Evan and watch him grow and so I can document his development.  I will try to update it frequently with pictures and details of what Evan and the family have been up to.

Evan was born on Friday March 30th at 10:36 pm, 4 weeks earlier than he was supposed to arrive.  Since he was born at 36 weeks he was a preemie but he was a 6 lbs, 10 oz and 18 3/4 inches long so he was a good size.  On Thursday March 29th my water broke at 10:00 pm.  At first I thought I peed my pants!  I went to the restroom and liquid kept coming so I called Eric in and told him "either my water broke or I've pissed my pants 3 times!"  We didn't know what to do so we called Eric's sister Karen since she recently had a similar experience.  She said for her, her contractions started within an hour or 2 of her water breaking.  So we packed the car for the hospital and waited for contractions.  My contractions never started and I had a scheduled doctor appointment on Friday morning at 7:30 so we went to bed to get a few hours sleep.  We went to the 7:30 dr appointment and as expected she sent us right to the hospital.  We stopped at Panera for a quick breakfast and by 10:00 am they were inducing me.  Labor wasn't too bad until it turned into back labor--that's when I asked for the epidural.

After Evan was born he started crying and breathing, they said he looked great.  Within about 10 minutes though he started having respitory disstress--he was breathing very fast and loudly.  The doctor felt he was using too much of his energy to breath and make all that noise so they sent him to the NICU and put him on a ventilator.  He was on the ventilator for 36 hours so he also had an IV to feed him and give him liquids, all these tubes made it very difficult to hold him.  On Sunday morning the ventilator came off and he was breathing well on his own.  He still had an IV though.  Then on Sunday evening his jaundice levels came back too high and he had to go under the special UV light until Tuesday April 3rd.  We were able to take Evan home on Tuesday but on Thursday we went back to the doctor to check his jaundice level and it was high again.  Luckily though, we were able to use a UV blanket at home and only needed it for 2 days.



Evan with the ventilator (bad cell phone picture)





Evan with the UV blanket to lower his bilirubin (jaundice) level



Evan is 3 weeks old today and is doing very well.  He is eating well and sleeping most of the day.  He hardly ever cries and is a very good baby.  He spits up a lot and that worries me but he seems to be growing and gaining weight.  He definately recognizes Eric and I's voices, lifts his head very well and hates getting a bath.  Our dog Nadie is very protective of him--on the rare occaassions Evan does cry (bath time or taking too long to change his diaper) Nadie will whine and cry with him and stand under my feet until Evan calms down.