We are HOME!!!

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. We got home last Wednesday afternoon and have been enjoying EVERY second of having this little guy home that we haven't even updated the blog (see why this blogging might not be a fit for me :/)

Here Hatch is in his going home gown. It was what Blake wore when he went home from the hospital...and he apologized profusely to Hatch that he had to wear a "dress" home. :)

Since it's been a while I'll do an update of the nearly last week in photos.

Here we are on Thanksgiving on our first family walk

Here we are on our first trip to Grandma's...she had been around some sick people in the family and didn't want to risk getting Hatch sick-we take the Dr's orders VERY seriously and are glad she does to. The last thing we want is for Hatch to end back up in the ICU for a respiratory illness

Bath time is Daddy's and my favorite time of the week. We have stuck with the bath schedule of the NICU and give him a bath every Saturday and Tuesday night. Despite the way he looks in this adorable photo, he REALLY does enjoy bath time...but this is still one of our all time favorite pics. (does that make us bad parents?)

One of my dearest friends Maggie, from highschool, was incredibly generous and is letting us use this GORGEOUS bassinet. Her grandmother bought it for Maggie's firstborn, Parker, and had the bedding custom made. It is absolutely stunning and works perfectly in our living room...especially considering that we were transporting the Pack'n'Play to and from our bedroom/living room through our french doors every morning and evening since it didn't fit through the doorway. Thank you Maggie!!!

Daddy is starting weekly comparison's of his size vs. a football. Here is our first comparison at 15 days of age.

Here are the vitals/stats of Charles Hatch at his first Dr's appt.

For his adjusted age of 36 weeks he is:

11%tile for weight
38%tile for length
7th%tile for head circumference

Dr. Straughn, our pediatrician, says that he should catch up with everyone else around 6months to a year of age. He says we need to keep adding the "muscle milk" (higher calorie formula) to each of his bottles to help give him a boost. We are now allowed to do 6 breast feeds a day and 2 bottles of expressed breast milk with the "muscle milk."
We also need to get his tongue clipped because he is severely tongue tied...I told every Dr and NP while in the hospital but everyone said to wait on getting it clipped...well Dr. Straughn got a great view of it yesterday and says we should have it taken care of sooner rather than later. Depending on who we chose to do it, we may have to go to the operating room at 3 months of age to get it clipped. We also started something called "ear wells" today for an ear deformity he has called, Stahl's ear on his left ear. He will wear this funny looking thing on his left ear for 4-6 weeks--i'll post pictures of it next time.
This poor guy has been through the ringer already and here we go with more "torture."


All of that being said, I had a tough moment yesterday of feeling so bad for all that we have/are putting him through and with all the mumbo-jumbo of insurance companies, keeping him eating well, staying away from crowds/germs (aka house arrest), etc...I am blessed by the most incredible husband who reminded me of Matthew 6:25-34 and the Lord's instructions to NOT WORRY. We were also reminded of how much more Christ loves Charles Hatch than we do-how children are the most precious in Christ's kingdom-Matthew 18:1-5. This quickly revealed where my heart was--not trusting in the Lord and His promises. I am so thankful for scripture that reminds you of how incredible and faithful our Lord is. I'm thankful that I can lay all of these worries at the feet of Jesus and He WILL help us carry this load. That He already has shown us HOW much he LOVES our little angel by how healthy his delivery was, how he IS a WARRIOR and got out of the NICU faster than we or the doctors imagined, and how healthy he truly is for a 34 week preemie. How freeing it is for Blake and I to have trust and peace that the Lord will direct us in how to best care for our new baby and that he'll also pave the way for insurance companies, deductibles, and all that fun confusing stuff (yuck). And I am BEYOND thankful for my best friend and help mate that the Lord has given me in Blake.

I spy...NOTHING!!!

Ta-da! Look mom and dad...I did it!!! They took my NG tube out yesterday and gave me a trial run of alternating breast and bottle feeds. And guess what, I gained weight! Today I am 2184grams (4lb 13oz)!!! That's why I'm smiling in that picture above! I know that 2 Timothy 4:17 is true for me and that the Lord is standing by my side giving me strength! I am one step closer to home!

This means that I will hopefully be in my REAL home by the end of the week. HOORAY!!! Tonight they are letting me "room in" with my parents which we're all SUPER stoked about!

This is my nurse practitioner, Karen, who has been watching and rooting me on ever since I got the NICU. She is AMAZING! I wish we could take her home with us. We are FOREVER thankful and grateful for the incredible staff that we have been blessed with here at Medical City. It almost...almost makes us kind of sad to leave them because they have been SOOOOOO WONDERFUL! I know it also thrills my parents to be getting me home but I have a feeling they're a little nervous too. Please pray for them as we transition me home-they think I'm this little delicate peanut and I keep trying to show them what a TRUE WARRIOR I am. Please pray for me too, that I keep growing into a strong warrior, stay healthy and free from ANY illness. The doctors say because I am a preemie anyone with sniffles, sore throat, cough, cold, allergies, and other little kids, etc. I have to stay FAR away from because if I get sick it could put me back in the ICU.

About an hour ago I had my circumcision. It went great and I could tell my doctor was proud of his work :) Which makes my mommy and daddy happy! Mommy fed me after and so far so good. I'm taking a nap and hoping the lidocaine effects last for a while.

Here I am with Mama getting some good skin to skin snuggle time this morning. Snuggle time with her or my Daddy is my favorite time of day. I can't wait til my daddy gets home so I can snuggle up with him!

First off:

Every Tuesday and Saturday is bath and NG tube change day. Bath time is really the only thing that gets him crying longer than 5 seconds...is it ironic/cruel that bath time our favorite day of the week? We took a video of it with our video camera and were going to post it, but then realized we don't have the cable to attach it! :( Trust us when we say it is the cutest thing ever. Maybe it's a good thing we can't post it, this day in age we'd probably get in trouble for "child solicitation" or something.
Daddy LOVES combing his hair after, literally every hair on that precious child's head has to be in place before daddy can put the comb down. When he moves and gets his hair out of place, Daddy is quick to pick up the comb and re-do things. Imagine if we had a girl and all of the bows he'd be re-positioning! Haha!

Here is a pic of the most beautiful heart and respiratory rate...

His vital signs only look this good when he is snuggled with with his proud Papa.

***note-the monitor alarms drive this proud Papa CrAzY so it's a good thing they don't go off while they're sleeping ;)

So here is the latest:
He is allowed to take 5 bottle and/or breast feeds a day. We get to chose how we want to give it to him. If we breastfeed, they want us to offer a bottle after that has been fortified with 22Kcal formula because this little bugger lost 15grams yesterday so today he is 2120grams which is roughly 4.66lbs. Obviously he has not learned what big foodies both his parents families are.

Because he lost a little bit of weight they said he won't be home for Thanksgiving. Of course we want our baby home with us but we also don't want to push him and end up regretting it later. We want what's best for him and even though we can't have him home for the holiday, we have just been given the greatest blessing and have a plethora of things to be thankful for this year. We are thankful he'll be here in good no, in excellent care. That he'll be getting stronger and healthier so we can fully enjoy him when he does get to go home....which we secretly think won't be long after Thanksgiving to be honest ;)

Our prayer requests as of late are continues praise and thanksgiving for all of the amazing nurses and nurse practitioners taking care of our warrior. I've never been so thankful for Medical City and the type of nurses they employee. We have loved every single nurse and pray we can love and serve them as well as they have been loving and serving us. We pray that we continue to keep our eyes peeled and hearts in tune with how the Lord wants to use us during this time. Praise for Charlie Hatch's continued improvement and growth...and that the Lord continues to strengthen him daily. For rest, endurance, and strength for mommy and daddy.

Here is a precious picture of a note left by Jolene, our AMAZING night nurse for the past 3 nights. She's off 'til Wednesday and we will definitely miss her but hope/pray we'll get her back.

NICU day 6

We seriously have a little warrior on our hands.

Which isn't ironic to us because the meaning of Charles is WARRIOR.
Plus, you put that together with his middle name, Hatch, which is exactly what he did...6 weeks early. So it makes us giggle with delight on how absolutly, perfectly fitting his name is for him.

So we apparently told a small fib yesterday. We said he weighed 4lb 9oz...well oopsies, he really weighed 4lb 5oz! Since yesterday, he gained 30 grams and now is roughly 4lb 6oz!!!

His bilirubin level also continued to decline, even off the bili lights, so he just won himself no more lab draws!!! Yahoo for no more blood draws! :)

He ate both bottles at 32ml/feed and continues to breastfeed really well. So this afternoon they decided to let us add one more oral feed and bumped his feeds up to 36ml/feed. We get to chose what we want to do. We can either chose to do a bottle feed OR we can do a breastfeed and if he takes longer than 5 minutes they will only give him half of his feed via the NG tube. So far he has always latched longer than 5 minutes so we are confident this won't be a problem for our little warrior.

Here is a pic of a proud papa feeding his baby from last night.

Daddy tried to give him a bottle feed at 5pm and he just couldn't seem to wake up for it. So instead of pushing him, we decided to back off and put the entire feeding down the NG tube. We pray we are sensitive to his cues and don't push him because we don't want to tucker this little preemie boy out. So we'll head back down there, well now, to do another feed. We prayed over him before we left last time that he continues to stay healthy and strong. That he continues to make forward progress each day and for the addition of this extra feeding, that he takes it like he has with everything else, with ease. We prayed specifically for this 8pm feed and for his parents, that we are given wisdom and guidance on raising him as Christ desires us to. We are thankful for the weekend because Blake gets to be here ALL weekend long and we get to do this together.

xoxo,
A, B, & C


***we just got back from the 8pm feeding, yes it's close to 11pm, you easily lose track of time when you are down there snuggling with that little cuddle bug. Anyway, he took the 36ml feed like champ! Way to go Charlie Hatch!!!

Ok, so Blake has encouraged me to give this blogging thing another try...Why? Because we are NOT interesting. BUT... We just added the most precious, entertaining, adorable, little cutie to our family. We promise you, he does not disappoint with the updates he will provide for you (unlike his boring parents...please forgive the simplicity of this blog-this is foreign to us). Meet God's greatest gift to us. Our son, Charles Hatch Bowen. If you don't know the story behind the name yet, we promise in the near future to fill you in.

As for now, our hearts are literally overflowing with joy as we have been beyond blessed by our AWESOME God with this addition to our family. He "hatched" 6 weeks early which to us means...we get to enjoy him that much more and that even though he may look more like a Bowen-he clearly inherited the early/on time gene from the Mertz side, specifically his great grandpa Mertz, my more than incredible Papa, who we prayed many times for him to be like. Thank you Lord for answering that prayer already ;) We have also been humbled by the outpouring of love via: texts, calls, emails, flowers, food, visits, new preemie clothing for our early arriver, etc., etc. We just can't seem to keep up with everyone and hate that although you all are doing an incredible job of loving us better than well, we are not doing a good job of loving you all back...Thus, Blake's genius idea of restarting the blog so everyone could come here to see daily updates. Here in a nut shell is the latest. -God has him in his hands in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and he is making forward progress everyday. He was born at 4lb 15oz and today's weight is 4lb 9oz--this is typical and expected of even a full term baby. -He was taken off of his bili lights today! Praise the Lord. We clearly have a fighting warrior on our hands here.

-He gets feedings through his nasogastric tube (NG tube) 6 out of his 8 daily feedings. Mom and dad get to give him the other two feedings via a bottle. He is at 28mls each feed and sucked the last two bottles dry! Praise! (this is HUGE because taking every feeding completely by mouth is our ticket out of here). Mom also gets to try and breastfeed him twice a day but they still give him a feeding through his tube after he is done. He latches really well, as a matter of fact, the lactation consultant today's words were "he is picture perfect, he is the type of infant you'd see on video's at breast feeding conferences." All of the doctors and nurses have been quite impressed with our little prince. Can you tell we are ALREADY the proud, bragging parent type!? Other than that we have officially moved in to an empty room at the hospital. They have been gracious enough to give us a room on a day by day basis-if their census goes up and they need the room, we have to pack up and head home. But for the time being we live here so we can go down to the NICU anytime of day to visit our baby. Blake has gone back to work for the time being, he is quite the trooper sleeping here on an air mattress and then heading to work. Already he is the most amazing father, while maintaining his current title of the most amazing husband.

We know the Lord has brought us to this NICU for a reason. We know that Charlie Hatch is in His hands and we do not have to worry about him so we pray we do not miss an opportunity here to love the staff and other NICU family members well while we are here. He clearly has prepared us for this journey with my nursing background, a job at this hospital, knowing some of the dr's here, and having complete confidence and trust in the team taking care of our precious little prince. We are thankful that this is not "scary" to us. Please pray our eyes are peeled to what Christ desires for us to accomplish in our time at the hospital. For rest, endurance, patience, love and of course for the continued improvement-health-growth of our Charlie Hatch. God is great and we feel honored and privileged to live out this journey he has set before us. We thank each of you for partnering with us on this journey, for your love, prayers and support. You truly have no idea how much you bless us. Stay tuned... xoxo, Charles Hatch & Co.