An Update

Here's a little of what we have been up to since our last blog......

Riley had his 3 month checkup a few weeks ago and weighed in at 8 pounds 15.5 ounces and 21 inches long. The doctor said that he is gaining weight and growing and will soon be catching up to where he is supposed to be!! Ben and I still can't believe how much he has grown in the 3 months since he has been born.

I chopped off my hair!! My hair grew (both in length and fullness) like crazy during the pregnancy and it was getting out of hand. Riley was constantly getting his fingers caught in it and my hair was just in the way. So, I went to my hairdresser told her to do what she wanted and wahla I now have short hair!! I kept my hair so that I could donate it for a wig for a cancer patient. Now it takes no time at all for me to wash my hair and for it to dry.......I love it!!

Ben went to the NIH in Washington, DC for 2 days to give a talk. This is the first of many trips in the future now that he has started his job hunt.

Other than that we are pretty boring. We're not really doing much. Just sitting around and watching Riley grow!

Look Who Turned Zero.....

Today was Riley's expected due date and we decided to celebrate reaching the zero mark and "full term" status. His aunties and cousins were in town and came to celebrate his day with him. We went on a picnic and played on the slide before coming back to have cake. After everyone left, Riley pooped out. Here are some pics of his day!!

The Trouble with Vaccinations

Riley turned 2 months this past Sunday and it was time for his first round of vaccinations. Ben and I were dreading this day since we knew how painful the shots were going to be and that babies tend to get fuzzy and feverish after their shots and we weren't sure how he was going to react. Man, were we in for a shock......

Bright and early on Tuesday we bundled Riley up for his trip to the pediatrician. He was happy and took a great nap on the ride over. They weighed and measured him - he is 6 pounds 9 ounces and 18 1/4 inches long. He got his 2 month check up and everything looked great. Then it was time for his shots. Typically a full term baby will get their shots when they turn 2 months and even though Riley was still technically -12 days old he had to get his shots. He got 3 shots and 1 oral vaccination. He cried but recovered pretty quickly. We left and went home and he was doing well until that afternoon when he became incredibly tired and listless. The doctor had warned us that he might become fuzzy or really tired. He was so tired however that we were having a really hard time getting him to eat anything. We would be able to get him awake for a short period of time and get a little milk in him but then he would fall completely asleep again. The next morning we still couldn't get him to eat so we called the pediatrician. We ended up having to take him to the ER to get checked out.

When we got to the ER the nurse weighed him and told us that he was 5 pounds 6 ounces and that freaked us out since he was 6 pounds 9 ounces the day before -- we couldn't understand how he could have possibly lost over a pound in 24 hours (they ended up weighing him again later and he really weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces - there must have been something wrong with that initial scale). After that the doctor came in and checked Riley out. The plan was to put him on an IV and rehydrate him and do some bloodwork. And the worst part of the plan........they were going to have to do a spinal tap on him to make sure he didn't have bacterial meningitis since the symptoms he had could indicate that disease. At that point it took 4 nurses and 4 tries before they could get the IV into Riley. Once they started his IV it was time for his spinal tap. Ben couldn't watch so he left the room. I thought watching him get his vaccines was bad but that was nothing compared to watching him get his spinal tap and being worried that the doctor was going to miss and have something bad happen to him. Not to mention he was crying uncontrollably and I couldn't even do anything to comfort him. In the end, all the labs came back normal. However, since Riley is a preemie and his apnea was kicking in because of his reaction to the vaccines we ended up admitting him to the hospital overnight to make sure everything was okay. Ben and I spent a sleepless night at the hospital getting up every couple of hours to feed him and being woken up constantly by the alarm of his monitors. We're home now and Riley is pretty much back to normal. He's back to being alert and eating normally again. The past two days are definitely not an experience that Ben and I would ever like to go through again and we are hoping that the next vaccination go around will not be this eventful!

Here is Riley prior to going to the pediatrician and today after coming back from the hospital.....

Then and Now....

It's amazing how much Riley has changed since being born.

5 days old versus 58 days old

Riley's diaper then and Riley's diaper now

Home Sweet Home

After spending the first 45 days of his life in the NICU Riley is finally home where he belongs. Riley was discharged from the hospital last Wednesday and Ben and I have been getting used to having him home. Because his breathing is not yet 100% he came home to us with an apnea monitor that helps track his breathing and heart rate. If for any reason he has some bradycardia or apnea the monitor will let us know. So if you see some wires in some of his more recent photos that is what they are from! Here are some tidbits we have learned over the past couple of days about Riley:

1. He is a noisy sleeper. He makes a myriad of weird noises, including animal noises (see below), while completely asleep. The first night we brought him home we didn't sleep a wink because every time we heard a noise coming from his bassinet we both looked to make sure he was still breathing. It took a day or two to get used to the noises and not jumping up every few seconds.

2. One of the funny noises he makes resembles a goat. He went for his first checkup with his pediatrician yesterday. For the first part of the exam he was asleep and when his pediatrician was checking his neck he let out one of his goat noises and the pediatrician could not stop laughing. Of course he woke up shortly thereafter and the cute animal noises stopped and the crying began!!

3. At the pediatrician's we found out that he is now 5 pounds 6 ounces and 17 1/2 inches.

4. He is a great sleeper (at least for now). We usually feed him right before bed (around midnight), again at 4 am, and then at 8 am. He's pretty good about the four hour period in between feedings so we have been able to get some sleep every night. Lucky, lucky!!

Riley's Room

After much debate, Ben and I finally decided on a dinosaur theme for Riley's room. It is neither too cutsey, to babyish, or too sporty so we were both satisfied! Here are a couple of pictures of his new home.

Riley's aunties are the artists of the dinosaur paintings on the wall!! We couldn't find anything to put on the walls that matched his theme so they recreated the exact dinosaurs from his bedding set on canvas. They turned out great!! Somehow the two of them got all of the artistic abilities because I can barely draw fruit (as they all teasingly love to remind me!).

Milestones

Riley has been very busy and reached some very important milestones this week:

1. He hit and exceeded the 4 pound mark (as of tonight he is 4 pounds 2 ounces). It's amazing to think that only one month ago he was only 2 pounds 13 ounces! Ever since we've arrived back in LA he has really been packing on the weight.

2. He is now out of the incubator. Riley has been doing a great job of maintaining his own temperature so they have decided that he can graduate from an incubator to an open air crib.

3. He will be getting 2 or 3 bottle feedings each day to build up his suck, swallow, and breath reflex so that he'll be ready to breast feed soon. He had his very first bottle today. It's a lot more work drinking from a bottle compared to having it delivered via tube directly to your stomach so he conked out halfway through (having a bath right before his feeding also made him nice and sleepy!).

4. In less than 30 minutes he will be officially 1 month old - time has flown by!

(1) Riley after being weighed. (2) Riley and Daddy all snuggled together.

(3) After his bath tonight. (4) His first bottle feeding.