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.

Home Sweet Home....Almost

All three of us have finally made it back to the LA area!! On Thursday, Riley got to take his first ride in an ambulance. Along with one of his NICU nurses, a respiratory therapist, and a couple of paramedics Riley made the 3 hour trip from San Luis Obispo to his home for the next month or so in Methodist Hospital in Arcadia. He did really well on his trip (probably better than mom and dad as they drove back in their own cars and worried the whole way back) and is settled in his new state-of-the-art giraffe incubator. He has already won over all of the nurses with his "good behavior" and adorable little face. Ben and I are so happy to be home and are now anxiously awaiting the time we will be given the go ahead to bring Riley home. Here are a few new pictures of Riley.........

Riley in his styling hat in San Luis Obispo

Riley's traveling incubator for his ride from SLO to LA

Nice and comfy in his new home and all snuggled up after his bath.

Pismo Adventure with a Surprise Ending

To celebrate my 30th birthday and our 4th anniversary, Ben planned a little getaway for the two of us to Pismo Beach. We left early last Saturday morning and headed up to a great hotel right on Pismo Beach - the Seaventure Hotel. We spent the day relaxing and wandering around the beach and the local town. On Sunday, we did more of the same....we went to Morro Bay in the morning, the beach during the day, McClintock's for dinner, and then to see Transformers in the evening. All in all it was a nice, relaxing weekend. After the movie, we went back to the hotel to get ready for bed and our drive back the next morning. Just as we were getting ready to go to bed our peaceful, relaxing weekend came to a screeching end.

At 10:45 pm on Sunday, Riley decided to let his presence be known. He gave one final kick and the next thing we knew my water had broken. Remember now, we had just hit the 29 week mark and still had over 10 weeks to go. Once we realized that my water had broken, we rushed downstairs, asked the receptionist at the front desk where the nearest hospital was and made a mad dash for the car. Thankfully, as Ben was driving we were able to reach a family friend who happened to be an ob/gyn in San Luis Obispo (which is 15 miles away). She told us which hospital to go to (the one the hotel told us about ended up not even having an ob unit and would have been useless) and we turned around and drove the 15 miles to SLO. Once we arrived at the hospital (11:30 pm) we were given a room and I was checked out by the nurse. My water had definitely broke and I was 3 centimeters dilated but I was not in active labor. The doctor came and the plan was to see if we could suppress labor for a couple of days to give our baby a little more time to develop. I was given magnesium sulfate to help stop labor and was also given a steroid shot to help our baby develop his lungs. At 2:45 am, I was still 3 centimeters dilated and was starting to feel mild contractions. At 3:00 am, after some more intense contractions, we found out that I was fully dilated and ready to go!! They called the doctor and at 3:10 am on July 9th, Riley Maxwell Deneen entered our world kicking and screaming at 2 lbs 13 oz and 14 3/4 inches!!!

Since getting to this point was a long journey, it is not the least surprising that this part would not be any easier. Since Riley decided he had to come out and play 10 weeks early, he is going to have to be in the NICU for the next couple of months. So, for the next 3 to 4 weeks, Ben and I will be making San Luis Obispo our home as Riley spends time in the Sierra Vista Hospital neonatal intensive care unit. We are hoping that Riley will be stable enough after that time to be transferred to a hospital closer to home.

Riley is 4 days old today and is doing really well. The doctor gave him his first A+ today!! He's off his ventilator and breathing on his own. He has also started taking a little bit of breast milk each day. He is also incredibly feisty and loves to kick and stretch out his hands and legs.

Here are a couple of pictures of our beautiful little boy (the first picture is when he was 1 day old and the others are from today-isn't it incredible how different he looks in only 3 days???)

Ben, Riley, and I would also like to thank everyone for their well wishes. We appreciate all of your support and are thankful that we have such great family and friends.

Sacramento Trip

We had a great time on our mini-trip to Sacramento and ended up being able to visit with quite a few family and friends. We arrived in Sacramento on Friday afternoon and met up with Bubba and Ray for dinner. They took us to a fantastic dinner at Luca's in mid-town Sacramento. Both Ben and I were amazed at all of the urban renewal that had taken place over the past 8 years since we left the area. After dinner and our visit with Bubba and Ray, Ben took me to Leatherby's for the famous caramel sundae....yum yum!!! We then headed over to Leah and Dan's and caught up on current events. The next day we headed over to Land's Park for Gabe's, Leah's, and everyone else's birthday party. We were really worried that the weather was going to be hot and unbearable, but luck was on our side and it was a beautiful sunny day....perfect for the park!! Gabe was adorable and we enjoyed spending time with everyone.

We left Sacramento on Sunday and headed to Stockton. Our first stop was to visit Dre, Suzy, and Zen to drop off a "backup" teddy bear for Zen. We then headed over to my grandparents' house and went to lunch with my grandparents, parents, and sisters for Father's Day. After some dim sum, we got back on the Golden State Freeway to travel back home.

To sum up our weekend, as Ben might say, "I'll take a three day trip to Sacramento and a baby over a two week trip to Australia and Hawaii any day -- provided the kid is mine!"


(1) Ben practicing his bratwurst barbecuing skills (2) photo for Michelle's next endeavor - "Hu's Tacos" Taco Truck (3) the party hosts (4) Gabe after a bite of ice cream (5) Gabe snatching my ice cream cone and claiming it as his own

Busy June

We've been keeping pretty busy the past couple of weekends with Jamie's graduation and Ben's birthday. Two weekends ago we drove up North to attend Jamie's graduation from San Francisco State. Can we just say that this was the longest graduation that any of us have ever been too....and between all of us we have been to quite a few. We left the house on Saturday morning at 10 am and didn't arrive back until 5 pm. Crazy!! Here are a couple of pictures from that day......

Ben insisted that I post these before and after pictures of my trip to the port-a-pottie. I avoid public restrooms at all cost (see past post) but had no choice in the matter this time. Ben would like to point out how hesitant I look in the first picture as we are going in (while my sister is an old pro and has no hesitation) and my disgust after the port-a-pottie experience. Ben had a field day playing with our new camera and somehow managed to take 92 pictures - half of which were of the most random things (imagine a close up picture of the head of the man sitting in front of us and a picture of the cameraman "chillin"). And last but not least here's a picture of the graduate with our parents.

For all of you that have been asking....during our trip up North, Ben managed to take a couple of profile pictures of the baby and I while we were watching my dad pick pai pa go (loquots in English) for us to take home.

This past weekend, Ben celebrated his 32nd birthday. For his birthday we went to Porto Alegre Churrascarria Brazilian BBQ, where Ben consumed a tremendous amount of meat....it was amazing!! He was so stuffed he couldn't eat his birthday cake so we had to wait until the next day.....

We're heading up North once again next weekend to Sacramento where we'll meet up with Ben's parents and Bubba and Ray on Friday night. Then on Saturday, we'll be celebrating Leah's 30th birthday and Gabe's 1st birthday. And of course, since we'll be in Sacramento we will be making a couple of trips to my favorite ice cream parlor.......Leatherby's!!!