Well we’re home!!! We finally made it home around 4pm. The Chinese food my Mom had picked up for me for lunch made a wonderful dinner for me and Nikki. As with everything else with this process it took way longer than it should have to leave the hospital. Check out is 11am, we left after 3pm… Once home we’ve now fed Elias and he’s had his first nap at home. The cats are very curious at the bottom of the stairs. Mo is at my parents. I’ve been taking lots of shots, but I’m beat. Maybe you’ll see them tomorrow, but we just took one everyone should like.

First 24 hours home!

Another Elias update? You bet!!! So we’ve now had Elias “home” for 24 hours. I say “home” because we had his first appointment with his pediatrician. Everything went well. He has a “stork bite” above his left eye which is completely normal, but we received some ointment for it. He’s down to 7lbs 8oz (from 7lbs 13oz when born and 7lb 9oz when we left the hospital) which is normal and it’s also using 3 different scales. Nikki thinks her milk came in today which is around the usual timing for that, which mean Elias should start gaining weight now.

We did have a rough first night at home though. Nikki hadn’t gotten much sleep at all at the hospital with all the checkups and feedings and I was lucky to get 3 hours a night. When we got home yesterday everything seemed perfect, but Elias decided he wanted to be fed every hour from about 10~11pm through 4:30am. Nikki and I were both exhausted and just needed some help so we called in Debbie to the rescue (she’s a retired pediatric nurse in case you didn’t know, and well, Nikki’s Mom). She managed to get up and out and made it to the house around 6am. She was a HUGE help and took care of Elias while Nikki and I both crashed until 10am.

We then had a nice slow morning with feedings and getting ourselves cleaned up. I also installed the car seat base in Deb’s car. We then went to the doctors which was fine, but then needed to run a few errands which meant we were out to about 6pm. Todays shots were taken with the P&S while in the back seat with Elias while Debbie and Nikki were in RiteAid. We’re now home, Elias has been fed, we’re taking turns in the shower. My Dad stopped by on his way home which was very nice. He thinks Elias is already changing/growing… Nikki does too and I think I see what they’re saying. The cats also got their first introduction which was a non event (sniff sniff, no noise, not interested). Moseley will be home tomorrow afternoon which will be interesting. I’ve been manning the diapers as best I can to help Nikki out where I can (since I’m not very good at breast feeding…).

Debbie has been an awesome help, so thanks Andy for lending her to us. If you’re looking for her call our house. Also if anyone wants to call, it is OK, just don’t expect us to answer. We’ve turned off the ringers on all the phones, but they light up when they ring. Murphy is no stranger here so the few calls we have received are inevitably when all hands are on deck… We’ve very much appreciated all the help, calls, comments, and flowers. It has not gone unnoticed, we’ve just been to busy to thank some of you personally.

Tomorrow is our first day home with no where to go. We’re hoping we can make it the entire day w/o leaving the house for anything. I’m also hoping to have more time to shoot some more pictures of Elias and hopefully with all 3 of us. We’ll see how that goes. You’re also only getting a few shots of many, so stay tuned, you’ll get more as time allows.

Day #2 at home!

Elias’ second day home! It went a lot better than his first, but his days are still flipped. He kept Nikki up most of the night needing feedings every hour to two hours. She napped between feedings and was able to get some sleep but certainly not enough. As soon as everyone was up this morning and Elias was fed one last time Debbie and I sent Nikki to bed. She was able to get a solid 2.5 hour nap. We did the same this evening so she’s had 5+ hours of naps today to go with what she got last night. We’re hoping Elias will come around to normal hours and let her sleep a bit better, but she’s being a champ and feeding him whenever needed. We have another normal doctors appt for Elias tomorrow to make sure he’s “thriving” (basically they make sure he’s gaining weight). But so far we’ve really enjoyed being home and not having anything to do today (lazy day). My Mom also brought over what she had made for us food wise today, and we had a delicious dinner of layered salad and potatoes au gratin with ham.

Full house!
Why full house you ask? Well we have 3 cats, 2 dogs, 4 people, and a mouse in the house today. Andy was “dragged” skiing with a few friends, so Debbie brought Tasha (their dog) over for the weekend. The rest are ours, but one of ours brought in a mouse (alive).Beyond that we had Elias’ second Dr appt where he weighed in at 7lbs 14oz (1oz over birth weight, 6oz up from Wednesday)! He is also much less jaundicey so no need for another blood test. After his appt it was up to Nikki’s doctor regarding some pain she’s having. Today’s shots are all from a parking lot when Elias got hungry so she fed him in the backseat.There’s tons more to tell, but we’ve been so busy I’m just now getting this in with Elias on my lap out cold at 12:12… He’s been out like this for over an hour which is a record for him at night.

A day at home with nothing to do?

Yeah right! Let’s start with last night. Up until last night Elias has been up at least 6 times per night averaging 1.5 hours between feedings. Obviously that’s not much fun for us because we’re up all night feeding, burping and changing him when we’re not trying to sleep. Well last night I stayed up with Elias on my lap from his 11:30pm feeding until his ~3:30am feeding. With some movement and lots of burping he stayed asleep the entire time on my lap. That’s also why last night’s post was pretty short (don’t expect much more tonight as I’m beat). He then had only 2 more feedings for a total of 4 in the “night” which was much better for us. I got to sleep from 4:30am until around 9am so I’m beat.Once I was up it was off to the store to pick up a few needed items (including an announcement for the lawn). It’s been pouring all day so it wasn’t exactly fun driving around in it. I also had a short list at Dave’s (local super market) but it took me much longer to get everything myself since I don’t know where things are in the store all that well, so with a few phone calls home and a few repeat trips down the same aisle I managed w/o Nikki, and I got everything she needed/wanted/put on the list.

We also had our first 2 visitors to see Elias today. Nikki’s friend Danielle and my friends Matt and Leah both managed brief visits this afternoon. They had a great time seeing Elias in person (both are following the blog) and Matt took a ton of pictures, so I’ll be borrowing those from him when he gets them online. After that it’s been dinner and cleanup and now we’re working on getting Elias to bed in his crib. It’s just tough not holding him all the time because he’s so much fun to hold, look at, and watch. I suppose we’ll eventually get sick of that, but for now it’s just amazing to watch him for hours on end.Another update I keep forgetting to add: he lost his umbilical cord “stump” on Thursday!!! Right now he’s got a half innie, half outtie (audi?) similar to his Mom’s! It’s adorable. I’ll try to get some more pictures tomorrow, but I’ve been super busy today running errands, changing diapers or actually holding him so it’s been tough to get some shots. Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day, so we might venture outside with him for the first time.The other thing I feel we need to mention are some DVDs Kerrie gave Nikki. I feel bad because there is no way I could possibly thank everyone for all their generous gifts. But Kerrie gave Nikki these Dunston Baby talk DVDs we watched a few nights ago. They go over 5 words babies say, and what they mean. There’s “neh” for feed me, “eh” for burp me, “oh” for tired, “eairh” for “bottom wind” and “heh” for uncomfortable. We hear 3 of these regularly, and one a lot. The 3 we heard are neh, eh, and eairh. We’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing the other signs for feeding, so neh isn’t very often. Eairh we hear sometimes, but eh we hear all the time. And oddly enough every time we hear it we burp him and he settles right down! Eairh we heard last night and actually had to rewatch the DVDs to how to cure “lower wind” (gas)… One of their suggested methods produced a wicked fart and instantly stopped the crying!!! It’s been very interesting to watch, and not implement with Elias so thanks to Kerrie for that.

This evening Elias has been fed about 4 times in the last 5~6 hours so it’s looking like he’s getting his days and nights closer to right. We’ll see if he can go down for any prolonged periods tonight, and hopefully he can do it in his crib so we can sleep at the same time. Nikki’s feeling much better so she’s been able to feed him w/o as many issues sitting for all those feedings. I’m just very disappointed I only have one more day before I have to go back to work. That’s going to be very tough.