So many moments, so little time...

Okay I barely even know where to begin. Monday morning my mom headed back to Union Star and Tyler and Jenny came down. It was great to see them as it had been so long since we'd been with them. We learned two new card games and had a blast. They headed back to St Joseph late Tuesday night and my parents and Ryan came down Wednesday evening, they had Thanksgiving with us, chicken and noodles, it was wonderful and headed back home today. Ted and Connie came down today and everyone is loving on Mr. Tennyson.

He's doing so great, the home health nurses are raving. Monday he weighed 6 lbs. 3 ounces which was a 4 ounce gain after being dismissed and this morning he weighed 6 lbs. 7 ounces so again with a four ounce gain. It's been so great having him here and being able to cuddle with him and watch all his facial expressions and his little quirks.

We decided that the NICU night nurses sure must have spoiled him because last night was the first night we weren't up every hour. The previous nights were so hard to get through as he was up every hour on the hour and just wanted to be held, I think maybe he was used to being held all night :). We tried everything, he has been put in the bouncer, the swing, his cradle, his carseat however the only thing that worked was mom sleeping in a corner on a quilt holding him which I know I'm not supposed to do because of the monitors but I couldn't think of anything else, we'd tried it all. He is however hopefully starting to get this figured out as last night he slept four hours the first stent and then two and two.

He has no problems however sleeping during the day. He'll be up to eat and be changed, cuddle till he's back asleep and then you can put him anywhere but laying flat on the floor and he'll sleep many times his four hours. So we're trying to be patient in this but pray for us, it's sure frustrating in the night when you don't know what to do for him.

We visited with Dr. Jordan, the optamolgist on Wednesday (it was a follow up exam) and he was diagnosed with stage one ROP (Retinopathy of prematurity). "ROP is a potentially blinding eye disorder that primarily affects premature infants weighing about 2¾ pounds (1250 grams) or less that are born before 31 weeks of gestation. The smaller a baby is at birth, the more likely that baby is to develop ROP. This disorder—which usually develops in both eyes—is one of the most common causes of visual loss in childhood and can lead to lifelong vision impairment and blindness."-Quoted from the National Eye Institute.

What this means to us at this time is that we will visit with Dr Jordan weekly to monitor and if we progress to stage three will then have eye surgery to alleviate it before reaching full detatchment and causing blindness. We will visit with him next Tuesday again as well as visiting Dr. Holmes the pediatrician on Tuesday.

With our monitors we have had several apnea episodes, so I am so glad that we have it. They occur almost always while he's sleeping and being held so there is question as to their validity however nonetheless I have to chart them and turn the chart into the pediatrician next week. I will let you know if any changes are made though I doubt they will be as during his home health checks he's been satting 100%.

So for us, that's really all that's happening, I apologize that I haven't updated more frequently and promise I will try to. If we can get our routine down, we'll have no trouble I pray. Know that we love you all and can't wait until June to show off our precious one.

Leaning on the Lifegiver-
Travis, Lindsay & Tennyson Myers