Ten on Tuesday

This one is dedicated to all things food! Ten things Sarah has eaten this Tuesday:

1. Milk. She's had a minimum of 16oz of whole milk.

2. An entire naval orange. Well, minus the peel.

3. A large banana. Again, no peel.

4. One egg scrambled with sausage and heavy cream.

5. Cinnamon toast and mixed fruit (this was her SECOND breakfast of the day - she eats breakfast at home and again an hour later at daycare).

6. Macaroni & cheese, green beans and mixed fruit for lunch.

7. A moon pie. Yuck!

8. Animal crackers.

9. Four whole wheat breaded chicken nuggets.

10. Marsala noodles with mushrooms (leftovers from last night).

And even though that's already ten, she also ate quite a bit of the macaroni that I had for dinner. Oh and the better part of a juice box (fruit and vegetable juice). And she had probably 1/3 of MY breakfast burrito this morning.

How this child only weighs 20lbs is beyond me. But boy oh boy am I glad she's a good eater!

It's that time again...

we're MARCHING FOR BABIES!

I had this wonderful New Year's Resolution to blog regularly. Clearly, that's worked out well...but since my last post was about Prematurity Awareness Day, it's fitting that this one will be about the 2011 March for Babies.

If you're reading this blog, it's likely that you already know the story of Sarah's birth. Born 13wks too soon. "Typical" preemie complications (which are never really typical). 12wks on some form of oxygen. 16wks before she came home. But since I'm such a blog slacker, many of you might not know how she's doing now.


Sarah is 19mos old. She's been in daycare since late August and is doing surprisingly well. We had a rough start as Sarah adjusted to the germs but she's handled the winter like a champ. Quick, someone knock on wood!

Sarah likes the park. She likes to wave at cars (full of strangers) as they drive by. She's a great sleeper. She likes to try new foods. Her newest word is "apple"...though it comes out "bapple". She insists on brushing her (seven) teeth twice a day. And she LOVES her dogs.


Right now, the one glaringly obvious sign of Sarah's prematurity is her size. At 19mos, Sarah is 28in tall and weighs 18.5lbs. She's the size of a 9mo old. But don't tell her that. Developmentally, she's right on track for her actual age (thanks in part to the wonderful team of thearpists that we see thru our county's KidsFirst program) and she certainly has the sass and spunk of a soon-to-be 2yo.

We're proof that prematurity isn't "cured." It doesn't magically go away at a certain age. It lingers. And we'll never really know what lies around the next corner. We've learned to roll with the punches. And we definitely don't sweat the small stuff.

On April 30th, Team Sarah will once again March for Babies in an effort to raise money and awareness for the March of Dimes. Simply put, the research and the therapies that the MoD funds and supports saved Sarah. I'd say that's worth a bit of fundraising on our part!

You can support Team Sarah two ways: 1) sign up to walk with us or 2) donate to our mission. You can do either of these things at my March for Babies page: www.marchforbabies.com/teamsarahfrancis

Brandon and I are also working on a fun raffle of sorts for anyone who donates - more on that soon!

We march in NINE WEEKS and we really need your support to make Team Sarah a success for the second year in a row! And really...who could say no to this face?!

Prematurity Awareness Day

November 17th isn't a national holiday. It's not even a bank holiday. But it IS Prematurity Awareness Day. I've been thinking all week about my "Blog for Babies" entry - at first I thought I'd take the statistics route. Ya know, "1 in 6 babies born in Alabama is born premature", "40% of premature births are unexplained", or maybe even "a baby born at 23wks has a 17% chance of survival". But then I realized that statistics are...well, just numbers. So in lieu of bombarding you with generic statistics, and since most of you already know my Sarah, I'll give you OUR prematurity numbers.

13 weeks early. Sarah was born at 27w3d.

1000 grams. Sarah's birth weight. That translates approximately to 2lbs, 3oz.

12.5 inches. Sarah's length at birth. She was one inch longer than a Barbie doll.

9 leads, wires, tubes and hoses connected to Sarah in the photo above (she was three days old).

5 blood transfusions. Three from unknown donors. Two from her PaPa (my dad).

2 rounds of medication needed to close the Patent Ductus valve in her heart.

0 brain bleeds. We're amazingly lucky to have dodged that bullet.

19 days before we were able to hold Sarah.

1 NEC scare. Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Feared by preemie parents everywhere.

80 days on oxygen, delivered via ventilator (2 days), CPAP (2 weeks) and nasal canula.

109 days in the NICU.

Please don't think it ends there. Prematurity isn't "cured" at NICU discharge. No, it follows you home. And I'm honestly not sure it ever goes away. Every time Sarah sneezes, I remember how fragile her lungs still are. Every time I put 6mo pants on my almost 16mo old child, I remember how small she is. Every time I walk into St. Vincent's hospital and smell the hand soap, I remember the many days that I thought we'd never make it home.

After 16mos, I've finally been able to make (a TINY bit of) peace with Sarah's early birth. At the very least, I'm doing my best to make sure that (a TINY bit of) something good comes from our experience.

-I'm now volunteering with an amazing group (http://www.nicufootprints.org/) that ministers to NICU families in our area. That "ministry" comes in the form of prayer, but also in the form of emotional and sometimes even financial support.

-We're also involved with the mission of the March of Dimes now. We participate in their annual Blue Jeans for Babies and March for Babies fundraisers.

-Though it's difficult every time, we return regularly to the hospital where we spent those first three and a half months. Sometimes we go with donations for the NICU(swings, bouncy seats, blankets, clothing) and sometimes we go with goodies for the NICU and labor/delivery nurses (donuts, cookies, BBQ). Simply put, they saved Sarah. We want them all to know how grateful we are for that.

So, there you have it. A face to put with the statistics of Prematurity Awareness Day. A face representative of 500,000+ premature babies born each year. Please support your local March of Dimes chaper in their fight for babies like Sarah.

Ten on Tuesday

There’s a LOT to update since my last post so let’s get started!

1. In early August we took Sarah on her first vacation – the beach! We were still having a few sleep issues at the time but, in spite of my worrying, she adjusted quite well. Sarah loves the water, though she wasn’t a big fan of the sand. Can’t say I blame her!

2. After being unemployed since I was hospitalized in June 2009, I finally went back to work in late August. This of course means that Sarah started daycare. Let’s address the job first – when I first got pregnant, I had no intentions of staying home. In fact, I was even planning a very short 4-6wk maternity leave for a variety of reasons. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you realize that my pregnancy was FILLED with good intentions that quickly passed once I delivered early. I LOVED being home with Sarah and I’m beyond lucky to have had that opportunity – so many preemie moms have to return to work before their babies are even home, but I was able to spend my days in the NICU with her. But, the fact remains, we require two incomes. And health insurance. All in all, I feel like going back to work was one of the final steps I needed to take to get us back to where we should have been all along.

3. Daycare. Sarah started daycare on August 23rd. After only TWO WEEKS, we’d been to our pediatrician THREE times and spent Labor Day in the Emergency Room at Children’s Hospital. This was the exact reason that we avoided daycare as long as we did. At that point, Sarah was congested, had a week long fever that spiked at 105* and was having O2 desats that left her with blue lips and hands. When the dust finally cleared, she’d missed more than a full week of daycare and we now have our very own albuterol nebulizer. Ya know, because I didn’t feel quite guilty enough about going back to work. She would cry when we dropped her off, cry when we picked her up, she wasn’t napping at all during the day, became completely dependent on her pacifier and she was a miserable troll when she was at home. The only thing she WAS doing was eating well, but even so, she stopped gaining weight (more on that shortly). I was left wondering why in the world ANYONE put their kids in daycare. And then last week (week seven) everything magically changed. We credit the Glow Worm Seahorse that some friends gave Sarah for her birthday. We keep the original seahorse in her bed and she plays the music at night until she goes to sleep. In a last ditch effort to help her nap, we bought a second seahorse to keep in her daycare crib. She’s stopped crying when I drop her off in the mornings, she actually reaches for her teacher now, she’s napping at least an hour each day (usually closer to two hours) and she’s much happier when she’s home. Sarah is also learning things like clapping her hands (that was one thing she simply would NOT do before), she’s making new sounds (not quite words yet so everything is still “dog”), she brings home artwork to hang on the fridge and she’s walking like crazy. We know she’s going to continue to get sick, we can only hope that her immune system is improving and will be able to keep future ER visits to a minimum.

4. Sarah continues to receive services thru our county’s Early Intervention program – we were discharged from PT several months ago, but we still see our OT regularly. Just before Sarah started daycare, our OT sessions were cut back to once a month because the OT was really just watching Sarah play – her motor skills are on (sometimes even ABOVE!) par with her peers now! Her OT will continue to visit Sarah once a month (they’ll evaluate her in daycare now which gives me an extra set of eyes there) mainly to make sure that her speech develops as it should. We don’t anticipate speech delays, but I’d rather address any concerns early on.

5. I mentioned in #3 that Sarah’s weight gain has slowed. Up until her first birthday, Sarah was still drinking quite a bit of formula each day (we’ve since switched to whole milk) and we could count on her gaining approximately 1lb per month. At her 12mo pedi appointment in July, she weighed approximately 17lbs. That was two and a half months ago. When I weighed her last night, she weighed approximately 17lbs. Uh, huh? I’ve always heard that a baby’s weight gain slows after a year…but Sarah’s seems to have STOPPED. And since I’ve been hypersensitive about her weight since she was born (every OUNCE she gained in the NICU was cause for celebration!) I can’t help but worry a bit about it now. Because let’s face it, Sarah is small. REALLY small. At almost 15mos, she’s the size of an average 6mo old…which REALLY alarms people when they see her walking (okay, that part is kind of funny…). My micropreemie has become a microtoddler – 17lbs, 27”. Now, with all that said, the lack of weight gain certainly is NOT caused by a lack of eating. Sarah may be small, but boy she can EAT. Every morning we start with an entire packet of oatmeal for breakfast – I make hers with whole milk and add cinnamon and a big blob of applesauce to it. The she goes to school and eats a SECOND breakfast there (cereal, a honeybun, a cinnamon roll, etc). She almost always eats all of her lunch (a protein, a veggie and a fruit) and then snacks mid-afternoon. She has another snack when she gets home and then dinner. And don’t forget about the 3-4cups of milk scattered in there too. I guess her constant motion burns the majority of that…the rest she stores in her hollow leg. Sarah’s pediatrician genuinely listens to my concerns and usually manages to make me feel better about things – we see him again on the 25th for a 15mo vaccination (blech) so hopefully that will help.

6. The other issue with Sarah’s size is finding clothes. The upside is that she really gets a lot of use out of her things whereas a lot of kids outgrow their clothes before they even have a chance to wear some of them. The downside is that she’s wearing 6-9mo clothes with a few 3-6mos things thrown in there. The difference in sizes across brands is ridiculous. And it doesn’t help my anxiety level to buy 6mo pants only to have them fall off of my 14mo old. I have a couple of reliable brands that I stick to now (Carter’s, Target’s Circo, and BRU’s Miniwear) and can usually tell how much I’ll have to hem the pants before she even gets them on. I don’t bother buying out of season because who knows what size she’ll be next summer. Having a kid is all about adapting, right?

7. I said before that Sarah’s only “real” word right now is DOG. We occasionally get “duck” or “ball”, but really, they sound just like “dog.” Our dogs are definitely “dogs” to her so she knows the meaning of the word…but some days, everything else is “dog” too. You just have to pay attention to what she’s pointing at/reaching for. Her lovie blanket…”dog”. Her cup of milk…”dog”. ME: Sarah, can you say “mama”?? Sarah: DOG! Oh well, at least she knows what’s important, right? She will sign for “milk” (though she’s modified the sign a bit for her own tastes), sometimes we get something in between the signs for “mama” and “daddy” and she just started signing “more” (like more food!) over the weekend. She knows where her “noggin” is and where MY nose is…though she still seems completely unaware that she has a nose of her very own.

8. Sarah and her dogs…goodness, where do I start? She’s doing SO well learning to “pet nice” and “be gentle” with the dogs. Now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t the occasional eye poke or ear pull. But they exact revenge with a whack of a tail, usually upside her head. All except for Ralphie…not only is his tail super short, but he’ll take affection any way he can get it – even if it’s a poke in the eye. If you’re wondering which dog is Ralphie, he’s our male pit bull. Not exactly the vicious beast the media would portray him to be. Sarah’s a smart girl, she knows who loves her best!

9. Teeth. We now have TWO!

10. This past Saturday was Sarah’s first haircut. I want to let her hair grow, it just needed to be cleaned up some on the ends. She was looking pretty pitiful…especially with her daycare snot nose. I was a bit concerned about how she’d behave (and how the resulting haircut would look) but she did VERY well. She even sat in the (modified) chair all by herself! The gal who cut her hair put all the little clippings in a envelope for me, gave us a little “My First Haircut” certificate and didn’t charge us for it! Plus all the older ladies in the salon were have a FIT over Sarah…especially when she started walking (she really looks too small to be walking on her own) so it was quite entertaining for all of us. Now, if she’d just keep a bow in that hair…

First Official "School" Photo

I'll explain in tomorrow's Ten on Tuesday...I promise!

Sarah's birthday slideshow

Ten on Tuesday

1. I know, I know, it's been over a MONTH...but it was a tough month for me. June 21st started my "one year ago..." and it a lot of ways, reliving it a second time was more difficult than the first. I suspect I'll always have demons to face this time of year.

2. Sarah's first birthday was on the 21st! ONE YEAR - holy cow, how did that happen?! We spent the morning with our favorite photographer and a birthday cake that was demolished by the end of the shoot. These photos...and all of the photos that Stephanie has taken for us are so precious...I'll be the first to admit that we went cheap-o on our wedding photos, but I'm a HUGE fan of GOOD photography now. We'll have these photos forever.


3. Sarah had her 1yr well baby visit on the 22nd. Keep in mind, she started out at 2lbs 3oz, 12.5" with a head circumference of 9.5". She's now 17lbs, 26.5" and her head is 18"! That puts us in the 3rd percentile for weight (for her ACTUAL age!) - we're ON THE CHART! She's still short though, so we're not on that chart. But her head? Um, yeah. 75th percentile. It's genetic. She didn't stand a chance. Here she is waiting for Dr. G.



4. While at the pedi, we delivered lunch to the NICU staff and cupcakes to the Labor/Delivery nurses. We also visited with our favorite L/D nurse, Karen:

5. In other medical related news, Sarah's follow up eye exam was in July as well. This exam was MUCH easier than the countless retina exams she had in the NICU. And the results? We don't have to go back until she starts kindergarten!!! Eye problems are quite common for babies on oxygen for as long as Sarah was, so this is a HUGE relief.

6. Sarah's party was on the 24th and we asked that our guests bring a donation for the NICU rather than a gift for Sarah. I wasn't quite sure what to expect...but I certainly NEVER expected this:

We received SO many things that will make the NICU a bit easier for the families who have to be there. A swing, bouncy seats, photo printer paper and ink, scrapbook supplies, crib mobiles, batteries, clothes, blankets, you name it! We delivered it last weekend and our sweet nurses were so thankful - Sarah's friends and family ROCK!

7. Any guesses what her first "official" word was? Really shouldn't surprise anyone :-)

8. With a bit of encouragement from her Occupational Therapist, Sarah is now WALKING behind her little push toys. And when she's determined, that little doll stroller moves pretty fast! She keeps moving until she hits something and has to stop...sometimes it's a wall, sometimes it's furniture, and sometimes, if they're not paying attention, it's a dog!

9. Speaking of dogs, our Veronica had pretty extensive ear surgery this week. Unfortunately, it's been a long time coming and while it would have been much easier financially if I were working...well, things don't always work out that way. But our dogs are family too so we do what needs to be done. The next week or two will be tough, but after that I think she'll be better than she's been in a LONG while.

10. Finally, another big milestone for Sarah is right around the corner...we leave next week for the BEACH! We were on vacation the week before my water broke last year, but haven't been anywhere since. Sarah has her swim diapers, suncreen and pool float packed - she's ready to go!