Our Life...

...has changed very much. Here's what Rachel's typical schedule now looks like:

1:30-2:00 AM - Pump
4:30-5:00AM - Get up, Pump
5:00-6:00AM - get ready, make lunch
6:00AM - start driving to Clinicals or Classes
6:30AM - call the NICU and check on Christopher
7:00AM - start clinicals or classes
9:00-9:30AM - Pump
12:00-1:00PM Lunch, and Pump
3:00-3:30PM Pump
4:00PM - leave clinicals for home
6:00:630PM Pump
6:30-7:30PM defrost/make/eat dinner
7:30-8:30PM Go to hospital and visit with Christopher, drop off milk, pick up bottles and labels for milk supply
9:30-10:00PM- get home and PUMP!!
10:30PM - call the NICU and check on Christopher
11:00PM - go to bed. dream of pumping.

The weekends look similar except it involves a lot more visits to the hospital. We want to be sure that when we finally take Christopher home that he remembers who we are!















Here's a look in our freezer...one of two shelves quickly getting full of milk. Mercifully, our good friends Dave and Lizbeth have decided to give us a chest freezer! This will make life so much easier, as the hospital can only store so much milk a a time and Rach has to keep it comin' for when Christopher gets out. We are so thankful for the help! And yes, Dave and Lizbeth are the same friends that bought us a microwave after the "What? You said there was popcorn in there when I turned it on for 5 minutes but it was really empty" meltdown incident right after we got married.

Mr. Christopher is doing great...if anyone is looking for a miracle to warm their hearts, check this out - Christopher moved to room air only this morning! That's right, no more supplimental oxygen! They are still giving him 1 liter airflow through his nasal tubes, just to make sure air is flowing, but he's getting great O2 saturation on room air alone. I really can't believe it and it's purley evidence of how fast God wants little Christopher to come home with us. We're all surprised, but I guess we shouldn't be. Over 275 people a day visit this blog to check out what's going on, and tens of thousands of people are praying for him all over the world. Praise God!


We got to hold Christopher again on Saturday. It was wonderful! It's a surreal experience, but it usually gets interrupted by the alarms going off all over the nursery. We have to watch the monitors closely as we hold him, to make sure that he keeps breathing, keeps good O2 saturation, a good pulse, and to make sure he doesn't get cold. It will be a sweet day when our little man gets upgraded to a cordless model and we can just love him without [too much] worry.

When we held him tonight (Sunday) he was being a little troublemaker He's figured out how to pull his nasal oxygen out, and how to yank on his feeding tube. I think we're going to have to bring some tubing home so that he can have something to play with =).

In the world of good days and bad days, I would say that today has been an inbetween day. We've been home by ourselves most of the day, and we've been overjoyed by Christopher's progress. But then the better he gets, the harder it is to put him back into a plastic box and leave him at the hospital. It's hard to be patient, and rational, and nice when nurses tell you nicely that you need to go. Our schedule doesn't make it any easier. One of the nurses today was marveling over how much fun Rachel and I were having with Christopher. I guess we probably are a little over-the-top, oohing and laughing about every little thing he does, but when you only get to hold him an hour a day everything is pretty exciting.
















On a brighter note, my parents came in for the weekend and Grandma took Rachel and I out to buy a crib for our little guy. Unfortunately, we miscalculated the amout of space we would need in the car for something that large, and took our Subaru instead of our van. Hilarity ensued. Mom was only trapped for a short while though, and then we let her out so I could lay down across the back seats for the whole ride home.

Okay, so there is much more, but that's all the time I have. I've got to do some stuff for work and Rachel has to, well, you know, pump. And I should probably help her, since she finally caved and let me buy thickburgers for dinner. Score one for the men of our family!

--Andy