Wheelchair basketball

Exciting day! Mike organized the first ever wheelchair basketball tournament as part of Iowa Games. Very cool! There were 12 participants making up 3 teams with over 60 spectators. Janie and I were very proud to watch. Here's a few pics -

I'm not so good at this

So I know I have not done at good job at keeping this blog updated. If i believed in New Year's resolutions, I'd make one. But I don't, so I'll just try to do better.

Things are going really well for us right now. Janie is 7 months old now growing so fast. Sometimes I think she changes overnight. She is such a happy baby; rarely fusses and always behaves in public. How lucky are we? She loves her little pink blanket, her Exersaucer and rolling around on the floor with her toys. She does not like it when someone sneezes or when a dog barks. She also does not like it when you take her food away. We know when she is awake every morning because we hear her sneeze.

Janie is really talkative right now. She loves to say "ra ra ra ra ra" or just a prolonged "ahhhhhhhh." She especially likes to hear her voice echo. That made for some loud rest room stops on our way to and from Wyoming last December. Janie figured out the restrooms has a echo and she would talk as loud as she could. Good grief!

The best thing Janie does? Goes to bed at 6:30 and sleeps all night! We can hardly believe it, but it's so nice to have that time together at night. Mike has time when he gets home from work to play with her, feed her and help put her to bed. She usually wakes up around 6:45/7:00 in the morning. We don't take any of these nights with early bedtime for granted. Not all new parents are so lucky!

Somedays it feels like Adaptive Sports Iowa is growing as fast as Janie is. Mike has been in the job just over a year and has several successful programs under his belt. He is most looking forward to February when he will host his first adaptive ski event called "Adaptive Sports Iowa Winter Experience." He will get to help teach ski lessons to physically disabled athletes. It would be an understatement to say that he is excited. Mike LOVES to ski and he LOVED teaching adaptive ski lessons while in college. February will be an exciting month.

What's a blog post without some good pictures. Here are our family pictures we had taken just before Christmas -

Until next time...

6 weeks old

Janie Eileen is 6 weeks old! I can hardly believe it's been that long since she was born. She's growing like a weed. We weighed and measured her this morning to see just how big she's gotten. Janie now weighs 13 lbs and is 22 inches long. She's turning into a chunky little thing!

I finally feel like I'm over the mastitis that I've had since coming home from the hospital. For some reason I've been very prone to that infection. After three rounds of antibiotics I feel like it's gone. Chances are it will come back, but for now I'm feeling good. I'm extremely thankful for that considering a week ago I had a fever of 103.7. Yuck!

Overall things are going very well. Janie is happiest first thing in the morning. She wakes up with big stretches and can't wait to start kicking her legs. Here's a recent video of her...

We love watching her! She makes us smile every day.

Coming home!

After a week in the NICU, we were more than excited to get our baby girl home. Janie had her last round of anitbitics around 3:00AM on Monday June 27th so when we got there that morning, her IV was out! It was so great to hold her and not have to worry about her IV. Here is Mike waking her up so we can get her changed and head home.

After some last minute instructions from the nurse and the doctor, Janie was discharged! Here we are ready to go!

We strapped her into her car seat and headed home. I thought she looked hilarious in her seat. Check it out -

She's just so floppy...the shoulder straps took over! It was even more fun when we got her home to start see what things she  might like in the house. Mike put her in the crib and she just looked tiny -

One of the highlights of coming home was getting to introduce Janie to her cousins, Miriam and Maggie. Janie was taken to the NICU so quickly after she was born that Miriam and Maggie were not able to hold her. I was so sad about that! Both girls waited somewhat patiently for a week, but then were our welcoming committee when we got home. It was adoreable!

Janie Eileen

A long overdue blogpost! Janie was born on June 20th at 6:17 in the morning. She weighed 8lbs, 2oz and was 19 inches long. I was in labor for just over 13 hours, so it was a long night for us! Below are a few pictures of us right after Janie was born.

I think she's giving Mike the stink-eye in this photos :-)

Unfortunately we didn't get to spend much time with her before she was taken to the NICU. Janie was born with a fever and some respiratory distress. She was struggling to transition from being in my belly to being out. In addition, her blood work showed that she was fighting an infection. This can most likely be attributed to me being positive for the Group B Strep bacteria. I received antibiotics during labor, but Janie still managed to get something. So...off to the NICU she went...

Needless to say, it was a difficult day. We went from the adrenaline high of having a baby to the reality of having a baby that we couldn't hold. After a few more tests, the doctors decided that she needed to stay in the NICU for 7 days so she could receive the full round of antibiotics for her infection. We tried to keep it all in perspective - there are babies in the NICU that have much more serious issues then Janie did, but it was still difficult for us to watched.

We did manage to get this video in her NICU room before we went home. Sorry I'm not talking loud enough, but you get the idea...

This has been a quick post, but I wanted to get something up. More to come!