Look at Cole!

    I came in tonight and Cole looked different to me. It took me a minute but then I saw it...

   

       There are no tubes on on his face! He is still hooked up to the monitors but that is all.  They put him on the 4 hour eating schedule, where he gets to say when and how much he eats. He pasted his first 12 hour test. So he was able to get his feeding tube out. This is very exciting news. It means that if he keeps it up he could be home next week! The kids were so excited when we told them. They were calling dibs on who gets to sit by him first in the car and who gets to hold him first. It will be so nice when we are all together.  Let's pray that everything will keep going at planned.

Keep Truck'n

   Cole has been doing really good. Thank you for all the prayers. He was able to eat 4 feedings in a row. On the fifth one he was in a deep sleep and didn't care about food. But woke up for the next feeding and ate really well. When Mark and I came in tonight Cole had been really to eat for about 20 minutes. We are getting closer.  It so exciting to think we could be home soon.

     On my way to the hospital I have been listining to talks on tape. I don't know if you have heard of Hank Smith,  but our family loves him.  He has such great messages and he is so funny and fun to listen to. I love that my kids love going to sleep listening to his talks. Here is a little clip that I found online. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
https://m.soundcloud.com/user7604312/hank-smith-5-temptation

7 weeks old/ 50 days old

    Tuesday turned out to be a pretty good day. Cole ate well and while I was home having dinner,  he had a bottle. I was kind of afraid that he wouldn't eat for me at the 8:30 feeding but he did. So the nurse asked about feeding him a bottle at his night cares if he woke up for them. Wednesday morning I called to see how it went, and they said that they had put him on a 4 hour feeding plan. This is where he is in charge. He can wake up when he wants to eat, but it has to be before 4 hours. He had been doing great. When I came into feed him he ate really well in the morning. At rounds they were even talking about discharge for this weekend, early next week. It was kind of exciting.
        Then in the afternoon he got really sleepy and wouldn't wake up to eat. They let him sleep for a while and then tried a bottle, but during the bottle he had a huge A & B. (where his breathing and heart beat go down for a while) He was very pale and coma like afterwards. They told me that he would most likely need sometime to recover from it and not to be surprised if he sleeps through the next couple of feedings. It was a scary experience. I was pretty shaken up the rest of the day.
    Today it seems like he was back to his old schedule. He ate well at the 8:30am feeding and then slept through the 11:30am feeding. Then he ate his 2:30pm feeding. Hopefully he can add one more feeding in at a time. I think we will have better success if he does it slowly.

   I found out that one of my friends that had fetal surgery is on hospital bed rest that the hospital. So I was able to visit her this afternoon. Her water has broke and they are hoping to keep her pregnant for a bit longer. She is almost 30 weeks. I took her on a tour of the NICU. We have another friend that just posted today that her little guy isn't doing very well. He was home from NICU  for about a week then started showing signs of needing a shunt. They had the surgery last week and have been home for just a couple day. Since the surgery he hadn't been acting normal. Crying a lot, breathing different. The moring of his first appointment to check on his shunt, he stopped breathing. She calling 911 and he was rushed to the hospital. He is on a breathing tube and they are still trying to find out what is wrong. Our hearts goes out to these two families.

Two steps forward one step back

   Today was a hard day. Cole didn't not eat good at all. The 8:30am feeding he at 10 mil. At the 2:30pm feeding he at 30 mil. He was so sleepy. He just wouldn't wake up. I went home around 4pm feeling very down. The highlight of my day that kept me going was at lunch right before I left I met Nola and her son John. They weremthere for an appointment. John was in a terrible motorcycle 3 years ago. John is in a wheelchair, but was very quick to show me that he can stand.  He has been working very hard to get to where is today. At the time of the accident he was in a coma for 3 months. He is a true miracle.  What a neat person. He was so great to talk to. I personally know how hard it is to learn how to walk and talk because of Mark and all that he has gone through. John was such a tease and had such a great attitude about things. His Mom was amazing too. You could see that she was very selfless and would do anything for her son. I truly was blessed by meeting these two. It really help left my spirits.

     At night I went to the hospital alone because Mark was running kids around. I was discouraged because I had trying for 45 minutes to feed him and he was so sleepy.  I was starting to think that something was wrong. When I told my nurse of my concerns she told me that she forgot to ell me that he was feed a bottle at 5:30pm.  That made me feel a lot better. He was just tired from that feeding. She asked me if I'd be okay if she fed him a bottle at the night cares if he woke up. I said that would be fine. So we'll see if he wakes up for them.

What a Wonderful Weekend

     Cole has been doing really well with eating. He ate full feedings for the last 2 days. Everything else is looking good.  Moving his legs, sleeping, eating and pooping. He is weighing in at 6lbs 8oz. Hoping that he starts waking up for his other feedings.

  Conference weekend has been nice to help the time go by. I really enjoyed Pres. Uchtdorf's talk. He talked about counting your blessing. I thought it would be a good time for us to count the many blessing we have been blessed with. It is a great reminder that the Lord is always near.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/grateful-in-any-circumstances?lang=eng&media=video#watch=video

This part of the talk stood out to me-

"Being grateful in our circumstances is an act of faith in God. It requires that we trust God and hope for things we may not see but which are true. By being grateful, we follow the example of our beloved Savior, who said, “Not my will, but thine, be done.”

True gratitude is an expression of hope and testimony. It comes from acknowledging that we do not always understand the trials of life but trusting that one day we will.

In any circumstance, our sense of gratitude is nourished by the many and sacred truths we do know: that our Father has given His children the great plan of happiness; that through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ, we can live forever with our loved ones; that in the end, we will have glorious, perfect, and immortal bodies, unburdened by sickness or disability; and that our tears of sadness and loss will be replaced with an abundance of happiness and joy, “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”

We are feeling blessed!

   Cole has been doing well the last couple days. He has been taking from a bottle in the middle of the night. I have still been going up in the day and evening to nurse. Today we took him off of the head box to see if we could get him to wake up more often. Nothing so far.
     We have been truly blessed by one of the doctors at the hospital. We don't have a pediatrician for Cole. The other kids go to our family doctor, but Cole will need a pediatrician who will help us with his Spina Bifida. This Dr. has gone above and beyond to help us get an amazing pediatrician.  It's amazing how the Lord blesses you through other people. We are so grateful!

6 Weeks Old

   Cole is now 6 weeks old. Not only is he getting bigger, I'm getting better. I had my 6 week check up and everything is looking good so I was told that I could start driving again. 3 months is a long time to not be able to drive. I was a little scared at first, that maybe I would have forgotten or something. But it's like a riding a bike, you never forget.
       Because of my appointment I wasn't able to be at the hospital for Cole's afternoon feeding. Because I was going to be home more today then normal. I told Drew that we could make cookies. The kids had a great time and it was fun to do something special with the big kids.

    The kids all made new pictures to decorate Cole's bed.

My friend Annie Miller came to visit us last week and took some pictures of Cole and his hospital experience. They turned out amazing. We are so grateful to her for share with us her wonderful talent.

http://photosbyanniemiller.com/welcome-baby-c-to-the-world-2/