I love her!

Lily is now sleeping for 13 hour at night with just one bottle around 4:30 am. Which is perfect because thats when J gets up for work so he feeds her while I pump and Lily and I are back in bed within 20 minutes. We are not good with the bed time routine. We try to give her a bath around 8, then bottle, then she falls asleep on J in the living room. J takes her to bed when he goes at 9 and I stay up to pump and do diaper laundry. I give her a dream feed when I go to bed between 10 and 11 and then we all sleep until either Lily wakes up or J's alarm gets us all up.

This kid is such a good baby it makes me want another one right now, but I know there is no way I will have such a good baby again. I will probably pay my dues with the next one.

Lily had some tests done at the children's hospital last week. These tests were scheduled before she went home from the NICU because she had that UTI. She first had an ultrasound. She screamed through the whole thing. I knew she needed to poop since it had been a week (she is a once a week pooper)so I am thinking the pressing on her tummy hurt. Then we went for some xrays. She had to be cathed for it. I knew this was not going to end well since the last time she was cathed she pooped all over the nurse. Well, this time was no different. Cath went in and a weeks worth of poop came out. To make it even better the radiologist was the hottest doctor I have ever seen. My sister, who went with me, was literally drooling all over herself and she now refers to him as Dr. Sexy. She can't wait to tell Lily about the time she pooped on the hot doctor. The xrays showed that she has reflux into her left kidney, which is what caused the UTI and can cause further UITs if not treated.

My sister had to go buy some scrubs at the hospital next door (the original NICU Lilys was in) so we stopped by the NICU. We got to see my 2 favorite neonatoloigists. All the nurses came out to see her and were amazed at how big she has gotten. I talked to my favorite doctor about the results of her tests and he said they usually give antibiotics for a few months to prevent future UTIs and then redo the tests to see if the valve has matured and fixed itsself, if not then we discuss surgery, but a majority heal on their own. I am waiting on her pedi to get the results from the hospital and let me know what our next course of action is. I am hoping for the antibiotics and wait and see approach.

Lily is also rolling over tummy to back and grabbing toys and putting them in her mouth,although she would rather grab a burp cloth and put it in her mouth. I have tried and tried to get a video of her rolling over, but the second the camera comes out she just lays there and noms on her hand. :/

Big Girl Carseat

She is not sure if she likes it yet.

Ordered Lily's Big Girl Car Seat

I found a great deal on Britax Marathons yesterday. It was too good to pass up. So now I am the proud owner of this:



It will probably be a few more months before I transition her, but I love it!

More Cloth Diaper Reviews

1. Thirsties Fitteds: I love these. They are so soft and absorbent and not bulky at all. I got three of them in my mystery grab bags from babyhalfoff.com. I have size smalls and they fit her perfectly. They fit great under my size small Bummies and Thirsties Duo covers.

2. Dream-Eze fitted: I got one of these in my mystery bag and it is WAY too small for her. Size small is supposed to go up to 14 lbs and Lily is 11.5 and there is no way this thing would go on her.

3. Dream-EZE AIO: I got 2 of these in my mystery bags in size small. They are okay. They are very trim and fit great under her clothes and we have had no leaks, but they also run small. They are supposed to go up to 15 lbs and Lily is on the last row of snaps already so they will have to be retired way before 15 lbs. They also take forever to dry.

4. Monkey Snuggles: Love love love this diaper. Very trim and absorbent. I have one in size small and would love more, but she doesn't currently have any more smalls in stock. It is very small and I don't think it will fit her up to 15 lbs either. But it is wonderful under clothes. I am stalking her site for her to restock.

I just ordered 1 BumGenius AIO and 1 Thirsties Duo pocket from Kelly's closet. I had a code for a free one size diaper so I am excited to see what I get this time. Last time I got a Fuzzi Bunz which I like.

Right now I still have to do diaper laundry every night. I am still working to build up my stash so that I can go to every other day. But I really don't mind the laundry.

4 Month Stats

Lily's 4 month appointment was yesterday. I am so freaking excited that she made the "big girl" chart as her pedi called it. She weighs 11 lbs 9 ozs which puts her in the 10th percentile for her actual age! She is 23 1/4 inches long which puts her in the 20th percentile for her actual age! Her pedi is very happy with her growth and development and said she is doing amazing. She also got 2 shots and the rotovirus drink stuff. I think the drink pissed her off more than the actual shots. She cried for a few minutes but I was able to calm her down pretty quickly. She came home and drank a bottle and slept for 3 hours. She got a little fussy around 8:00 last night, but I gave her some tylenol and she was fine after that.

Her pedi said that stuff the nutritionist was saying about a calcium deficiency that could lead to osteoprosis is just a theory and that if I don't want to give her the formula I totally don't have to. This makes me happy. It kills me to give her the formula every night knowing there is a fride full of breast milk plus 2000+ ozs in the freezer. In my mind that milk is hers and she needs to have it. Its amazing the attachment you can form to milk. J doesn't get it. He thinks we should give her the formula just in case the theory is correct, but to me that feels like a punch in the gut.

Tomorrow my little girl will be 4 months old. Holy crap where has the time gone!

Cloth Diaper Update

Let me just say I LOVE cloth diapering. I had come to hate disposables and I hate them even more now. I would like to say I do it for the environment etc., but honestly I stared because they were cute and I was sick of leaks and blowouts in the sposies. Lily has chunky legs and the sposies left deep red marks on her little legs, but a size up was too big and leaked. I don't even mind the laundry. I am still building my stash and getting the fluffy mail makes me happy lol. I have 2 mystery bags coming hopefully today from babyhalfoff.com. Can't wait to see what I get! I am also waiting on 2 Bumkins AIOs from Zulily. I ordered these things 2 weeks ago and still don't have an email saying they have shipped. I am getting impatient. I have have some hemp inserts, a pink pail liner and a Monkey Snuggles coming. I need a lot more so I don't have to do laundry everyday, but I need to take a break from buying things until after vacation. Want to make sure we have enough money for the outlets! coughCoachcough.

I was asked to review them so here is a review of the ones I have tried so far:

Green Mountain Diapers yellow edge prefolds: Meh. I don't like how they hold the wetness against her skin. I just made some fleece liners so we will see if that helps. I doubt I will order more prefolds once she out grows these. Well, I think she may have outgrown them. I can't fold them around her and pin the with a snappi, she is too wide (she takes after her mom). I fold them in thirds and put them in a cover. I have not had any leaks with them though.

Green Mountain Diapers yellow edge fitted: This thing does not fit her at all.

Bumgenius 3.0s: These are okay but the one size insert that comes with them is very bulky when its snapped into the smallest setting (which is what Lily is in). It works great for overnight with the OS insert and a doubler. I have ordered some thinner inserts so hopefully that will help with the bulk factor and they will fit better under her clothes during the day. Also the Aplix sucks. I have had them 2 weeks and it already looks ancient. The 4.0s will have a snap option. I recommend the snaps.

Fuzzy Bunz one size pocket: I am not such a huge fan of this one right now. It tends to leak at the legs and is kind of bulky. I think it will be great once she is a little bigger though.

Fuzzy Bunz perfect size pocket: These are my favorites right now. They are super soft and the smalls fit her great and are not bulky at all with the insert they come with and I love the snaps. They are a little difficult on a squirmy baby, but they hold up way better than the Aplix fasteners.

Bummis Super Whisper Wrap: I love this cover. The small fits her perfectly. I hope to fine some fitteds I like to use with it since I am not loving the prefolds.

Thirsties Duo wrap: I like this cover alright, but there is no way the size one will fit up to 18 lbs like they claim. Lily is around 12 lbs and I already have it on the largest setting. But it works well and is cute. I will hold off on ordering any more of these though until she can fit in the size two, because I doubt the size one will fit past 14 lbs.

So far thats what I have. I will update as I try others (hopefully soon if all the stuff I have ordered ever gets here!)

Also tomorrow is Lily's 4 month check-up and shots. Eeeeek!

My new obsession

Cloth diapers. Seriously these things are addictive. I can't stop myself from buying them. I am still building my stash so its okay for now. So far I have 5 BumGenius one size 3.0s (The 4.0s come out this month so I will have to try those too!), 1 Fuzzi Bunz one size, 2 Fuzzi Bunz size smalls, 6 Green Mountain Diapers yellow edge prefolds, one Green Mountain Diapers yellow edge fitted 1 Thirsties Duo cover in size 1 and one Bummies cover in size small. I am still waiting on 2 Bumkins AIOs that I got a great deal on on Zulily and 2 mystery bags of diapers and accessories from Babyhalfoff.com (so excited over the "mystery" part). I am still just trying out different things to see what I like. I have only used the BumGenius so far because the others just came is last night and had to be prepped but they are now ready for use! Here is my stash:

I have been a bad blogger

Sorry! So much to catch up on.

Lily is now smiling all the time. She is such a happy baby. All I have to do is look at her and say "Hey little frog" and she lights up. We also decided we need to start using her name more or she is going to think her name is little frog. She is also "talking" all the time and is so observant. She watches everything. Including the TV. We try to keep it off a lot now, but she just stares at the blank screen :/. She is definitely her father's child.

I am still EPing and she is getting all breast milk except for the one bottle a day of Enfacare the nutritionist at her NICU follow-up wanted her on for the extra calcium. I hate giving it to her and Lily hates eating it and she usually spits most of it up. I plan to talk to her pedi about it at her 4 month appointment next week. Surely there has to be a calcium supplement I can give her instead. The nutritionist was kind of dismissive of my EPing and almost acted like she should be on formula full time. WTF?!? NO! I have worked my ass off the get the great supply I have and I refuse to give up because some nutritionist thinks formula would be better. No its not! Her pedi is ecstatic that I have been able to give her breast milk and I definitely trust him more and her weight gain is amazing. I find myself looking forward to her 4 month appointment so I can discuss this with him.

We are getting plenty of sleep around here! Lily goes to bed when we do at 10:00pm. She sleeps in her Fisher Price Rock n' Play sleeper right now, but I want to transition her to her Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper in its bassinet mode soon. She gets a bottle right before bed and I climb in bed and rock her in her sleeper until one of us falls asleep. She sleeps until 3-4 am and daddy feeds her a bottle while I pump. Daddy then gets read for work while Lily and I go back to sleep. She sleeps until 6-7 am and I feed her again and we then go back to sleep until 9-10am. I love my great sleeper! I so hope this continues.

Lily did great at her NICU follow up appointment. She pulled out her full bag of tricks for the doctor. She smiled at her, cooed at her, held her head up like a champ, did her grasping reflexes like she should, followed her stethoscope with her eyes and turned her head to find me and Josh every time one of us spoke. The doctor said she was a little ahead of her adjusted age milestones and she does not need to see her again until she is 6 months old. She also went from the 10th percentile for weight, length and head circumference for her adjusted age at birth to the 75th percentile for her adjusted age! Hopefully she will get in the charts for her chronological age soon!

Our next goal is to get her to roll over. She likes being on her tummy so she really has no motivation to try, but she has started kicking her legs out when she is on her tummy so I think she will get it soon.

I also have started cloth diapering. Well I only have 3 BumGenius 3.0s right now. I have ordered some Fuzzibuns, some Bumkins AIOs and some prefolds and covers to see what I like. Buying diapers is so addictive! They are just so cute its hard not to buy them all. But I need to test out different ones to see what I like before I go crazy. So far I like the BGs but they are bulky.

So we are doing great! Lily is such a good baby. She only cries when she is hungry or tired and shuts right up if I give her a bottle or put her in her swing to take a nap. I love her so much!

Where did my tiny preemie go?

Lily now weighs 10.5 lbs and is 22 1/4 inches long!! Holy crap! My baby is getting so big!! Some of her 0-3 month onsies are too tight. She is so alert now too. She wants to look at everything. I am having a hard time feeding her since she wants to pay more attention to everything going on around her than to her bottle. I have tried feeding her in a quiet room with no distractions, but she is just as content watching the shadows on the wall as she is watching to dogs or the TV so that doesn't work either. She is still getting 100% pumped breast milk. I have decided to EP from here on out. We have tried and tried to get the nursing thing down, but its just not working. She latches on fine at first but after a few minutes she gets frustrated and starts screaming. Even if er do have a good session where she seems to eat for 20 minutes or more, she starts screaming for a bottle within an hour, so I am guessing she is not sucking efficiently to get enough to eat so then I have to pump and give her a bottle and the whole process takes 2 hours, then its time to start over. So for the sanity of us both I am going to stick with EPing. My first goal was 3 months, which is coming up quickly. My next goal is 6 months. I think I can do it. Its a pain to be strapped to a pump all the time, but since she is gaining weight so well and seems happy it makes it all worth it. Just looking at her little face melts my heart!

Lily's Pad

Since the nursery originally was designed with boy/girl twins in mind it was very gender neutral and I have been itching to girly it up but have not had the heart. I had done a little here and there but not too much. Well yesterday I decided to girly it up a bit. I would love to paint the walls pink, but I paid a lot of money for the tree decal and I love it so I don't want to take it down because its not reusable. So Lily and I went to Target yesterday and got some of the coordinating pieces to the picture and valance I had already bought. Plus we got a cube storage unit and the fabric drawers. We also got some pink sheers to put under the valance and a pink sheet for the crib and a pink changing pad cover. Here are the results:





I still want to get a pink rug and maybe some more wall art. Etsy has some matching accessories, but I have spent too much money already so I need to wait awhile! Also Target supposedly has some wall decals that match this set, but they were sold out at my Target and they were on clearance so I doubt they will get anymore and they are not available online so I may have to take a tour of all the Targets in the area!

Some photos from our photo shoot

J is an aspiring photographer. He mostly photographs cars, so Lily presented quite a challenge. Here are some recent ones we took:

Screamy McScreamerson

Lily has taken to screaming as loud as she possibly can if she goes more than one second past the time she thinks she should be fed. She screams and screams until she can't catch her breath. I have no warning either so I can be prepared. Sometimes she wants to eat after 2 hours and sometimes she will go 3. She really has no hunger cues either except the blood curdling scream. The bottle warmer takes waaaay too long. Someone needs to invent an instant bottle warmer. I would pay good money for that!

No one ever said how hard breast feeding is

especially breast feeding a preemie. I have been pumping since she was born and I have about 1500 ozs in the freezer. Since she got so used to bottles in the hospital I have had problems getting her to latch on and eat an entire feeding at the breast. She has a great latch but shes lazy and gives up before she eats enough. So we try at least once a day on the breast and when she cries an hour later I give her breast milk in a bottle. She is getting better and going longer before she screams for her bottle so I guess we are making progress. Once she can go 2 hours before her bottle I will add in another feeding at the breast since she usually only goes 2 hours between bottles anyway. With her still being so small I have to make sure she is getting enough to eat so I have to continue with bottles instead of forcing her on the breast, but I am hopeful she will get it as she gets bigger and gains more stamina. I am sick of pumping every 3 hours!

Introduction

This is the story of our lives with our little Lily Grace. She was born at 32 weeks 1 day on March 15, 2010 at 11:28 am weighing 4 lbs 6 ozs. Lily was twin A. Her little brother Logan is now an angel in heaven watching over her. He developed Necrotizing Entercolitis (NEC) at 7 days old and passed away. He will always be part of our lives and we will love him forever.

Lily spent 37 days in the NICU. We had a pretty eventful stay. She began life with RDS and was on CPAP for 4 days then stepped down to the nasal cannula for a week. Lily also had a PDA which was successfully closed with 2 rounds of ibuprofen. 2 days before her release we had a NEC scare and were rushed across the street to the children's hospital where the pediatric surgeons were. Luckily it turned out not to be NEC, but a UTI which was treated with antibiotics and 10 days later we were finally home.