New pictures of Nathan & update on Alexa

Just as we had hoped, Sam & I got to hold Nathan for the first time last night. His wonderful nurse waited for us to get there to take him out of his warming bed, change him into his clothes (bought by Grandma Marie!) & then we got to hold him. It was wonderful & so healing for me because I had a really rough afternoon. We are able to hold him 3 times a day. Since he's in an isolette now, it's hard to get him out & he needs to maintain his body temperature so he can move to an open crib soon. I did get to go hold him again by myself at about 1 am for about an hour. He gets very agitated when people mess with his sleep (sound like anyone? Sam maybe?) but settled right down as soon as he was in my arms. It was nice to hold him for so long because earlier, we only were able to be there for a few minutes because Alexa needed us. Her temperature had dropped pretty low & they couldn't warm her up. Her neonatologist thankfully asked the nurses to wait on putting her in an isolette or warming bed (which would have been a major step backwards) & allow me to try to hold her skin-to-skin to warm her up. So although it cut our time with Nathan short, the plan worked & she warmed right up. She has been able to maintain her warmth since then (I just saw her at 5 am) & her nurse thinks she's ready to be moved out of the NICU!

I should be going home tomorrow morning with Alexa. Going home does not mean out of the clear for her. She is still under 5 lbs. & we'll have to be very careful about her temperature as well as over stimulating her. For this reason, we're still asking for no visitors. If she gets too tired, she doesn't eat & that could put her back in the NICU. We don't want that!

Then comes the hard part... leaving Alexa to be with Nathan, then leaving Nathan in the NICU while I go home. But I know he's improving every day & will be home soon! And thankfully we have Grandmas & Aunts to help with Alexa! Before we know it, this NICU thing will be all in the past!

Oh, P.S. I lied... Nathan does not have a C-Pap. We were misinformed. I can't remember what he has but it's not that... It won't matter to most of you but some of you medical people are probably thinking I'm a bad mom & don't know about my own baby! Sorry! :)

P.P.S. Ok, I keep adding to this post... my mom just emailed me these pictures of Nathan that the nurse took when she took his tube out. It's the only pictures we have of him with no tubes. It's not great quality but here he is, crazy hair and all!