the eric update - day 149: another rop surgery follow-up exam.

today we had yet another follow-up exam to see how little odin is recoving from the effects of his and the retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and his eye surgery to address the condition.

as always, the first step involves putting drops in his eyes to dilate his pupils. everyone always comments on how little he fusses when they put the drops in, since they sting and make everything uncomfortably bright.

next, the eye doctor puts a lens over odin's eye that focuses a light emanating from his headgear onto odin's retina.

he comments that there appears to be very little scarring from the ROP and that he remains quite confident that odin will escape any permanent damage. although he remained quite optimistic that things were caught and corrected quickly, he cautioned that we could still see manifestations of the effects of the disease process reveal themselves slowly over the next three years or so.

specifically, he mentioned that the scarring could "pull" his retina slightly "off center" which would have the effect of making it appear as if he were not looking directly at something, even though he is, in fact, looking right at it.

of course, as hypervigilent parents, i'm sure we'll probably unecessarily focus ( ahem ) on whether or not he's looking squarely at us.

we waited in the doctor's office for over an hour and - just in case you thought that odin was always content and serene - after the drops and the bright lights and the exam, he lets everyone know that he's had just about enough of whole experience.

the eric update - day 148: on expressiveness.

in my non-parenting days i thought babies were all pretty much the same - they ate, they cried, they slept and so on and so forth. and while it was always apparent that they differed in obvious ways, i don't think i had an appreciation for how early expressiveness could develop.

while little odin has always been a charmer, lately he's been showing a more nuanced side to his personality; sometimes he gets this complicated look while he appears to be looking right through me and i can't help but wonder what's going on in that little head of his.

the eric update - day 147: mister eats-a-lot!

little odin must be getting ready for a growth spurt because his appetite is simply insatiable. during much of the day, if he's not sleeping, he's eating and eating and eating; often we're lucky if more than hour goes by before he's clamoring for more food.

to give kris a break from nursing, i've just fed him a whopping 60 cc bottle less than an hour after he nursed. i'm walking him around chanting, "mister eats-a-lot. you're mister eats-a-lot" as he gives me a look that seems to say, "dude. i'm going to humor you with your little song for about 5 minutes and then you better have some more milk ready or there's going to be trouble."

the eric update - day 146: saying goodbye to auntie m.

auntie m is heading back to the east coast tommorrow so we trekked back across the state to visit her at odin's grandparent's pad ( yes, we might have hummed "over the river and through the woods" while we were on the road. ).

at one point during the visit grandpa snowdeal got the honor of a double fingergrab while auntie m tried the ol' over the shoulder trick.

add a supersized paci to the mix and i'm not sure what else a growing micropreemie could want.

well, i take that back, as everyone in the room could attest, a growing micropreemie could want food. lots and lots and lots of food.

of course, little odin's grandparents have pictures of me and auntie m on the fireplace mantle and it's hard not to get sentimental when i see pictures of us mugging for the camera when we were much, much younger than we are now.

it's odd to think that the grandparents ( and great grandparents! ) probably feel that only a blink of the eye has passed since i was struggling as a micropreemie to when me and auntie m were being cute on the Big Red Couch at camp to now, when we're all grown up and watching history repeat itself.

the eric update - day 145: a visit from a flickr friend! and auntie deb and uncle matt.

since little odin's birth we've had the opportunity to virtually "meet" many, many people either through postcards or emails or comments on the web site, but today we had the opportunity to meet a real, live person who found us via flickr early on and has been following along ever since.

we were very happy that andy wicks wrote us an email to tell us that he just happened to be in the area during the holidays and asked if we'd like to meet for lunch.

we had a great time at rose's restaurant ( i had the yellow fin tuna sandwich ) and andy might be able to vouch for the fact that we're not too wierd and can usually conduct ourselves in a socially acceptable manner while in public. so if you're ever in the area, feel free to contact us and we'll be more than happy to show you around town or have lunch or whatever.

thanks again to andy for contacting us ( and for paying for lunch! ) and you might be sorry that offered to show us around minneapolis when we're in town :-)

uncle matt and auntie deb also visited later in the day and had fun spending time with odin. auntie deb's business, gurutoyou is in the process of being acquired and they surprised us with news that they'll be taking a sabbatical in fiji for a couple of months before moving to los angeles. so, while it's great news for them, we're a little sad that this is one of the last times that they'll get to play with odin for awhile.

the eric update - day 144: first thanksgiving!

little odin's first thanksgiving started early and with quite a bit of drama when i awoke at 5:30 a.m. to strange sounds coming from the kitchen and found everyone's favorite malamute, mauja, laying in a pool of urine and apparently unable to use his hindlegs! what a way to start the day!

mauja had hip surgery for severe hip dysplasia when he was 9 months old, and although he hasn't had any problems for years, i immediately assumed he had blown out his hip. suspiciously, he was laying next to the stove which had a pan sitting on the burner; mauja had just stolen two pounds of cooked burger off the stove the night before and i could very clearly imagine him trying the same stunt again, slipping, and throwing out his hip. the hole in that theory was that he wasn't making any noise, which was odd because he's normally very vocal and even more so if he's in any sort of pain; i just chalked the quietness up to doggy shock as kris and i tried to figure out how we were going to get a 110 pound injured dog down three flights of stairs.

luckily, kris' father answered the call for help and came over quickly to lend a hand. after many unsuccessful attempts to put mauja in a blanket and carry him down the steps ( too unstable ), we found a dog crate and actually managed to wedge him inside which was no small feat considering he wasn't such a big fan of going in the crate and his back legs weren't working. although he was putting up a little bit of a struggle, he wasn't howling bloody murder which is what would have normally happened if he thought he was going in a crate, non-functional hind legs or not. again, i just chalked it up to doggy shock as we struggled to carry him down the steps while he remained silent.

as we pulled into the empty parking lot, i found myself amazingly thankful that there actually was an animal emergency hospital open at 6:30 in the morning on thanksgiving. a nice woman wheeled out a gurney on which we heaved the crate as we walked in and explained the calamity. once inside we took the crate off the gurney and placed it on the floor as the vet's assistant suggested that we open the door and see if he would walk out on his own accord.

"impossible", i exclaimed, as i opened the crate door and watched mauja walk out! he was unsteady and acting somewhat like a drunken sailor, but he was walking nonetheless.

then slowly, all the pieces came together - laying in a pool of urine, the changed behavior, ataxia; a seizure.

as he slowly recovered, eventually regaining his mamalute voice and a fully coordinated gait, it became increasingly clear that he had almost certainly had a seizure. we know all about seizures, since we had to put down a wonderful 2 year old german short haired pointer, harper, who had severe epilepsy. it was horrible to watch a 60 pound pointer go into a grand mal and i can only imagine what it would be like to try to prevent a huge malamute from hurting himself while seizing.

it's unlikely that the cause of mauja's seizure was the same as harper's. in fact, it's possible that the protein spike from the stolen hamburger caused his seizure and he might not have another one. there are many, many different causes of siezures so all we can do is sit and wait and see if he has anymore.

despite being woken early and spending time in the animal hospital, little odin was a champ and slept through most of the experience.

after all the excitement at the animal hostpital we were running behind and needed to hurry up and get on the road so we could drive grand blanc, michigan to have thanksgiving dinner with my folks, auntie m and other family and friends.

d'oh! everyone else is trying to get out of town at the same time and apparently many off them have forgotten how to drive as there are many accidents along the way. we repeat over and over that we're very thankful to be stuck in traffic on thanksgiving, as little odin's lets us know from the backseat that he's tired of the carseat and he's hungry.

eventually we finally arrive at odin's grandparents house and we have a great meal with all the fixings.

grandma snowdeal already had her christmas tree on display and odin slowly fell asleep in auntie m's arms after being mezmerized by they bulbs and lights.

we had a short but fun visit and had to quickly turn right back around to make it back to kris' parent's for a second thanksgiving dinner. unfortunately by the time we got there odin was well past being overtired. we could certainly relate, since early morning visits to emergency animal hospitals, driving over 200 hundred miles and two thanksgiving meals was certainly enought to make us tired too; so, after another brief visit, we found ourselves thankful to head home where we all fell fast asleep.

the postcard project: stockholm sweden.

"nordic mamma" sent a beautiful postcard of stockholm, sweden, which is the capital and the largest city of sweden.

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 143: first snow!

whooohooo! it's little odin's first snowstorm! and if the weatherperson proves correct, it's looking like it's going to be a great first snow, as we're predicted to get between 3 and 6 inches here in grand rapids, michigan.

he's only in the car seat so he can enjoy the benefits of the "bundle me". we made kris go run errands by herself so we wouldn't have to risk being on the road during the weather.

yeah, that's it. that's why we made kris run errands by herself. don't go thinking that it had anything to do with my general disdain for shopping.

the eric update - day 142: sleeping in the cradle swing.

today was one of those days when the big news was the fact that odin fell fast asleep in his nature's touch baby papasan cradle swing. regular readers will remember that up until today, rather than helping him to fall asleep, the cradle swing would have the opposite effect and keep him wide awake.

so if you're keeping track, it only took 41 days for the swing to be magically transmorgified into a sleep induction device.

who knows what magic switch flipped in his little baby brain, but nonetheless i'm guessing that the swing will be a lot handier in the days to come :-)

the postcard project: nova scotia, canada.

emily sent us two cards from nova scotia. i remember this made me and the nurses laugh out loud in the nicu. it's a good thing to have a laugh or two in the nicu. thanks, emily!

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 141: attack of the malamute tongue and a visit from auntie m!

in preparation for the arrival of a very special visit from auntie m, we've dressed up and as i'm innocently trying to get a picture of odin's super snazzy zutano duds, when mauja decides he really wants to get in the picture. or so i think. really, mauja just seems to want to clean odin and he keeps trying to sneak in laying a big wet tongue on odin. mauja has a funny look on his face because he's just sticking his tongue back his mouth and looking at me with his famous whaaaaaat-give-me-a-break-i'm-just-trying-to-clean-your-kid-so-get-off-my-case look.

as you can see, odin feels that mugging for the camera is very tiring work.

after discovering that we're onto his tongue licking tricks, he still tries to sneak in a subtle tongue flick every so often. little odin is quite used to the malamute cleaning regime and generally puts up with it.

we've heard hearsay that malamutes were entrusted with helping to take care of inuit children; it's probably just an legend, but given his nearly obsessive compulsive need to guard, care and clean odin, i'm inclined to believe there's at least a nugget of truth to the story.

my sister is in michigan for thanksgiving, which is a special treat, since she normally hangs out in the northeast, which is where you'll find most of the other members of the snowdeal tribe.

due to a odd twist of fate she was also in town for odin's birth, but never had a chance to see him because she wasn't on the nicu visitor short list ( sorry sis! :-) ). so this is the time she's been able to see him after watching him grow for months via the internet.

she's got that special 'auntie' touch and he seems quite enthralled with her. i think she'll do just fine on babysitting duty for years to come. and now we've got the perfect bait to lure her away from the northeast! bwaaaahahahaa!

the eric update - day 140: twenty weeks!

he's 140 days old today and you know what that means - it's it's twenty week birthday! that's a little over a third of a year!

carter, but one of his growing collection of stuffed animals, stops by to admire odin's very stylish fall cardigan and tells me later that he's going to try to hook us up with his contacts at baby gap for future modeling gigs.

the eric update: the postcard project.

after much procrastination, i'm finally going to get around to slowly uploading all the postcards that odin has received since his birth . i have some crazy plans to geocode each postcard and create whizzy webpage that shows where each postcard came from, but now i'm going to be realistic and just start scanning them in.

this was not the first postcard we received, but it certainly was one of the most special :-)

the fine folks at flickr have been mighty supportive since the very beginning and for that we're much obliged. oh, i should probably note that even though he's not in the hospital anymore, you can still send him a postcards. we had big plans to visit each locale that we get a postcard from, but we've already received so many that we might have trouble getting to them all. but don't let that stop you from sending as many as you'd like :-) i probably won't post too many individual postcards here, so go and checkout the the postcard project on flickr. it's particularly fun as a slideshow.

the eric update - day 139: is it sleepy time or wakey time?

while little odin is technically 139 days old, in age-adjusted terms, he's barely just a month old, since, from a developmental perspective, his body doesn't really care that he arrived 15 weeks early. that means that little odin's sleep schedule is much more like a newborn than it is like a 5 month old and we have to be very careful that we don't try to get him into a regular sleep schedule before his body is ready.

books like "healthy sleep habits, happy child" have really helped us get a handle on what to expect. most importantly, he still has no circadian rhythms or internal biological clocks yet, so there's absolutely no hope of getting him on any sort of sleep schedule. babies who are his age also become overtired after only an hour or two of wakefulness . overtiredness can lead to fussiness, so we're constantly attuned to how long he's been awake and reading his cues as to avoid the overtired downward spiral.

babies less than 6 weeks old also tend to fall asleep very late and don't sleep for very long during the day or night. so despite the fact that he's 139 days old, we're still all sleeping like there's a newborn in the house.

luckily, six weeks or so ( again, in age-adjusted terms ) seems to be the magic date after which 80 percent of babies become more settled at night and sleep for longer periods.

the eric update - day 138: his last preemie outfit!

little odin is getting so big so fast that he has one preemie outfit left that fits him!

it seems like just yesterday that we were doing his first load of laundry for his street clothes. and now they're all too small!

whooohooo!

the eric update - day 137: unwired!

whooooohooooo! early today we received a call from his pediatrician and, after consulting with the neonatologists, everyone decided that little odin could be unwired from the home monitor!

after 137 days of having one thing or another attached to his body, this is A Really Big Deal.

so, with a little cermonial flair, we removed the last visible evidence of the nicu days, which seemed to make little odin quite happy.

the eric update - day 136: double trouble?

some of you might know for the the snowdeal show ® we co-purchased a multiple tenant unit house in the historic district of our city with kris' sister and her partner. we occupy a unit and they occupy a unit and we rent out the other two to tenants.

they recently had a baby, wheeler francis griffin-salmi and, of course we have little odin and one of the advantages of having family in the house is that there's always a helping hand nearby ( just like the "old days"! perhaps someday we can just get a grandparent or two to occupy one of the other units :-) ).

today we had our first chance to take care of wheeler francis while her parents were away and it was enlightening to get a small taste of what parents of multiples go through every single day. i think each additional newborn exponentially complications the caregiving process. it's a delicate balance of eating, sleeping, holding and feeding and if you're really lucky by the end of the day, they'll be perfectly syched and want to be fed and held at exactly the same time.

our next door neighbors have two-and-a-half year old triplets and i really can't imagine how they've managed to retain their sanity. not that caring for wheeler was too terribly difficult - i just can't imagine doing it day-in and day-out.

the eric update - day 135: happy prematurity awareness day!

i'll bet you probably didn't know that november 16th is prematurity awareness day, according to the march of dimes!

the march of dimes does more than any other organization to sponsor research that helps premature babies to have better outcomes than ever could have been hoped for just a few years ago. when i was born a 26 weeker in 1972 the survival rate was so dismal that doctors and nurses often didn't try to do anything to safe babies born at less than 30 weeks gestational age. it just wasn't worth it.

but things are different now and the march of dimes is a big reason why.

the first image is part of their "banding together" program which allows people to contribute on behalf of a specific preemie. i'm not trying to twist any non family member's arms into donating - and i know that there are some family members that are more comfortable donating anonymously, while some like to publicly show their support. so if you're a family member, i'll just assume that you donated even if i don't see your name and you can feel guilty about it later if you didn't :-)

more on prematurity awareness day can be found here and on the national prematurity awareness day "live blog". the march of dimes is very active in encouraging nicu parents to communicate their stories and has even recently started a share your story site that features blogs prominantly. they've even started a flickr group pool.

the eric update - day 134: new kids on the block!

all the new kids on the block get together for their first photo session! odin's cousin, wheeler francis is on the left, the newest kid in town - ian thomas - is in the middle, and little odin is on the right.

you couldn't ask for three babies with more different birth stories and now they're all together at last, safe and sound.

in my non-parent days, i thought that all babies looked pretty much the same, but now i'm struck by how very different they all look and act; it's hard to imagine what they'll all be like a year from now.

the eric update - day 133: a delivery!

auntie cindy finally had her baby last night! ian thomas weighed in at 7 pounds 5 ounces and 21 inches long. despite having a long labor with lots of stops and starts, everyone is doing fine.

to celebrate the new arrival we went on a field trip to their house which is just a block away and delivered a bunch of goodies, including homemade chicken soup, chicken enchiladas and chicken pot pies, vegetarian pasta, french bread baguettes and a cherry pie from a local bakery.

little odin helped out by letting us use his stroller to transport all the food.

they weren't home, so we snuck in and rearranged their fridge and freezer. hopefully they won't mind too much :-)

the eric update - day 132: a field trip to go car shopping!

today we bundled odin in the bundle me, wired to the home monitor and chilling with the supersized paci in preparation for a field trip to go car shopping! i try to imagine what our car saleperson's face will look like if the monitor were to go off in the showroom, while we were looking over the vehicles. no alarms went off but we did get a lot of quizzical looks as you could see people trying to figure out what the wires were that were coming out of his carseat. nobody bothered to ask.

yeah. that's right. we're shopping for a minivan. sadly, we've discovered quite quickly that the tdi wagon just isn't very convenient as a family vehicle, especially with two dogs.

so, knowing full well that i was about to do one of the last things i ever though i would do, we set off to the car dealer to test out a honda odyssey.

at least i can still put on a muscle shirt and work on the '65 galaxie 500 when i'm feeling the need to feel manly :-)

the eric update - day 131: a boy and his security frog.

little odin likes to be held. a lot. and we're normally quite happy to oblige, but sometimes - the weego notwithstanding - it's nice to lay him down so we can get the daily chores done.

so we've started laying him down with a big stuffed frog which we've been carrying around with us so that it smells like us, which the experts claim he'll find comforting.

so, instead of a blanket, he'll have a "security frog".

and maybe when he gets a little bigger, he'll enjoy the comforts of a "security dog".

the eric update - day 130: attack of the bulb syringe!

all babies get stuffy noses and might need a bulb syringe to remove the mucous, but we've learned that micropreemies can get stuffy noses a lot more often because the length of their nasal passage is shorter than normal and can accumulate gunk. so a much of the day can be spent dripping saline solution in odin's nose to loosen things up and using the bulb syringe to remove the offending material.

odin got fairly used to getting all manner of things shoved up his nose while he was in the nicu so he usually tolerates getting the snot sucked out, as long as you act fast - otherwise, he'll let you know he'd really rather you to speed up the process.

one digital camera to rule them all.

and now for somethign completely different. i just can't not point out that popular photography named nikon d70 as camera of the year.

after shooting thousands of pictures over the past 5 months, i still love the camera. and if it can turn me into a passable photographer, just imagine what it could do for you ( it's funnier if you imagine an infomercialized voice )!!.

now, if nikon would just get it's act together and sponsor this blog the world would be perfect :-)

all ( sort-of ) kidding aside, it's hard to remember what life was like before digital photography, flickr ( and blogger, without which this would be impossible ( or at least very, very difficult ).

the eric update - day 129: not an quite an 8 pounder. yet. but soon.

we had another normal "healthy checkup" visit with the pediatrician today and discovered that, we'd been fooled by faulty scales and that he's not really broken the 8 pound mark just quite yet. today he tipped the scales at 7 pounds 14.5 ounces or about 3586 grams.

his last couple of weighins have been done when he was fully clothed which was obviously contributing to the artificial gains.

but not to worry, it still appears that he's gained about 20 ounces in 14 days, so he's still doing great with his weight gains ( anything above an ounce a day is fantastic ) and the pediatrician doesn't feel that he needs any additional fortifier, which is super good because he's been nursing so much that he hasn't been getting any fortifier anyway ( you can't add the fortifier to the milk when it's coming straing from The Source ).

the doctor also said that he wanted to order a "download" of the data from his home monitor and if the neonatologists thought that everything looked o.k. then he'll finally be "unwired"! i suspect the process of doing the download and everyone consulting with each other might take about a week, so we'll have to deal with false alarms and wires for just a bit longer.

the eric update - day 128: a little changing table time.

at this point i'm wondering who is still interested in stopping by for boring ol' pictures of little odin on the changing table :-)

the eric update - day 127: a backrub from mama.

ah yes, there's nothing quite as comforting as a backrub from mama, especially after a big meal.

the eric update - day 126: a boring sunday! no-cry sleep solution?

a perfectly boring sunday! what could be better?

all the excitement these days happens at night. while he's spending more and more time awake during the day, he's more awake during the night and quite regularly he's most awake between 3a.m. and 6.am. and sometimes in those wee hours of the morning, he's generally inconsolable unless you're holding him. constantly.

it might be time to go back and review the principles of "the no-cry sleep solution" so we can all get a little more sleep :-)

the eric update - day 125: a visit with auntie cindy

she's not a "real" aunt, but we think of her as one anyway. she was on the official visitor list at the old nicu, so little odin is mighty familiar with her voice.

as you can see, cindy is very, very pregnant. in fact, at this moment her "mucous plug" ( charming!) had already broken and she's having mild contractions. if she doesn't go into labor in the next 24 hours or so, the doctors will probably induce labor.

she only lives a block away so after she has her baby there will be even more kids for odin to play with when he grows older!

the eric update - day 124: off weego!

we recently received our weego baby carrier the other day and it's amazing how much easier it makes life. it's a lot easier to go about mundane daily tasks when you have both hands free!

we chose the weego over more popular brands because it was recommended on a preemie discussion list. but they don't sell them in the u.s. anymore and it was a little tough to get one shipped from germany.

interestingly, it appears that the owners recently stopped selling them in the u.s. due to product liability concerns and it appears that appears that their german liability laws are supposed to prevent them from shipping them to the u.s. oops! oh well, we get to enjoy the benefits of the carrier that eltern rated the best soft carrier, beating out the always popular snugli and baby bjorn.

odin loves his weego and will often fall fast asleep for hours, even missing his feedings if we're not careful, which is quite unusual for him. but it's best to be prepared for feeding after he wakes up or else he'll be sure to express his extreme dissatisfaction with the circumstances.

the eric update - day 123: 4 months! spitting a stitch. on milestones.

yes, today was odin's 4 month birthday!

we celebrated by visiting his pediatric surgeon to have him check one of his hernia scars which, about a week ago, began to get red and puffy and we feared that it might be getting infected. earlier this week we stopped by the pediatrician's offices and they thought that the surgeons should take a look at it; although they didn't think it was infected, they didn't think it looked quite right.

before the surgeon looked at the scar, odin was weighed and much to our surprise we discovered that he's already blown past the 8 pound mark and tipped the scales at about 8 pounds 6 ounces, which means he's gained 11 ounces in just 3 days?! today he was weighed with all his clothes on which probably accounts for some of the weight increase, but it's likely that he's officially at least an 8 pounder.

as you can see, he's not very happy with being weighed.

happily, the surgeon determined that the redness and puffiness was not a serious concern. the stiches that are holding his incisions together are slowly dissolving and his body is mounting a "normal" immune response against the foreign material, creating a "stitch absyss" ( a process also known as "spitting a stitch" ) which will slowly get absorbed back into his body. they absyss shouldn't cause him any pain and will likely disappear in a few weeks.

we've noticed over the past week that odin is doing a much better job of holding his head up by himself and he's actually starting to make little baby 'oooohs". before they hit their original due date micropreemies are often much quieter than one might expect and they don't often make the sorts of cutesy noises that one normally associates with babies ( mostly they just emit grunts and groans ). technically, although he's not really even a month old ( in age adjusted terms ), it's interesting to look at how his development compares to "normal" (ack!) baby milestones. from a motor skills perspective, he seems to be ahead of the game and acts like any other 3-4 month old baby - he can hold his head up, reaches for objects, can roll over and can bring his hands together; but he still has some work to do on the verbal skills as he only very occasionally 'oooohs' and 'aaaaaahs', doesn't really seem close to imitating speech sounds and doesn't 'coooh' when you talk to him ( although he most certainly recognizes familiar voices ).

all in good time. all in good time.

the eric update - day 122: almost 4 months old!