Breathing Free!

Hannah's been off the oxygen for about a day and a half now. Last night was the first night that she kept herself above 92% (blood oxygen saturation) without the cannula, and that's the magic number that the respiratory therapist said we need to maintain. She stays above 94% during the day easily enough, often hitting 100%, but when she's in a deep sleep, her oxygenation tends to drop two or three points.

We still keep her connected to the oxygenation monitor at night, but during the day, we just do spot checks when she falls asleep. After a few nights of cannula-free sleep, we might be brave enough to go overnight without the monitor. That will be a challenge, because after three months, we've gotten used to the security of knowing that if Hannah stops breathing for any reason, however unlikely, the machine will tell us within a few seconds. As much as we curse the bleeping machine when it gives us a false alarm, we both wake up several times each night and glance over at the monitor, which tells us with a big yellow number that Hannah is doing fine. Without the monitor, we'll probably both be getting out of bed every few minutes to walk over and make sure she's still breathing and pink. But then, all new parents probably do that for a few days. We've just had a three month reprieve.

The developmental specialist that saw Hannah yesterday confirmed that she's doing great, on par with other infants of her adjusted age. This means that compared to full-term babies born around Hannah's original due date, she's right where she needs to be as far as behavior, weight, and size. She's technically six months old, but since she was born over three months early, she compares roughly to a three-month old. The only thing she really noted was that Hannah's head was flatter on the right side, so we need to encourage her to sleep with her head to the left.

Mmmm . . . Yummy Soap!

I suppose that when every single meal is the same old thing, day after day, any new taste is welcome. For Hannah, that tasty diversion is bath soap. She seems to like licking suds off her hands.


Mom and Rena liked the picture below enough that I figured it should make it to the blog. As you might have guessed, I take a LOT of pictures of Hannah, and only a few make it to the blog. This one didn't make the original cut because I preferred the ones where she was smiling and her eyes were better lit.


We have an appointment with a developmental specialist Tuesday, who will assess how well Hannah is progressing as far as behavior, coordination, awareness, etc. From what I've read, she seems to be doing fine . . . but it would be better to hear that from someone more qualified than myself.

It occurred to me that this blog tends to focus on Hannah (duh), and you're mostly hearing about it from my perspective. You don't hear much about Carla. Well, Carla is doing just great, and seems to be happier than she's been in a long, long time. So am I, as you've probably noticed from reading the blog. And Carla is doing a phenomenal job with all the late night feedings and diaper changes, mixing and medicating formula, baths and breathing treatments. I help out on nights and weekends, and take the late night feedings when I don't have to work the next day. But Carla is handling the bulk of all this with grace and ease, falling into the motherhood role quite naturally.

Most importantly, Hannah is, as far as we can tell, content and happy. She smiles a lot, and it lights up corners of our home that we had never noticed were dark.

Bad Hair Day

I should have known better than to store my Rogaine in a baby lotion bottle . . .


Mom knitted this hat out of furry yarn. If she calls my bluff and knits matching ones for Carla and me, we'll have a particularly unique family photo for next year's Christmas mailing.

Hannah's been off the oxygen all day today, playing a lot more freely and getting carried around the house a lot just because we can. She'll still be on the oxygen at night until she sats high enough without it, but she's now on the lowest setting the machine can deliver, 1/32nd of a liter per minute. That's only about six teaspoons of oxygen per minute, so it's surprising it makes much difference at all.

Checking In

Not much new going on. Carla went back to a real chorus rehearsal for the first time tonight, so I got to babysit. We had an uneventful visit to the pulmonologist today, mainly to get Hannah's monthly synagis (RSV) vaccination. The nurse seemed pleased with Hannah's progress, and says we can leave her off the oxygen whenever she's satting above 91. That essentially means she'll only need it when sleeping or napping. I expect that in a couple weeks she won't even need it then.

I've been fairly busy at work the past couple weeks, with colleagues from Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Japan and Mexico in town for training and meetings. So I'm looking forward to the weekend.

Some friends sent a link to a cool jigsaw puzzle site. If you want to spend a few minutes putting together a puzzle of a never-before-published photo of Hannah, click here. To make your own puzzle, just find a suitable photo on your hard drive and visit http://www.jigidi.com.

Senorita Hannah's Untethered Adventure

We went out to eat this evening at our favorite Indian restaurant. What makes it notable, though, is that this is the first time Hannah has taken a field trip with no tubes or wires. We had the oxygen and monitor in the car, just in case, but she'd been off the oxygen and satting (keeping her oxygen saturation up) high since around noon, so we just watched her color and she pretty much dozed contentedly throughout the meal. When we got home, she was still satting high, and ready for playtime on the mat. We keep her on the monitor to make sure she's doing OK, and we'll put her back on the oxygen before bed tonight. But it's beginning to look like she can do fine without it. We'll see what the pulmonologist thinks next Thursday.

I had to drive back to the restaurant to look for a missing bootie. We had put her booties on in the car seat and covered her with a blanket like we normally do, to protect her from the cold when moving to/from the car. The blanket stayed on the whole time, we just fold it down to uncover her face once we get inside. But when we got home and whisked away the blanket, one bootie was gone. And Hannah just looked at us as if to say "Ta daaa! Put the blanket back and I'll make the other one disappear!" These aren't just any old booties (they're shaped like little ducks and were a gift), so I went back to the restaurant and found the wayward footwear sitting next to the cash register. I'll duct-tape them on next time.


Hannah got to wear her first skirt today, part of an ensemble from her Tio (uncle) Gabe. Looks like she'll be able to grow into it for several months, probably as long as we can still fit the top over her ever-expanding head.

Six Months Old

Hannah turned one half a few days ago, at least in actual age. Since her due date was supposed to be November 1st, she's only 2 and 1/2 months when compared to other babies. She got a glowing review at her six-month checkup.


Carla crashed as soon as I got home, so Hannah's hanging out here in the study with me, while mom catches up on some sleep.

We got an email from one of Hannah and Steven's NICU nurses the other day. It's gratifying to be able to share her progress with the folks that saved her life. If there are any other NICU nurses or doctors reading this, please drop us a line; we'd love to hear from you.

On an almost completely unrelated topic, my brother Bruce has invented and is selling a cool tooth fairy kit (click here to check it out). If your kids are still at the gullible age, this would be a great way to freak them out. For a couple bucks more, I'll throw in a customized note from the tooth fairy that says "I took the loose tooth this time Timmy, but next time, I'm bringing the pliers! Huahahahahaha!" OK, that was a Far Side joke . . . must credit the master where credit is due.

For another quick clip of a smile and a squeal from Hannah (4MB), click here.

Learning to Play

Whenever I find myself thinking that Hannah is surely the cutest and smartest baby ever to grace the face of the planet, the objective Karl tells me that every parent thinks the exact same thing, and we're all absolutely correct. Carla and I were just a little bit late joining the least exclusive club every formed, and now that we're members, we feel a bit silly that we just didn't get what all the fuss was about. Now, I find myself wanting to ask perfect strangers, "Do you have kids? So do I! What do yours look like? Here's some pictures of mine! . . . No! Come back! That was just the first 100!"

Hannah spent about 4 hours off the oxygen entirely yesterday. I was changing out her nasal cannula and noticed that her pulse oximeter readings were just fine without it. So I set the oximeter on a tighter setting (so it would tell me sooner if she needed to get back on the cannula) and went about my chores while she played with her toy bar and for a while on her play mat. Four hours later, her oxygenation levels were still perfectly normal. I count her breathing rate occasionally, on and off the oxygen, to make sure she isn't just having to breath faster, since that burns up calories that otherwise would go toward growth.

Her readings only started to dip when she fell asleep, perhaps because she's not as consciously regulating her breathing. So we put the cannula back on, set at the lowest setting. We would probably leave the cannula off more often, but alternating between it off and on means that the tape has to be taken off and put back on, and we don't want to irritate her skin by constantly putting tape on it and pulling it off a few hours later.

Anyway . . . she has started to use her hands more when playing. She seems to have learned how to make the toy bar light up and play music by batting at the toys, and one of her other crib toys has some dangling rattles that she bats at more often that would seem statistically likely if it were random flailing.

She's pretty much sleeping through the night, except for when I tell anyone that she's sleeping through the night, after which she dances the ga-ga cha-cha until the wee hours, just to remind us who's boss. So, since my blog logs show that there are about 15 unique visitors each day, that means she'll keep us up late for the next two weeks. If you don't see an update for a while, you'll know why.

I don't really have any new photos, but here are a couple of videos. For a relatively small clip of Hannah Smiling (1.6MB), click here. For a longer video of Hannah jamming with a singing lion, checkout this clip on youtube.

Heads Up

I think we've hit another milestone. Hannah's supposed to be able to hold her head up at 45-degree angle while lying on her tummy. This is a precursor to crawling and is one of the 3-month milestones that parents obsess about when they read too many books.


She's also learned a new trick: she'll sit in her bouncy seat and say "Ga!" until someone comes over to make faces at her and make her smile. I've tried this out at work and it works pretty well there, too. Except the faces I get are more looks of consternation and concern.

Tummy Time and a Slideshow

Because preemies spend the last few months of their gestation outside the womb, their muscular development takes a somewhat different path than with full-term babies. Instead of floating free in a cushion of fluid for those last 14 weeks, Hannah was on her back or side in an incubator; the breathing tube prevented her from lying on her stomach. Because of this, the muscle tone of preemies is not as evenly distributed as in other babies . . . the muscles used when lying on their back are more developed that the rest, and preemies sometimes develop an aversion to lying on their tummies.

So we've been encouraged to place Hannah on her stomach for a few minutes every day, to give her a chance to develop the arm and neck strength needed to raise her head and eventually crawl (in essence, we've got her doing push-ups). This is always tricky with the nasal cannula in place, because her face is against the play mat, and the cannula pops out of her nose when she twists her head. But lately, she's been oxygenating well enough without the cannula that we can take it off during tummy time, and she can move a lot more freely. And she actually seems to enjoy it until she gets bored and wants to see what else is going on above floor level.

I don't think she understands yet that she's supposed to be working on push-ups, because she mostly just tongues the play mat until it gets soggy. Here's a picture of her taking a break from licking the play mat clean.


And I've put together a slideshow of photos from birth to year-end. It's interesting to see the progression from 1.5 to 10.5 pounds, and from anxiety to elation. If you've been following the story, you've probably seen all of these photos except one, which I never posted because it was a little blurry and quite sad at the time. It's easier to take now, since we know the story has a happy ending. If you're using a PC, click here to watch the high-res slideshow. If you're on a Mac or Linux machine, there's a lower-resolution version here on Youtube.

Ready For A Snowball Fight

Mom knitted a cap with ear flaps for Hannah, to make sure she doesn't forget her Yankee roots, I guess. Hannah seems to like it.


We had a long overdue visit last night with Hannah's friends in Carla's chorus (Heart of Dallas Chorus). Carla got to sing for a bit and Hannah and I got to listen. We hadn't seen most of those folks in quite a while, so it was a great reunion.

Hannah had her last follow-up appointment with the eye doctor yesterday, and he said her retinal development has now caught up with where a newborn should be. So we don't have to go back for an eye exam until this time next year. And that's a good thing, judging by how loud Hannah cried when they held her eyes open to take a peek, even for a few seconds.

The only other thing going on is pounds, onto Hannah's increasing non-tiny frame. She's 11 pounds now, and we're having to retire all the preemie clothes. I tried to dress her in one of her usual outfits and she looked like a handful of overstuffed sausages.

We Made It!

This has been a long year, but it seems like we were celebrating the start of 2007 just a couple months ago, in a cloud of uncertainty. Now, all those previous new years seem empty in comparison.

Carla and I have had our champagne (Carla gets the extra dry stuff, so I add a bit of Splenda when she's not looking), Hannah had her own bottle of Chateau Similac 2007, and Hazie got some Swanson's chicken broth to ring in the new year.

To all of you who've kept us going though 2007 and given us a good boost for 2008, Happy New Year! We love you all and hope the new year treats you well.

Karl, Carla, and Hannah