NICU Reunion

Every year, Medical Center of Plano holds a reunion for all the children that graduated from their NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). When your child is in the hospital for many weeks or months, you meet and bond with a lot of other parents and the nurses and doctors that are there every day saving your child's life. Then you leave (hopefully with a healthy baby) unlikely to to see most of those people again. The reunion gives us a chance to check back in with the other parents, and see their children free of the veil of tubes, wires, and worry that they wore in the NICU. And we get to see and thank again the doctors and nurses who worked so hard to bring our lives back in balance. I know they enjoy seeing their former patients happy and growing, and I envy them the ultimate sense of job satisfaction that these reunions must bring.

We met with our friends from the NICU, held each other's babies, and spoke of the families, doctors, and nurses that weren't able to attend. We have looked forward to this day for almost a year; every time we passed the poster in the NICU waiting room that had photos of previous year's graduates. Being able to attend the reunion was a goal that we sometimes, in the darkest days, dared not pin our hopes on. But all those smiling children gave us hope that we'd make it through the NICU experience as well.

We had our photo taken at the reunion, so now perhaps our faces will give a little hope to parents that find themselves walking past that poster every day for weeks that seem like months. Carla and I have both taken better portraits, but it's not about us, is it? It's about that beautiful little miracle sitting on my lap, oblivious for now of just how special she is. And it's about the tiny angel on the empty lap next to her, who gave his twin sister a bit of his strength their last few days in the womb, so she'd have the boost she needed to make it to this day.


We had hoped that Carter would make it to the reunion, but he's still recovering up in Boston. He's had a few scary days lately, but unfortunately, that's fairly typical for the ICU. Last I heard, he's doing well and we're just waiting for a bit more stability before he can head home.

Hannah's quite mobile these days, traveling on vinyl and carpet with equal ease. She likes the sounds her hands make when she's crawling on the kitchen floor, so sometimes she exaggerates it a bit, slapping the floor extra hard with each step. Making motorboat noises (with her mouth) also seems to add to the experience for her.


She's still trying to break into the coffee table (see below), ever since the one time the rubberband around the handles broke and she was able to start pulling out the treasure of incense, candles, and holiday gift tags. It's secured with a zip-tie now that she is unlikely to defeat until she masters her opposable thumbs and gets hold of some cutting tools. But that doesn't deter her, because she knows exactly what wonders lie behind those doors. I suggested to Carla that for Hannah's birthday present (July 15th) we should let her find those doors unlocked, with some new toys and maybe some yummy Cheerios behind them.


She's still working on pulling herself up on the hearth, chairs, or coffee table. I think she knows that the remote control we gave her to play with is just a decoy, and that the one up on the coffee table is the one to have. "Must . . . reach . . . remote!"

A World to Explore

I mentioned in the previous blog entry that Hannah was just starting to crawl, but didn't appear to be going anywhere deliberately. Well, that seems so long ago, now. The day after I posted that entry, she learned that she could get to point B from point A by coordinating those leg things with those arm things in a particular sequence (click here for a video of those first crawls). She now has red marks on her knees from scooting around all day. We've had to start using the dog gates to keep her from wandering too far, and can't look away for more than a few seconds if she's on the floor. I suppose it's fitting that Hannah figured out her transmission the day we got the Odyssey back with its new $4000 transmission (so much for Honda reliability).


We've had to put rubber bands around the coffee table doorknobs, because she learned that they open and there's a lot of stuff to taste in there. Now she just pulls the knobs and lets the rubber band slam it back, delighted with the cool wooden bass drum we inadvertently created for her.


Now that she's getting around in two dimensions, she's starting to notice that there are things going on above floor level that she might need to get involved in. So she's trying to climb legs and pillows and anything else low enough to provide a boost up off the floor into that third dimension (click here for a video).


Hannah had several visitors this weekend. My friend Don and his wife Kelly and son Danny stopped by. Don and I started at Texas Instruments at the same time in 1989 and have more or less worked together ever since. They brought Hannah some very cool toys (lots of buttons, levers, knobs, lights, and sounds) but somehow managed to sneak off before we got a picture of them for the blog.

Kenji and Yukiko traveled all the way from Japan to visit Hannah (OK, maybe Kenji is here on business, but Hannah doesn't need to know that). I met Kenji and Yukiko about 8 years ago when they showed me all around Japan while I was there on business. They brought Hannah a tiny Kimono that I'm sure you'll see here on the blog as soon as she grows into it.


Please don't get the impression that you have to bring gifts to visit Hannah. I now know how fun it can be to shop for toys and baby clothes, but I assure you we don't expect anything, and neither does Hannah. We love having visitors because we enjoy your company, and we're stuck at home these days anyway. :-) And Hannah appreciates anyone that will make faces at her and make her stuffed animals dance around. We don't need much advance notice if you're in the area and would like to drop by, as long as you don't care if the house is clean. Just call or email to make sure we're at home and decent. We're introverts, but Hannah needs to be socialized, so we're more than happy to emerge from our shells for her benefit.

Next weekend is the NICU reunion at Medical Center of Plano, when all the past graduates of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit are invited to meet at the hospital and catch up with all the doctors, nurses, and fellow patients and parents. While we were still at the hospital, this reunion was one of the goals we hardly dared hope for. Back then, just being able to bring Hannah back to the reunion at all was not a sure thing, and we didn't know what disabilities would be uncovered by all the testing yet to come. July 15th will be Hannah's first birthday, and the fact that we no longer even think of her as preemie is a remarkable and miraculous thing. She started life at 1.5 pounds, with lungs and digestive system that couldn't function without help from doctors and machines. She's now a 17-pound perfectly beautiful little girl, crawling and babbling and demanding to explore her new world, and I look forward to thanking the doctors and nurses that made that possible.

Babbling and Scooting

I wouldn't quite call it crawling yet, but Hannah has learned to scoot sideways and occasionally forward, so her world has just gotten a lot wider and more interesting. She can now roll over from back to tummy and vice versa, and can get herself into a sitting position. None of these seem particularly deliberate at this point, but she's got all the time in the world, and nothing better to do with it, so she looks quite proud when she finds that she has changed her position and view of the world all by herself. Just smiles up at me as if to say "Look what I did!"

And she's starting to tell us all about it. Started babbling up a storm a couple nights ago, out of the blue. The night before, I had suggested to her that vowels alone were getting old and that a few consonants and syllables would spice up our conversations. I guess she was just waiting for me to give her the go-ahead. You can see a short video (5MB) of Hannah babbling by clicking here.



I was trying to get a picture of Hannah's profile while she was staring up at one of her favorite toys (the ceiling fan), but every time she heard the whir of the camera auto-focusing, she'd look over at me with a "OK, take the picture already!" look. After about 10 shots identical to the one above, I gave up. I'll try focusing manually next time . . . no distracting whir. Nothing wrong with that girl's hearing.


She spends most of her time sitting or scooting on the floor now, no longer content to sit in the bouncy chair with its limited entertainment options. She likes the high chair now (used to hate it) because she can sit up straight by herself and we can lay out a bunch of toys on the tray. But the floor is still the fascinating frontier, so I had to stop by Lowes tonight for my first batch of baby-proofing supplies . . . foam bumpers for the hearth and coffee table corners.

I'm pretty sure children still survived childhood back before we had foam bumpers for every sharp corner in the house. But I don't want to be the first parent to go to jail for letting my kid split her head on the coffee table corner. I know there's a lawyer somewhere out there already working on the case file, just in case, ready to fill in the blanks and rocket to stardom on CNN.



Here's a picture with Aunt Rena, when she and Rosemary drove in to pick up Mom after I got back from East Asia. We all had a great time, and were sorry to see them drive off.



Hannah's playpen is near a window, and I noticed her pulling herself up to peek over the edge to see out into the back yard. So I helped her stand up (she can't pull herself to standing quite yet) and she hung on the the side and stared out the window for a while.



Here's a frog chair and crab footstool that Uncle Bruce (my older brother) made for Hannah. He's a data center manager by day and freelance carpenter/handyman on nights/weekends. And then, in his spare time, he builds stuff like this. And yes, this is the kind of overachievement I had to live up to while growing up.


Hannah's quick with a smile or laugh these days. But she gets real serious whenever she encounters something new, and you can almost see her little brain trying to wrap itself around stuff.


Here, she noticed the trees for the first time while we were outside taking pictures. Big green things moving around like Daddy does when he's trying to get Hannah to smile. Must be great to have so many new sights, sounds, and experiences every day. Makes me want to clobber myself over the head with a brick to cause amnesia, so I can experience everything anew, too. I can almost hear the line forming, of people wanting to help me with that.

In other news, Carter is recovering well after his multi-organ transplant. He's moving off IV feeds and on to formula, and is off the ventilator and onto a nasal cannula (like Hannah had for the first three months home from the hospital). These are all very encouraging developments and we're looking forward to seeing him put the hospital environment behind him and come home to Texas. Check out his blog for more details and updates.

Home Sweet Hannah

I'm back from overseas, and Hannah is a different girl than when I left her three weeks ago. She laughs and smiles more, is eating with gusto ("More squash, please!"), and sits upright by herself to play with her toys (although we usually leave the boppy around her, because when something gets her attention and she looks up quickly, she falls flat backwards and then looks up at us, asking "Why did you do that?"). She gained a pound while I was gone, up to over 17 pounds.



She's no longer content to lie on her back and play with dangling toys, and doesn't even like being confined to the bouncy. She prefers to sit up, so she can reach more toys. Last night, I put her to bed on her back and came back a few minutes later to find her rolled over, propped up on her arms, examining the layout and fabrics of the crib, with one foot sticking out through the slats.


She'll be crawling forward soon, though at the moment she still only has a reverse gear, and very little steering.

Carla's parents were here yesterday, stopping by on their way to Alaska for a month of one-week cruises, where Carla's dad lectures on the local culture and geography in return for free room and board (not too shabby a deal, on a cruise ship). So Jon and Cat took us all out for a birthday dinner at Brio's (my birthday was the 30th, Mom's was the 29th).

Hannah's NICU-mate Carter is recovering nicely from his multi-visceral transplant (stomach, intestines, spleen, pancreas, and liver). His parents will be walking next weekend in a benefit for other children needing transplants. If you'd like to donate, please check out the link at Carter's website.

I have so many great pictures of Hannah worth posting, it was hard to pick just a few. And Mom would kill me if I didn't include some that she took of me and Hannah. So look for a few more in the next few days, as well as a link to the rest of my travel photos.