Here are a few pictures from those first few days.

I called Jonathon and told him I was coming home to get him. We had my dad come over and watch Bailey, and we went by Target and went to get lunch. When we got back up to the hospital, we changed him into some snuggly fleece NEWBORN size jammies. Which were clearly about eight sizes too big.

I love this picture with me holding him!

And one with Daddy-

I love the “drunk on milk” baby pictures. And this baby sure does like to eat!

We kept telling him that the carseat was a good thing- that it was time to go home. He wasn’t easily convinced.

One last family picture in the NICU. It was bittersweet leaving, honestly. It was the only home my baby had known. The place where I spent hours and held him and watched him get better. And cried thousands of tears. The nurses were so loving, the other moms were so supportive. I can’t quite explain but it was strange to leave.

We were welcome home by one very excited big sister, though!

Here she is holding Taylor for the first time. With help.

When I went in the NICU they told me that they were getting ready to move Taylor off the CPAP because he was doing better! That was great news. He had been wearing a hat to hold the tube in place, so he got the hat off. I was finally able to rub his fuzzy little head! At this point he was on high humidity oxygen instead. Oh, you don’t know how good it is to feel your baby’s head until you haven’t been able to.

I was also SO jealous of the moms who had babies in the regular nursery who weren’t even holding them. It really made me mad to see those cribs parked in the nursery. Some of them even had signs “only feed every three hours” or “no pacifier please.” I just wanted to scream at those moms and say, “You can hold your child whenever you want to! Don’t be so selfish!” but yet when Bailey was in the regular nursery I know I left her there so I could nap, etc. Funny how perspective changes.

Jonathon came up after lunch and we went back down together to see Taylor. At this point he still did not want to hold him. I think honestly he was intimidated by all the tubes and wires. He kept saying that it was more important for me to hold him but I think that was an excuse. Up until this point I had also been pumping at least every three hours all day and night. I think when you can’t be with your baby it feels like the only thing you can do to help… By that evening his nurse told me she thought he was ready to try a bottle feeding. They knew I planned to breastfeed but they said we had to start trying with the bottle first. He had been too sick to nurse after his birth (although we didn’t know then why he wouldn’t). So his first feeding was at about 34 hours old. They used a syringe to put pumped milk into just the nipple of a bottle and we got to hold it in his mouth. He drank it right away and we were so happy. They had warned us that a lot of preemies (they were calling him a “late preemie” since he was born between 34-37 weeks, although he was also technically full term but exhibited a lot of preemie characteristics…) can’t coordinate their sucking and swallowing yet so this was great news.

Saturday was the day I was supposed to go home. My day nurse was awesome, though. She told me first that I could stay through dinner and then came back later to tell me she had arranged for me to be discharged after dinner but keep my room for another day.

Sometime early afternoon on Saturday, Taylor got off his oxygen and moved to forced room air. Then later that day he got taken off that too! This was my first glimpse of him without his nasal cannula. I kept saying, “He looks like a regular baby now!”

His poor little face was so sore from all the tape, though.

Jonathon finally held him for the first time since he was admitted to the NICU!

That evening, Jonathon brought Bailey up for a visit. Our nurse Kathy did a great job hiding all his wires and everything inside the blankets. I didn’t know if she would be concerned or even notice them but we didn’t want him to look “sick.”

She also enjoyed playing “This Little Piggy” with his toes… so cute…

That evening, my parents came up to visit. I brought my mom in to see him and the nurse surprised me by asking if I wanted to try nursing! He did great. I couldn’t believe it, he latched on correctly with the first try and just ate. So unlike his sissy, who took DAYS to figure out how to eat. It was so frustrating with her… so easy with him.

My parents brought Bailey up to visit soon after we moved to our room. My mom said she was SO excited to meet Baby Taylor. I had been looking forward to this moment for a long time and also stressing out about it. I was afraid it would set them up for sibling love, or hate, or something. It seemed like such a BIG moment. But it was just normal. It was my two kids, just checking each other out. Bailey was excited and wanted to touch his eyes, nose, ears etc. She said, “Hi Baby Taylor Owe-lin, I’m your big sister!” It was so sweet.

She also thought my hospital bed was pretty great and wanted to climb around on it. After crashing against my stomach several times she was removed from the bed.

She is also really into “big girl books” with real pages. She looks at board books sometimes but has to be in the right mood. Her current favorite books are anything princess (Especially Cinderella!), Wocket in my Pocket, Where the Wild Things Are (she calls it “Wild Fings ARE”), Sneetches, Dora Visits the Dentist, and Berenstein Bears Big Honey Hunt. She used to like the Little Mermaid but we were at a friends house one day and the movie was on. She saw the part where Ursula turns back into the Sea Witch at the end and now all she says is, “I don’t like the bad lady!” and she won’t have anything to do with it anymore. We have to be really careful what she watches and what parts of the books we “edit” when we read because she has such a big imagination!

Another thing she loves is her new colored pencils. She likes to draw with them. She doesn’t like coloring books much anymore- she would rather draw her own pictures and have us draw/color with her on blank paper. I guess that’s a good thing because it gets her to be more creative. She also likes to pretend to wrap presents for us. Anytime she can find a piece of tissue paper or scrap paper she starts folding it around a small object and then brings us the present to open.

She has just started learning the “grownup names” of people in our family. I think it’s good that she knows what our real names are, including last names, in case she ever needs to get help or talk to another adult for some reason. We are also going to start working on a phone number soon. She can say her full name and we are starting to learn how to spell it. She really likes knowing what adults’ names are, and she knows not to use their names but for some reason thinks it’s fun just to know.

She loves talking about her baby brother, and talking to him while he’s inside me. She always tells him, “Hi, Baby _____ ______. I’m your big sister! I love you and I will take care of you.” She puts stickers on my tummy for him, and talks about how she will hold toys for him to look at and read books to him when he is too little to hold the toys by himself. I love to see her excitement about him.

Anyway. I will be 23 weeks as of this weekend. The time is flying by so fast. I am more than halfway there. We have the bedding and most of the room decor stuff, thanks to a great sale and my mom spotting it for me! We have moved the crib and changing table into my office but haven’t really moved any office stuff out yet. I am dreading having my office downstairs with Jonathon’s because I won’t be able to just run in and out to check email etc all the time. We need to get the downstairs set up as more of a playroom for the kids.

I am feeling REALLY good right now. At about 20 weeks my heartburn was horrible but it has actually subsided a bit. Or maybe I am being more careful about what I eat. It only comes in the evening and is usually fixable with a Tums or two at this point. I had a few days of swelling back in mid October and had to put my feet up, but I haven’t swelled at all lately either. I feel this baby move a lot. That is definitely my favorite part of pregnancy. It seems like every time I eat something he wakes up and kicks around. Jonathon says that’s because boys love to eat! Speaking of Jonathon, he has started to take a slight interest in patting or kissing my belly every once in a while. Okay like maybe once a week, but it’s really sweet! Neither of us really talk to the baby at all. We didn’t with Bailey either… to me it just feels awkward.

Every time anyone asks me how I feel I tell them I am GREAT! If this was the only part of pregnancy and I could skip the sickness in the beginning, the first trimester worry, and the feeling huge/swollen/uncomfortable at the end I think I wouldn’t mind being pregnant twenty times. I also have more energy right now than I did even a few weeks ago. It’s hard to believe that in three or four weeks I will be in the third trimester. I guess that means I should hurry up and get some things done now, before my energy dwindles again.

Some fun news- we THINK we have a name for Baby Boy. We are both pretty much decided on it but it’s not officially official yet. I’m not sure whether I will share this one or wait and surprise you all. The idea of a surprise seems kind of exciting. Our family and good friends will know but maybe not the internet, at least not yet. And since we just started working on the nursery, here’s a little glimpse: