Our Little Fighter - 16 days and counting

We have been so very blessed over the past several days with Landon's continued progress in the most positive direction.  After what seemed to be my worst night (outside of my re-admittance to the hospital) emotionally this past Friday, we had the most beautiful day on Saturday filled with so much love at our shower followed by the most exciting visit with Landon later that night.

I am still soaking everything in from our shower and will dedicate another post specifically to that at a later date.  In its simplest forms, it was amazing and the team behind me (my mom and sisters, Lauren and Liz) are rock stars!  I cannot even begin to articulate my emotions and gratitude to them, along with everyone else, for making Landon's celebration of life so incredibly special to us.  So... more to come as I continue to savor those moments!

As the fun-filled afternoon of the celebration winded down, Lance and I were so eager to begin our trek down to Penn to see our little boy.  Little did we know that while I was opening up all of the generous presents for our little guy, Landon was getting feisty and continued to pull out his CPAP (respiratory tube). Perhaps it may have been at the exact moment I broke down in tears after seeing the beautiful gift of the Willow Tree "New Life" Statue... hmm, one will only know, but wouldn't that be something! Due to his determination to begin to breathe normally, the nurses decided to transition him to a regular oxygen tube around 4pm on Saturday.  When we arrived, we were so shocked to see his handsome little face - exactly what we needed after a long week!  He is still getting some oxygen support, but each day they continue to monitor it and reduce the level of pressure that is needed (over the weekend he was at 5% and today he was brought down to 2%).

We also had a few more exciting surprises on Saturday night, which included his first bath time from mommy, mommy's first time getting peed on, his first time wearing a little t-shirt and a night full of his beautiful wide-opened eyes!  Daddy got some extra cuddle time, too!

Proud Papa Moment! Melts my heart! :)

No this is not a ginormous, over-sized binky, just a teeny-tiny baby!

The white t-shirt and blue jean look is going to be so cute on him one day, but for now he will be swimming in the preemie-sized clothes. C'mon weight gain!

In addition to our recent joyful visits, I have also found great support at Penn through the nurses, Donna the Lactation Consultant, and other NICU mommies.  There is the sweetest girl I met yesterday who just began her journey 3 days ago when she delivered her twins at 24 weeks.  Her little boy did not survive, but her little girl is fighting on weighing just over 1 pound and getting all the rest she can to continue to grow.  I cannot even fathom what she is going through having just lost a child, but she has been so inspiring with how positive and joyful her outlook is on life - such a strong, beautiful woman.  I am enjoying getting to know her and laughing over the memories of my first several pathetic pumping sessions as she is going through that now. 

A few of the babies closest to Landon in his nursery have been discharged or are on their way home shortly.  The two that were recently discharged were in the NICU for 12 and 30 days, both of which were technically born at "full-term" at about 37-39 weeks.  The little girl next to us is on her way home this week and we cannot be happier for her family as she has had a long stay thus far - she had lost her twin sibling as well.  She is the cutest thing and has such a loving family.  Despite the discharges, the nursery is still filling up as 3 more were admitted into our nursery in the past week.  Penn's NICU can hold up to 45 babies and they have been hoovering around the 35-40 mark since we have been there.  Although each of our individual situations are different, it is crazy how none of us had ever pictured that this is what the end of our pregnancy and the beginning of our parenthood would be like.

With my time at the hospital, I have been doing a lot of research on premature babies and reading various articles, blogs, etc.  I found that these two sources have a vast amount of informative articles as well as the emotional healing type stories as well.  The writing is superb as it truly captures the experiences in the NICU without me having to put it down into words.

http://www.preemiebabies101.com/
http://www.peekabooicu.net/

Also on my "downtime", I have been trying to figure out how we can celebrate Lance's first Father's Day too!  I am excited with what I have come up with at this point, considering that I thought I was going to be in the clear until next year!  Landon just knew that he has the greatest daddy in the world, so great that he couldn't wait to meet him!  And so I will leave you with this...

Like Father, Like Son...

"hey there, ladies!"