Cate's Half Birthday and Happy May Day

We want to thank everyone for donating to the March of Dimes. We had a great time on our 3mi walk. Cate was the last picture in the "Miracle Mile" :) It was a wonderful morning. Here are some new pictures of her. She weighed 8 1/2 lbs tonight. Tomorrow is her half birthday. Shes a very lucky kid to have a birthday on Halloween and a half birthday on May Day :)!!!

Update

Things are going well with Cate. I failed to mention that she is in the 7 pounder club. Last time we were at the dr office she was still a 6 pounder. The visiting nurse weighed her yesterday. Her scale is a little light, but she has her at 7 lb, 9 0z. We have a baby scale at home that has her at 7 lb, 13 oz. She should be in the 8 pounder club anyday now. She's eating like a maniac. I guess she takes after both of us that way. :) She screams bloody murder when you take the bottle out of her mouth to burp her. A girl's gotta eat! Area 13 (occupational therapist, physical therapist, early childhood dev specialist) came yesterday. They said she is doing better than they would expect for her corrected age. They practice tummy time and have her grab objects, etc. She kept smiling at all three ladies. She's quite a flirt. We were feeling hopeful that we would be able to take Cate with us to the March of Dimes walk. I saw today that they are forecasting Sunday as rainy and 55 degrees. :( I really want to be able to take her with us, so I'm praying for sun on Sunday. Thanks for checking in. I will try to post some pix later, but right now I have to feed my hungry girl.

Sad News

I got a phone call early Saturday morning from a friend with horrible news. She called and thanked me for sending Cate's preemie clothes to her. In the next sentence she said, "Ella didn't make it". Her sweet baby girl passed away on Friday. She got an infection, necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), the same infection Cate had. It sounds like things quickly went downhill. Ella was born at 26 weeks gestation in early March with a twin brother, Evan, that died at birth. Please say a prayer for my friends Mary and Brett. I can not imagine their grief. I thank God everyday for my little miracle. I do not want to ever take for granted how blessed we have been. I have been squeezing Cate a little tighter since I got the sad news.

Getting Better?

I'm scared to say it out loud for fear of jinxing things, but it seems that things may be getting better. Cate is sleeping more (although we can't go longer than 5 hours between feeds once in the night, and every other feed a max of 4 hours), smiling more, she's happier... Today I feel like I got some sleep (~6 hours) and I am actually crossing things off my to do list (blogging), besides feeding, burping, and pumping. I know I may be tired tomorrow and not get anything crossed off my to do list tomorrow, but I'll be thankful for today. Oh, and I counted how many "appointments"we had in February and March--16 each month. This month it looks like we will only have 9, unless something comes up. I wonder how I would manage working 40 hours right now and doing all this. I am in awe of the parents that can make it work. I was reading back to the beginning of this blog the other night. I was in such a fog then. Although I cried everyday, I don't think I always grasped the severity of things, or how things could've gone differently. I can't believe how far Cate has come. I am SO proud of her. She's the strong one. Gotta run. Time to feed my girl.

March of Dimes Walk April 26th

As many of you know we will be participating in the March of Dimes walk on April 26th in honor of our little miracle, Cate. You can go to http://www.marchforbabies.org/678300 to view our March for Babies web page or donate $$. Please let us know if you would like to walk with us. We have been so blessed and we are so excited to be able to pay it forward in some way.

Eye Doctor

I really need to get better at this blogging business, don't I? I keep telling myself to just do a short update every other day so I don't get overwhelmed with having so much info to share, but not wanting to write a novel. Anyway, I will try to do better. I have good news to report about the eye dr. We went last Monday and the dr said "I have great news". He said Cate's stage 1 ROP is gone. He said everything looked great with her eyes, that now we just have to be concerned about regular preemie eye issues and needing glasses for vision. Now we go back in June for her 6 month visit. That really made our day. Her vision seems better everyday, not so immature. She's really changing a lot. She is really turning into a happy baby. Everytime I look at her she has a smile on her face. And yet she's still not afraid to let us know when she's upset. :)