3/4/06 Update: Lily's 1st Birthday Party!

We celebrated Lily's birthday party today. Overall it went over well considering the stress and everything else. We did a garden/ladybug theme. Sean made Lily's cake and I decorated it (pictures below). I think it turned out beyond cute and am quite proud of myself. Lily ended up sleeping through the half part of her party. We had to wake her up for cake and presents. She ended up being fairly cranky from being woken up though. The pinata was a hit again (no pun intended). Caden was whacking the daylights out of it. Even the adults got in on the fun (Come on, how else would it finally break open?) After the pinata, we had cake. Lily cried when we sang to her but her tears ended when she got her first taste of her birthday cupcake. she devoured it! She got some really cute gifts. Her favorite is this alphabet pal she got. She didn't end up taking an afternoon nap so she went to sleep around 6. Slept until 8. Woke up long enough to get her jammies on and head back to bed. Poor baby. All in all it turned out ok. I'm glad we went ahead with the party considering the circumstances because I think I would have really regretting not doing anything for her very first birthday.




We didn't end up getting over to see Emma until late last night (around 9.30 p.m.). I did try to go with Susan and Kym after Lily's Party but we got there during shift change which I totally forgot about. Anyways, We went with Sean's friend Dan. Seana nd I went in first and then I went out so Dan could go see her. The nurse Christina, who we absolutely LOVE, came to the door and told me to go take off my shirt and come back with just my zip up jacket that she wanted me to try skin to skin kangaroo care. Oh my goodness! I couldn't believe it. I was changed and back within 2 minutes. Sean's friend left so I could go back in. I took a bit of preparation just to get ready for me to be able to hold her. we had to set up a heat lamp to help keep Emma warm, then we had to "pre-heat" her receiving blankets, rethread all of her various lines to the outside of her isolette, untangle them. Finally she was laid on my chest with receiving blankets over us and my jacket zipped up a bit over as well with the heat lamp directly on us (man that thing makes you sweat! She had a brady episode and desatted at first but then settled right down. Her stats were even better than before I was holding her. her oxygen went from the low 90's to 97-99 percent. Her respirations were lower and her heartrate was perfect. It felt so amazing to feel her chest rising and falling against mine! I got to hold her for about 30 minutes. Then we wrapped her up and let daddy hold her for about 5 minutes, but she was tired and starting to show it. So Christina put her back in her isolette before doing her cares. We stuck around so we could see what she weighed. She is now up to 2 pounds even. YAY. and still at 2.5 cc/ml full strength breastmilk per hour. Hopefully she'll continue to progress well like she has been these past few days. :)