Wrapped Around Our Axel, Laced Around Bridget Grace

Three weeks today! Such exciting stuff going on in the Bernfeld house, I tell ya. I told Axel that it's three weeks and he said wooooooooo!!!!  (Again, doing the "raise the roof" dance) Then due to the excitement and the crazy partying to  celebrate, he and his dad conked out.  I'm noticing a trend of pictures of Ben and Axel sawing logs together... Yesterday was a big day for Axel... he had his first pediatrician appointment!  Not only that, but it was the first time we'd actually met her since we were kind of forced to put our cards on the table when checking into the hospital and just picking someone.  Luckily, our friend Timi is also a first time mom and found a pediatrician that she thinks very highly of... based on her feedback I decided to give her a shot. I think it was the right call as I LOVED this doctor.  She had this amazing psychic ability to answer questions that I had documented in my phone (yes, I am that person) before I had to ask.

It happened.  We were released!    Date:  Friday, July 19th, at approximately noon.   I was so excited as we were driving, telling Ben that God willing, this would be our last day to make that drive... this would be the last day to scrub our hands for three minutes before getting to hang out with Axel.  Last day to hear beeping and maneuver around wires to change his diaper or his outfit... but we of course knew that there is always a chance that things are not going to go our way.  It happens. We got to the hospital and were thrilled to see a bag packed with all of his stuff, and on the table a pile of discharge papers!!!   The nurses walked us through the documents, and then the Nurse Practitioner came in to talk to us.  She was really excited because she was the same nurse that admitted Axel to the NICU on July 3.   So it was nice for her to get to send one of her patients out the door.   Ben and I grabbed everything humanly possible and added it to the bag (with the hospi

http://youtu.be/9jK-NcRmVcw   Well, I got the call this morning that Axel had a great night last night and that at this point he is on target to spring from this joint tomorrow morning!!!  Very exciting news for all of us!  I have to admit, I was a bit nervous when I met the night nurse last night... she had been his night nurse the night before and he didn't do so hot.   I knew that his 48 hours had started at 6am yesterday morning (since he didn't eat well for the night nurse) and I was putting all of my trust in this woman to ensure that he continued with some good eats.   Ben and I came in to see him at 9pm and she walked in and says, "Hi... so, I hear you are much better at getting him to eat than I am.". Awesome. So Ben and I started telling her some tips and tricks we'd figured out with him and I almost fell over when she said she didn't do some of the more basic things that we learned on day one of this situation.  I told Ben that if I cam

Okay, first and foremost.  Cute pic alert.  (and yes, this is already on Facebook and Instagram so apologies if you have seen it, but heck, you have to admit, it's worth posting everywhere because it's just utter cuteness.) I mean, really.  THIS is what I walk into the NICU to see... Axel has had a fantastic few days!  He has taken all his feedings since Noon on Sunday without a hitch.  In fact, he did so great yesterday on the alternating bottle/feeding tube diet plan that homeslice graduated BACK to the bottle/bottle/gavage schedule that they had taken him off of in order to help boost his feeding skills.  Things got even more exciting when they said that they wanted to go ahead and a.) give him his Hepatitis B vaccine and b.) get his circumcision scheduled, both of which occur at the tail end of one's stay in the NICU.   This morning I got to the NICU and asked how he did last night.  I, of course, was nervous, because I was dying to hear how he did... last time

Well, clearly since you haven't seen a post cheering from the highest mountain that we're on our way home, we are still snug as a bug in our swaddle within the walls of the NICU.   We are very fortunate in that somehow this kid is already rolling VIP style and has had his own room in the NICU since day one.  Big pimpin', y'all.   We are actually in our second room... (he got bumped for twins... what the heck?)  They told us in the first VIP room that the chances of him staying in there were pretty slim.   We walked in the other day and headed into the room and there was no baby.  Um... whereismybaby... Turns out he was big pimpin' in another room with much better windows.   It's a little noisy in here, as it's in the back of the main NICU which is full of monitors and crying itty bitties... but it's still our own little secluded space where we can play our cool tunes and talk about our day. Thank you for those of you who have given us song suggesti

For those of you who know me, you know that I am not a crier.  So when it happens it typically freaks people out. The scenarios that tend to make me cry are typically anger or being so proud of someone or something that I want to burst.  Yesterday was one of those days.  After much hoopla and excitement about our 3pm feeding, we only did about 20 something mls, which was a bit of a bummer, but still not as low as it had been in the past.   However, when we got to 6pm, Dad and Axel rocked it.   I felt like I was in a bar in college staring at someone and yelling, "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!!!"  Only the subject of this chant was only 8 days old.   That being said, he kicked it into gear and CHABLAM!  He inhaled not 40 mls, but 45mls at the 6pm feeding.  Even more exciting is that he did it in only 20 minutes, which was record timing.   I was so excited by this turn of events that tears poured out of my eyes as I yelled "YAY!!!"  We then proceeded to tell any medical perso

By day three, we were thrilled to have Ben walk into the NICU and see that VOILA!  Little man was not only off of the warming bed, but he was also off of oxygen as well.  Such a lovely sight to see him without that oxygen tube. Although he was a trooper and got through those first obstacles, now we had to tackle eating.  Evidently when you are this little, it's really difficult and exhausting to get through the whole feeding process.  We were told by the nurse that the doctor was contemplating putting him on a feeding tube because he had a minimum (at the time) of eating 15mls per feeding.  If he didn't do that they were going to put him on a tube.    We were pretty upset about the possibility, no one wants to hear that.  First thing the next morning, I called the NICU and he made it through the night sans feeding tube.  Yay! Unfortunately, I got a call early afternoon from the Neonatologist and he said that they needed to move up Axel's minimums and he wasn't eatin

We have so many amazing people who are asking us about how Axel is doing as well as mom and dad that we felt it would probably be beneficial to put up a blog to share updates about how he's doing.   We will try our hardest to keep it updated and yes, there will be pictures. :) For those of you who don't know the story, Axel was due on August 9th.  I have had the most boring pregnancy in the world of pregnancies, pretty much no symptoms except for an expanding belly and a doctor who kept telling me there was a baby in there.   I went to the doctor on July 2nd, and everything checked out normal, no reason to feel that anything that was on the verge of happening.   In fact, I told her that we a.) had our hospital tour scheduled for Saturday, July 6, and b.) in the next few weeks we had a class we were going to take on baby care.  My husband, on the other hand, was absolutely certain that I was going to have this kid early.  I think he did this.  He already asked about paterni