Happy Thanksgiving

The original plan was for Dylan to be born the day before Thanksgiving, but Dylan had other plans. We were able to spend Thanksgiving/my birthday with my family.

Blake was able to get out some energy with his cousins.

Dylan was able to sleep and be held by lots of people.

Great-Grandma had a hard time giving Dylan up to the next person to be held.

The Kids

3 1/2 weeks old

Grandma loves to hold Dylan.

So I know Blake looks like Aaron, but I guess he has to be like Aaron too by using the computer.

He was excited to get out of the house.

Disneyland

My friend asked me if it would be okay if she took Blake to Disneyland for the day. Um, let me think about that...YES. He had a blast with his friends and I was able to get a lot of my Christmas shopping done. Thanks Shaylyn!

First Trip to the Park

A couple weeks ago, Dylan went to the park for the first time. He slept the whole time.

Blake was okay with that because that meant more playing.

Brothers

Blake loves his little brother, maybe a little too much. This is the boys on our way to Dylan's first pediatrician visit (outside the NICU). Blake got his flu shot while we were there. After the shot, he said, "That hurt me." So sad.

Blake hanging out.

This picture makes me laugh. Blake is always wanting to kiss or hug Dylan, but he is working on being soft with Dylan. Dylan doesn't enjoy these kisses or hugs and always has an eye out for Blake, or, tries to turn away from him all together. Blake really wants Dylan to play with him and keeps bringing him toys to play with. Dylan will be old enough before I know it though and they will be causing all sorts of trouble.

Can you tell where Blake was when this picture was taken? Yep, right next to dad who was taking the picture. Usually Dylan does just have one eye open looking for Blake, but this time, two eyes were necessary.

Happy Halloween

The plan was to get a pumpkin last Friday, but Dylan had other plans, so we finally got around to carving a pumpkin today.

Blake had a lot of fun.

Is Aaron an artist or what? Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!

Discharged

After long visits and discussions with doctors, I agreed that I would sit in the NICU all day and do all the feedings so that Dylan could be released.

This was the last NICU room that he was in. He was in 4 different locations within the NICU.

Here Dylan is waiting to go home.

Blake loves his little brother. He gives him lots of kisses and wants to hold him...for about 30 seconds. Blake reacted a lot better than I thought he would. We will see if that changes, but so far he really likes him. We are really happy and fortunate to be home. So many of the families in the NICU have been there for months and we were there for a week. I learned that while most of the nurses and doctors are great, you have to be really involved during rounds so that you can add your input. One of the doctors had my back the whole time...I liked that doctor. We have so many doctors visits in the near future and we still don't know the results for BWS, but it is nice to be home. He has gone on a couple walks already with the family. We'll see if he likes walks as much as Blake did as a midget. Thanks to everyone for all your prayers!

Tuesday

Tuesday, I was discharged from the hospital. Aaron picked my up and we went over to visit with Dylan before we went home.

We were told that he needed to work on his eating and then he would be discharged.

Back at home, Blake was trying to get over his cold. I kept wondering how he was going to react to Dylan.

Grandpa's Visit

While Grandpa was the first family member to see Dylan, he didn't think he should be the first family member to hold him. After work yesterday, Grandpa finally held Dylan and Dylan smiled at Grandpa. Dylan has Grandpa's toes, which I call flip flop toes because there is a big space between the two toes--perfect fit for wearing flip flops.

The NICU is kind of an interesting place where they test for everything and are super careful about everything. It kind of drives me nuts sometimes, but as long as they are getting Dylan all better and ready to come home, I guess I should not complain.

Update: Dylan gets really, really made when he is hungry and some of the nurses are so schedule based that they won't feed him any earlier than his scheduled feeding. His heart rate sky rockets when they make him wait and the alarms go off. But once he is full, he is such a happy camper. He is having a hard time taking the bottle, so they stuck a feeding tube in him again, which he hated. Who would like it though right? I was there when they put it in and he immediately pulled it out. Once they put some temporary tape on, he pushed his stomach (since the tube goes from his nose to his stomach) which made the tube pop out again. Did I mention that he hates it? I told him that if he starting eating better then he could get the tube out. So he loves food, but has a hard time eating. He breathes through his mouth, so he hasn't figured out how to breathe and eat at the same time. Yesterday, I was able to nurse him and he did fantastic. My guess is because he had control of flow, etc. If he gets this feeding thing down better, then they say he might come home on Friday, but that can change. The other big thing from yesterday was they ran tests on his kidneys because one looked bigger than the other and were concerned that was making some of his urine go in the wrong direction. The results came back and the flow is normal, so he shouldn't have any urinary tract infections like they thought he might. The other concern is that they might need to clip the bottom of his tongue so that he could eat better, but the doctors are debating whether it is necessary or not. We are still waiting on the results from his chromosome test to see if he has BWS (beckwith wiedemann syndrome), but won't get those for another week or so.

Today I get to go home, but as luck would have it, Blake is totally sick. I am sure grateful for my parents who are willing to watch him even though he is sick. We just need to get Blake healthy before Dylan is released.

Dylan Tanner Johnson

Who is surprised to see pictures of our kid already who was due November 30th??? Who is even more surprised that he weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces?

The story: We knew that our midget had something called an omphalocele and would require surgery that same day. The doctors also said a c-section would be necessary, so we made changes to all our doctors and transferred everything so that I could deliver at St. Joseph's which is right next door to CHOC where they would have to do the surgery. It was a high risk pregnancy and I was monitored very closely. In fact, on Thursday Blake came with me to the fetal monitoring for a non-stress test. Aaron had left for Dallas Monday with plans to fly home Saturday night. Friday morning at about 12:30 (like 2 hours after going to bed) I woke up with some contractions. At first I thought I would just try to go back to bed because um, we are still in October. But then the contractions continued and were pretty strong. What to do...well, I call Aaron hoping that this is the first night in his life that he kept his cell phone turned on...nope..it is turned off. I call my parents and tell my dad that I am having contractions, so they come over a few minutes later while I was able to pack a couple of things for the trip to the hospital. We get to OB admitting at 2:52am and I am having serious contractions. We check in and while waiting, my water breaks and I feel him coming, but I need a c-section. There was no time for an epideral, so they knock me out and after getting the NICU staff, etc there, midget is born at 3:07am. Fast huh? I don't get to see midget because I am knocked out and midget has to be sent immediately over to CHOC, so Grandpa follows midget to CHOC while I recover. Friday I spent in my room trying to recover, but I won't stop bleeding and it gets kind of serious, so no visit to see midget yet. My dad sent Aaron a text with a picture of midget along with the stats and says congrats. Aaron got that text when he woke up and thought it was a joke. He tries to get a flight out of Dallas back home, but nothing is available until Saturday morning. Interestingly enough, the time that Aaron made it to the hospital was the time that I was finally released to go see the midget...about 33 hours after he was born.

During that time, my folks (who have been watching Blake), come by with Blake so we get our first new family picture. Blake was completely confused. I couldn't pick him up, which was a little hard because I missed the guy and he was trying to wrap his brain around being a big brother.

My first time getting to hold him. He has a strong personality and LOVES to eat. He had his surgery at 3pm ish on Friday and did fantastic. He hated the breathing tube, so they took that out about 1 hour after the surgery, but were planning on taking it out 6 - 12 hours after surgery. And he did fine. They thought it would be at least a week before he could take my milk, but nope...he started that today and needs some formula as well because he loves his food.

Here is the proud daddy. We sure think he is a cutie. He has blonde hair like Blake did, but not as light and not as much.

Here he is today, with his face not as swollen. He has already gained weight. While we know that there are more tests that need to be run to see if he is really okay and will see how many doctors visits we will have with this guy during his childhood, we are sure grateful for him and love him.