Nap Time: Part Deux

Ava at One Month

Today, as Ava approached the ripe old age of 1 month, she was visited by our good friends Nate & Stefanie for the afternoon.

Ava's become a little bit more fussy lately, apparently she thinks she's going to miss out on something exciting.

Her hair continues to grow at leaps and bounds, and we love her 'no fuss' hairstyle.

Pieces of Ava

Nap Time

2010 - The Year of the Tiffany?

You may have noticed that on the right margin of our blog, we list some sites & blogs that are of interest to us. For those of you who have been loyal readers, you may recall that Emily's youngest sister Tiffany had once upon a time decided that she too would start a blog of her own, for fun. We of course were very excited about such an endeavor. However, some of you may be scratching your heads about now, wondering why, as of late, we no longer had her link listed as a site of interest?

Well, the long and the short of it is, that Tiffany got busy (like most of us), changed majors, got engaged, yada yada yada, and fell off the blogging bandwagon. We've tried to not hold this against her, after all, she is family. After holding a mantle to her website via a link on the margin of our blog for more than 6 months, we decided to give it a quiet funeral and remove it.

Then, behold, Tiffany comes around the other day to visit Ava, and is inspired in ways that even we have yet to entirely grasp. We'd like to think that it was holding Ava for the first time, but we're not totally convinced. For starters, we offered for Tiff to stay for dinner, which she did, great! Then, we told her we were making salmon with angel hair pasta infused with gremolata and broccoli (Chris made Emily 4-star meals during his paternity leave from work), to which a grimaced face reacted in utter displeasure. "But I don't like salmon or broccoli" . . . followed an hour later by "Wow, that was actually pretty good...burp"!

This acknowledgement of a newfound appreciation for not only seafood, but also of a flowering green plant, seems to have given birth to not one, not two, but three blog posts, of considerable scale and effort in the past 2 weeks! Read it for yourself here.

While we were amazed by the arrival of Ava, such developments with regard to Tiffany are a true paradigm shift. We wholeheartedly sit by with giddy anticipation of what new developments ensue in 2010 for Tiffany.

Next on the menu Tiff: Grilled Ahi Tuna

Fan-tastic Babysitter

Recently we've become aware of an amazing pacifier known as the ceiling fan.  This fan is so amazing that Ava will sit for hours (literally) staring at it in utter silence.  We first found this out when lying Ava on the bed during a clothing change.  She immediately noticed the color contrast and was transfixed.  In fact, when attempting to walk with her out of the room she turned her head to follow the fan.  Keep in mind though that the fan is not in motion.  It actually irritates her to turn it on.  She prefers to simply stare at the non moving blades.  This is so wonderful that Emily was able to shower, blow dry her hair, do a load of laundry, pick up the upstairs and undress Ava for a bath all while Ava stared at the fan.  We were even able to cut Chris' hair while the fan babysat Ava.  This has gone on for several days and seems to be a great compromise to a mobile.  Heck, who needs a mobile when you have one built in to every room.  We've even placed her pack-n-play under the fan in the livingroom.  Now if only the fan could change diapers, breastfeed and burp we'd be set!

Oh, and more pics to come soon...

Kissing Ava

It Takes A Village

Last night Emily decided to try and settle Ava down by reading to her for a while before putting her down for the night . . . however, the 'lip-smacking' started about 45 min. later . . . scratch that idea off the list . . .

Junior Hawk

Dad & Me

Ava Gardner? . . . We Think Not

Where Ava Gets Her Hair

Ava On Tour (From Home)

While today was our first full day at home with Ava after returning from the hospital yesterday afternoon, Ava began her inaugural tour by being visited yesterday by our friends Sarah and her fiancée Anthony, who both recently moved to Chicago. This was followed by a visit from Margaret (Emily's Grandmother and for whom Ava's middle name is derived), Emily's sister Sara, and Mother Beverly visiting today. Below are some full-sized images (double-click the slideshow to download - hint, hint grandparents and family). We're hoping that all this excitement during the day will get her to sleep more at night . . . actually, we're begging . . . PLEASE SLEEP MORE!!!

What's This You Say?

I hear that after all this fun sun-tanning and hanging out in the air lounge, I have to go home? Can I keep these cool shades?

That's right Ava. As it stands right now, we'll be taking Ava home tomorrow afternoon from the NICU, after a long and arduous first week as parents. While we have heard the old adage "your life will never be the same again", we didn't exactly envision these set of events as the type of change we were anticipating. Nevertheless, we couldn't be more thrilled and excited to finally be bringing Ava home with us, happy and healthy.

Ava isn't completely off the hook yet though. Yesterday the NICU doctors challenged her pulmonary system by removing the supplemental oxygen, and her saturation once again was lower than ideal. This being the case, the team is taking the precautionary measure to have her on supplemental oxygen for approximately the next 4 weeks, until her pulmonary drive becomes more robust, and/or the slight subdural hematoma responsible, is resorbed fully. It is our hope, and the NICU team's feeling, that after 4 weeks, her pulmonary system will have matured to the point where supplemental oxygen is no longer required.

As of now, all tests have come back negative for signs of infection, structural defects, or any other sort of pathology that would lend itself to a more chronic condition. So, as they say, "this to shall pass", and Ava will get on the road to becoming a self-sufficient little breather. Luckily, Chris has another week off from work to help Emily get settled at home, and we know we're overdue on getting in touch with a lot of you, so expect to hear from us in the next week as we get caught up with life.

Thanks again for all your thoughts, kind words, and prayers for Ava, we know she appreciated them, as did we. We look forward to the opportunity for all of you to finally meet her, she's cute as hell!

And yes Ava, you can keep the shades.

Still In The Hospital (Update)

In light of recent developments we're sorry that we've been unable to post anything fun in the past few days. As some of you may already be aware, we were discharged with Ava from the hospital on Sunday night around 6:30 pm, excited to finally be heading home after a long, arduous labor. However, at 10 pm as Emily was about to get Ava ready to eat Ava became dusky and was having difficulty breathing with brief apnic spells. We were able to stimulate her enough to return to normal breathing, and upon advice from our doctor, headed to the ER. She was admitted to Peds for monitoring, but quickly had several more "spells" accompanied by bradycardia while being monitored.

Due to these spells, it was decided by Peds that she would be best monitored in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) along with other tests to figure out what the etiology of her apnic breathing, accompanied by oxygen desaturation was. She has not had a "spell" in over 48 hours and for that we are incredibly greatful and relieved. They have done nearly every test possible including testing her blood, urine and spinal fluid. She had a brain MRI and this showed a small subdural hematoma more than likely caused during childbirth (likely common in a lot of vaginal births, only they never present with complications.)

Neurology is suspecting that this very small bleed (rather the inflammation response to the bleed) may have been the cause of these apnic spells. This is relatively good news as this will heal quickly and should present with little to no further problems or complications. However, her team cannot verify this for sure and feels that we may never know the true cause of her spells. Tomorrow she will undergo a 24 hour continuous EEG to monitor her for possible seizure activity. Again, it is not felt that she is having seizures, only another thing to rule out.

She is on a very small amount of oxygen due to occasionally having some low oxygen levels (nothing dangerous or life threatening, just lower than average). They are unsure of why this may be as well. She also has an IV for antibiotic therapy, a feeding tube for when Emily is not here to feed her (but since we’re staying in her room now they may not need it any further). Her heart rate, respiratory rate and oxygen levels are monitored continuously through electrodes and she is still under bilirubin lights (although they should come off very soon...I HOPE...she prefers to be swaddled when awake.)

So, this is the scoop for now. We are very exhausted, stressed but trying to keep up a positive spirit. We are unable to have our cell phones on while we are in her room (and for us that is 95% of the time.) As much as we may appreciate emails at some other time, it just adds another level of stress in that we feel that we have to respond. So, given the circumstances, please be understanding that we cannot respond to everyone and it would be best to just post a quick comment on here. We will try to update things on here as they develop, but again, it takes energy and we have so very little of it.

We appreciate all thoughts and prayers that our friends and family can provide. In the coming weeks when we get her home we will likely welcome help that we may have otherwise turned away simply due to the increased stress and demands that will be placed on us since she will be monitored by machine at home as well.

Thank you all for your support.

- Chris & Emily (& Ava)

Goodnight from Ava

It's been quite an adventure for me these past few days . . . I'm spent . . .

The 31 Hour Labor of Love

Most people celebrate New Years by toasting over a few glasses of champagne. Tired of this commonplace practice, we decided to try something more novel . . . hanging out at UIHC and delivering our first baby.

Emily went into labor December 31st, at ~3:00 AM, and 31 hours later out came our first child, a daughter named Ava Margaret.

As time ensues, we'll include more details and photos, but for right now we're just trying to figure this whole parenthood thing out, and trying to get some much needed rest. We want to thank all of our friends, co-workers, and family for all their love and support along the way. Ava's looking forward to meeting you all soon.

Below are some of Ava's stats, so that you can hopefully get to know her a little better.

Ava's Stats:
Date of Birth: 01.01.10
Time of Birth: 10:16 AM
Weight: 8 lbs, 12 oz.
Length: 21 in.
Apgars: 9,9