Welcome Home Asa...

Nash was happily waiting with Granny Cosby for Asa's arrival home...

 We used to think Nash was small.  Check out the size difference! haha

 This is now Nash's favorite thing to do.  He LOVES holding baby "EEsa"

 He is pretty sweet with Asa.  I often find him next to Asa talking to him saying "I your brother." I think he is pretty proud of his new big brother status.

Our family!

NICU Graduation

 Our ward gave myself and a friend a baby shower on Friday, June 8th.  It was really nice, I was a bit against having it, they had to do some persuading but I finally gave in.  I had to laugh that the only people that came were the Relief Society presidency and my friends Stacia and Brook.  I have such anxiety about those things that I was so happy it was small, I just feel bad that so much work went into it.  On my way home from the shower I checked my messages on my phone.  I was so happy when I heard Dr. Kowaski's voice say that if Asa didn't set any alarms off by 6am then he would be ready to come home.  I was so excited!  My friend Brook was behind me, I jumped out of the car and ran to her car to tell her.  I think she thought I was crazy!

June 9th: I called into the hospital at 8am to see if our sweet baby could come home.  Jan the nurse happily said to come get him.  Then she gave me instructions to bring in clothes and the car seat.  So Darin and I packed up our stuff and headed to the hospital.

 This was Asa's place of residence for 3 weeks.  The NICU is located on the left side of the picture in the window wall area.

 Darin and I were so excited we almost got to the NICU without the car seat...DOH!  We didn't have a car seat that fit a 4 lb baby.  Our friend Jess Harries was so awesome and gave us her car seat.  We have some great friends!

I had to take a picture of the NICU door. :)

Asa's corner.

 Jan the nurse.  I so wish we would have taken a picture of all the great nurses.  We had so many wonderful people help us, I enjoyed going to the NICU daily to interact with these awesome nurses.  Even the ones that were not his nurses often came over to talk to me.  I LOVED IT!

 Jan had a hard time letting Asa go.  She wanted to walk us out to the car.  We had to stop at the Pharmacy so we told her thank you and we were good to go.  She got really nervous and said "are you sure you are okay to take him?"  I replied with "Jan do you think we are okay to take him?" We laughed and she gave us all a big hug.  It meant so much to me that she was attached to our little guy.  I know he was given lots of love in the NICU.

 Nurse Michelle taught us how to make the car seat safe for Asa.  He is so little that we had to use a pillow case to make him fit.

 All ready to come home.  Asa's discharge weight was 4 lbs 7 oz.

Random NICU Pictures

Practicing his zooland "blue steal" look....haha

Brotherly Love

 We were able to get permission from Asa's doctor for Nash to come visit Asa.  I don't think he quite understood that he had a brother.  I would disappear for hours and say I was going to visit Asa.  Whenever we passed the hospital we would wave and say "hi baby Asa!" but I think he was confused on WHO Asa was.  He loved him so much!  Nash held Asa's hand, touched his feet and gave him a lot of kisses.  It was pretty sweet.  He said "Asa cute, and HEAVY!" haha.

We are pretty excited about the new little addition to our crazy family!

Crib

Darin started a toxicology rotation in Harrisburg during the time Asa was in the NICU.  I was very thankful Darin's parents were here to help me so I could go to the hospital and visit Asa. I was able to establish somewhat of a routine where I would spend the morning cleaning or playing with Nash, then I would make it to the 12pm feeding.  Come home and do whatever then return back to the NICU for the 9pm feeding with Darin if he came home.  We would stay at the hospital for 1-3 hours, so twice a day seemed to be all I could do without abandoning Nash.

Asa was fed breast milk that I brought in daily through a tube until he could stay awake through a whole feeding, then he was switched to a bottle.  His little mouth muscles just were not developed enough to try actual breast feeding.  Although, each time I went the last 2 weeks we would introduce him to me while I did a kangaroo hold, (skin on skin) this was good for my milk as well as his development.

I enjoyed going to the NICU because each day it seemed like there was a new development and Asa was progressing towards coming home.  During his 3rd week stay he was able to maintain his body temperature.  He was able to wear clothes, and was moved to a crib.  It was fun to see how he turned into a little person once he was able to have clothes.  He then started his feeding plan (the yellow paper in the picture) with Allie Gerrald a speech/feeding specialist.  We had worked with Allie a year or so ago when Nash was having trouble with different textures.  Her husband is also in Darin's residency.  We were so happy to have her help again!

Asa's feeding plan was to allow him 3 sucks and then drop the bottle down so he could swallow and breathe.  He had a hard time coordinating the two.  He often stopped breathing causing his heart to go into brady-cardia which is a slow heart rate.  This would set off alarms.  If he set off alarms during feeding he was set back 24 hours, if he set off the alarms on his own he was set back 5 days. I would get so nervous when this happened.  They assured me that they wouldn't release him if he was still doing this.

I thought it was funny that his tag read "Chri (cry) baby Willardson" LOL

Asa was really good at eating for the day nurses but seemed to be too tired during the night so they often tubed him at night.  I think it all depended on the nurses attitude as well.  There were several times I came at night and he was wide awake but they had tubed him anyway.  VERY FRUSTRATING!  So I always tried to get there before feedings started.

Asa was so small.  But he was growing bigger every day,  we were always so excited to see how much he weighed the next time we came in.

My mom flew in June 2nd and the Willardson's flew out June 3rd.  I became really sick on my way to Philadelphia to pick up my mom from the airport.  By morning I had a huge infection with a high fever.  Darin had worked the night shift in Harrisburg so he wasn't there early enough to take Mom and Dad Willardson to say good bye to Asa.  I felt terrible. 

Later that night Brother and Sister Black came to visit us.  They are serving a temple mission in Palmyra, NY.  I was feeling somewhat good enough to go into the hospital to introduce them and my mom to Asa.  I felt pretty special that they traveled all that way to meet our sweet little guy. THANK YOU!