The Bloopers

I thought I'd share some of the 'bloopers' from our attempts to get a family Christmas photo. While we happen to think that Silas is the cutest baby we've ever laid eyes on...we've learned it can be challenging to capture that all that cuteness in a posed picture with a kid who can't hold his head up yet (though he is well on his way!).

At first, he slept through the photos:
And then he started toget a little fussy - so we made fussy faces too: But then he decided to look sweet again (and make his parents look silly):

I wanted to share this last photo from our 'Blake Family Christmas Card' photo shoot. We walked along the mountain bike trails into South Mountain to get this photo and it cracked me up because it looks like Matt is a mountain biker we found on the trails who decided to join us...

3rd time's a charm...

So, I know it's been a while since my last update. I guess I've been rather busy with Silas at home (it's amazing how the time with him just flies by!) and more focused on sleeping than emailing when I have the chance. And there hasn't been much to report except lots of eating and pooping and burping and spitting up (and a little sleeping!).

But it turns out all the spitting up and vomiting was more serious than we thought and it has landed us back in the hospital yet again. We'd been worried about all his spit ups - but they seemed within the normal range for an infant. Until we went to our pediatrician last Monday for a regular check-up and found out Silas had lost almost 1.5 pounds in the last 2 weeks (which put him down to 9 pounds, 14 ounces)!! So we were re-admitted to the pediatric unit at St. Jo's hospital.

The good news is that the docs quickly pin-pointed the problem as a condition called pyloric stenosis which means that the pyloris valve that connects the stomach to the small instestines has been thickening and not allowing food to pass through. Silas underwent laproscopic surgery yesterday to fix the condition. Everything went well and he is now recovering. We're really just waiting for him to keep down 2 successful feedings in a row and then we get to go home again. And for good this time (we hope).

I say 3rd time is a charm because Silas was actually hospitalized a second time over Thanksgiving weekend. He had a high fever (over 102 degrees) and I guess it is standard protocol to hospitalized newborns proactively to make sure the fever is not associated with a serious condition. But, after 3 nights in the hospital, we were able to confirm it was just a bad cold and were sent back home.

Silas turns 7 weeks old tomorrow. It has certainly been an intense, emotional, unexpected experience thus far for all of us (and not how I expected to spend my maternity leave) - but we look forward to getting back to the regular routine of eating and sleeping and pooping and burping at home soon. It seems that each of the hospitalizations has been unrelated (although it is kind of freaky!) and that there should not be any lasting affects from any of these conditions.

As always - thanks for the love and support and we'll work on posting some more photos sometime soon...

xo

Sleepyhead

The quintessential Daddy picture...

Its never too early to learn to surf...

Don't you just want to pinch those chubby little cheeks?!?

OK, I have to admit, we haven't exactly spent the last 2 weeks catching up on our sleep. But I guess that is when we have time to snap a few pictures! Silas is generally pretty active all day - maybe one good nap a day. But he sleeps in pretty good chunks during the night (2-4 hours usually) - for which we are very grateful.

Thanks for checking in - we'll try to get more action shots next time!

Silas is sprung!

Yippee - we've sprung Silas from the NICU and were able to bring him home yesterday on his 2 week birthday. It was such a happy day and I'd say our first 24 hours have been successful!

We've slept...

We've eaten and played...

And we've slept some more!The out-pouring of love and support we've received from everyone has been really wonderful - thank you so much. We feel so blessed to bring home a (now healthy) little boy and to finally have our family together.

Love,
Matt, Julie & Silas

more photos...

Silas' uncle Preston and aunt Karen came to visit yesterday. Preston took these photos during their visit (and after Silas ate - which is why he is totally zonked out!)...

(Karen always laughs at the funny faces and sounds Silas makes when he is sleeping...)

This is the main monitor that Silas is hooked up to. It charts his heart rate (green), oxygen absorption (blue) and respiration rate (yellow). At any given moment, you will hear one of these dinging when one of the readings isn't in the preferred range.

This picture shows the pulse-ox on Silas' foot - which senses the oxygen absorption rate and constantly causes the monitor to beep because it is designed for smaller newborns and does not stay put his not-so-little foot very well sometimes.

Besides the fact that we have our first family photo - our biggest news as of yesterday is that Silas got upgraded to the intermediate level of the NICU (he is no longer considered high risk)! You could almost say we have a private room - if you count the privacy curtain. But it is certainly a much nicer environment - with significantly less dinging and beeping and bustling around.

Silas is no longer hooked up to the IV and recovered well from his fever. He has also successfully learned to breastfeed (though I've decided not to document that momentus event with a photo for you - sorry). His lungs are healing well and his breathing is becoming more regular.

Our biggest hurdle now is to get him to take all his food by mouth. We've been doing a succession of breastfeeding with momma, bottle feeding with daddy and then pumping the remaining food in through the tube in his nose. He is doing well, but doesn't seem to understand how much life will improve if he'll just learn to chow down and fill himself up every four hours. We're working on that...

Happy Halloween!

Unfortunately, his little halloween hat doesn't really fit his head. But we did what we could to be festive. (Actually, he had matching socks but they succumbed to an eruptive diaper changing incident...)

And finally, a rare but unobstructed view of Silas' sweet face. You'll notice they've removed the IV from his head and put it in his arm instead. But as of this afternoon, he does have a feeding tube fed through his nose and into his belly because he's still learning how to feed from the bottle. (Actually, every time I try to feed him he gets so comfortable he falls asleep...)

In our arms

Silas is now 5 days old - and things are generally continuing to improve for him (and us!). The big news is that he got taken off the respirator so we've been able to hold him! He is still working pretty hard to breathe - but he is much happier not having a huge tube in his mouth and down his throat.

He's also been eating some breast milk from a bottle and digesting it fairly well. Matt and I have both had the opportunity to change a poopy diaper - though mine fell off soon after (guess that just means Matt will be the expert diaper changer in our household!!).
Silas did come down with a bit of a fever last night - so he is back on antibiotics and they've taken a blood culture to determine if it is an infection. You'll notice his IV has moved to a vein in his head, mostly because a belly button IV can't stay in for more than 3 days and is an infection risk itself. The nurses have decided his room is the 'big boy's club' because there is another baby in there that actually makes Silas look small (if you can imagine that). He is over 13 pounds!

The video below shows a little of what Silas' temporary home looks like - and also how much he enjoys his pacifier. In imagining Silas' first days, I used to feel very strongly about not introducing pacifiers or bottles or anything before we had successfully mastered breastfeeding. But none of that little stuff really matters anymore. We'll get there.

No real talk on when Silas will be coming home yet. I guess the average hospital stay for babies with MAS (Meconeum Aspiration Syndrome) is 18 days. But we find comfort in how well they are taking care of our baby in the NICU and our time with him every day is so uplifting.

We continue to appreciate the outpouring of love and warm wishes we've received from everyone - thank you so much.

love,
Julie, Matt & Silas

The Silas Story

Silas James Gidley was born on Thursday October 25 at 7:43 p.m.

Weighing 10 pounds, 10 ounces

Measuring 22 inches long

Yes - he is a big, strong boy! But he also comes into this world with quite a story. So I thought I'd start at the beginning...

I went into early labor at home on Monday evening, around 9pm. It started out slowly (though I was up all night with the contractions) and continued throughout the day on Tuesday. We went to the hospital late Tuesday evening - but got sent home after 4 hours because I wasn't progressing fast enough.

After another 12 hours of labor at home, we went to my doctor's office - and were still only dilated to 2 cm. But they sent us on to the hospital (which I was very thankful for!). They gave me a little boost of pain reliever and I got to sit in the bubble jet bathtub for over an hour - which was amazing! And while I continued to labor on, Matt and my family kept waiting... And waiting...Finally, after 60 hours of laboring, I received an epidural on Thursday morning. They broke my bag of water and gave me a lot of pitocin (to speed up the labor), but nothing worked and I was stuck at 7 cm. I think the contractions actually starting getting weaker because I was so fatigued. By Thursday evening, the midwife and I decided that we'd tried everything and it was time to have a c-section. Just after making that decision, the baby's heart rated dropped suddenly and things started to get really scary. They immediately put an oxygen mask on me, unhooked everything, and wisked me into the operating room. Before leaving the room, the baby's heart rate was back up (and it had been perfect every other time he'd ever been checked throughout the pregnancy.)

Silas,our big, strong, beautiful baby boy was born Thursday evening at 7:43 via c-section:

Unfortunately, Silas inhaled a large amount of meconium (concentrated poop in amniotic fluid)sometime during the labor/delivery process. And after a few seconds of crying, he stopped breathing. They put in a breathing tube and made plans to air-vac him to St. Joseph's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

They brought Silas in to see me for a couple minutes:
and then he flew off in the helicopter to get better.

Silas is still in the NICU - but has been making very good progress. He started out on 100% supplemental oxygen - but is now only needs about 25%. They've been sucking the meconium and other secretions through the tube and are talking about the possibility of removing the breathing tube soon. He is on an antibioic drip to hopefully prevent infection (which is a high risk). The next challenge is for him to be able to eat and digest breast milk.

The nurses at Phoenix Baptist Hospital (where Silas was delivered) said there was a rumor on the floor that we named him 'Hercules" because of how big and strong he was. In the NICU, they had to sedate him a little to keep him from pulling the tubes out - something which most of the little premie babies there could never do! Yesterday, they had his arms swaddled up to keep them contained - but he still pulled an incredible hulk move to bust out of the swaddle.

Silas is certainly a fighter - and we have high hopes that he will be home with us soon. Thanks for all the love and support we've received from our families and friends. We'll work to keep posting photos and updates on the blog as they become available.

much love,
matt, julie and silas

Almost there...

Here I am. (For all of you who haven't seen me in a while and are wondering what I look like 5 days away from my due date.) Actually, this picture does a pretty good job representing what has happened with me and all my maternity clothes - I can't hardly keep my pants up high enough or my shirts down low enough to cover that little gap of belly that always seems to find a way out! People always say I'm carrying really high. And most people think that means we have a little boy. But I'm not really sure. I guess we'll find out soon enough!

Leah decided she'd test out the infant car seat for us today. She was fast asleep when we first spied her in it - I guess it works!

So, I don't know if Steph appreciates me sharing this photo of both of us showing off our bellies and lounging on the couch eating ice cream bars...but I'm sharing it just the same because it is a perfect illustration of what you feel like doing when you're pregnant in Phoenix in the summer!

Our biggest piece of gossip yet...

I think everyone who will read this already knows our biggest piece of 'gidley gossip'. Still, I thought those of you who don't see us very often would enjoy seeing the proof that, yes, I am indeed pregnant. I'm in my 24th week, which translates to just past 5 months. So even though I feel pretty big, we've still got more than 3 months to go (and grow!).

The photo is from our family vacation to Solana Beach (San Diego, CA) and we just returned home today. We'll work on posting more photos as things (a.k.a I) continue to change - and especially once we have our new edition to the family.

love, julie & matt