A Ray of Hope???

Ok, so I'm guessing we underestimated how much Noah can understand at his age. We are having fits out of him. He doesn't seem to like having a little brother. He loves to say Yeah. So we ask him, do you love mommy, he says, Yeah. Do you love daddy, we ask...the answer the same, yeah. Do you love Andrew, SILENCE...Do you love your little brother, SILENCE. So we continue to ask him other questions with the same Yeah answer. Then again, do you love Andrew, again SILENCE! In the few days Andrew has been home, he has jumped on him, hit him in the head with a bottle, etc etc etc. He has been grouchy every day. Pitches more fits than ever. He is just being a little uncontrollable. He steals Andrews pacifiers, bottles, which we kind of expected that to happen.

Then this morning, a little ray of hope. We asked him to give HIS little brother some good sugar. He leaned over and kissed him. So maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Until then, we are trying to show him more love and understanding than ever. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Here is wishing you all a Happy New Year. Please pray for us as we go through this adjustment.
Until then, enjoy the pictures.

Love,

Terrie, Brandon, Noah & Andrew

Andrew is coming Home!!!!!

Well the time has come for our new little one, Andrew to come home. He is supposed to come home tomorrow (Sunday). We are so excited and still feel soooo not ready. We have alot to do today, such as sterilze the bottles, get the car seat put in and all that good stuff. The baby bed saga has been a nightmare. We got a bed from someone in Hoover, got it home, realized we didn't have all the pieces and had to order them, but with the holidays here, it won't be here until the end of next week, so HOPEFULLY he will sleep in the bassinet. Noah hated the bassinet and went straight to his baby bed.

Anyways, I have a special prayer request...Please pray for my friend Christi who lost her baby in October. She is having a hard time and I wish I could take away her pain. The holidays have been very rough on her. She is on my blogger list as The Rhodes. Please let her know you're praying for her if you have a chance and even if you don't, as long as you ask God to be with her especially this time of year. She is going to have that baby she and Mike desire so bad. I pray for her every day for peace and understanding. That is all I can do. Wish I could do more, but God won't let her down.

Thank you everyone and thanks for the prayers for us and Andrew as well.

Love,

All of us

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

Hello to all,

We got the best Christmas wish ever. When we went to see Andrew last night on Christmas Eve, he was off all his oxygen, has no IV, no tubes anywhere. He is breathing totally on his own now...AND the best of all, he is taking a bottle all by himself, so no more feeding tubes either! That's what held Noah up the most, he wouldn't take a bottle and kept having little bradycardia (heart rate drops) episodes alot. Andrew has had none of those, plus he is on regular Similac Advance formula and has not spit up once! Most of you know the issues we had with Noah and reflux and the expensive formula Nutramigen, so far so good with Andrew.

Today they are moving him to a regular crib and as long as he keeps progressing, we are hoping by the beginning of next week, he may be home!

We could not have asked for a better present this year. It was kind of sad this morning not having him, but we know he is ok and just needs time to get ready to come home.

Noah had a blast opening his presents. I'll have to post some pictures later.

Here is a pic of Andrew without any tubes on his face. His face is broken out right now from all the tape he had on his face, but should clear up soon.

Love you all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Pictures

Andrew update

Hello to all,

We got to come home today. We are so tired, you just can't get any rest in the hospital! So we are exhausted! We did get good news this morning. Andrew came off the cpap machine and didn't have to go on a ventilator. Yea!!!!! We actually got to hold him for the first time. He is so tiny! But oh so much hair. He actually has sideburns down to his jaw bone. It's hilarious.

We took a few pictures so you can see his hair better.

Our wonderful neighbors put Christmas lights on our house while we were in the hospital for Noah to enjoy, since he's so in love with anything that lights up. We have been blessed with great neighbors. Another one blew off the leaves from the driveway. They also checked in on my mom regularly while she was here watching Noah and helped her walk the dogs and other stuff. I tell you, God knew where to send us. We look forward to returning the favor in the months and years to follow. As the bible says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is such a true verse to live by.

We are hoping Andrew will be home within a week or two. We can't wait to get him home and love on him and watch him grow.

Enjoy the pictures. Love you all,

Terrie, Brandon, Noah, & Andrew

Introducing Andrew!

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to post a blog from the hospital. All went ok overall. I'm in a lot of pain, probably due to this being my second c section and they had to cut through the scar tissue for this one. But the outcome was worth it! Andrew arrived at 6:52 Friday evening (12/19). His weight was 6 lbs even, 18 inches long. He has little bitty hands and feet. When they showed him to us, we thought oh my gosh, that baby only looks about 4 lbs. He looks so much smaller than the 6 lbs he is. He has lost a little weight since then. He's down to about 5 lbs 10 oz now. He has ALOT of hair! Real dark. His eyes look real dark as well like mine. So guess he won't have the green eyes like his daddy that Noah has. Andrew seems a little calmer than Noah at this stage too. He's going to be a "mama's boy" I'm hoping! ha

He did have to be admitted to the NICU. His lungs weren't quite ready for him. He has respiratory distress syndrome which is the same thing Noah had. So we aren't sure we'll have him home by Christmas. But hopefully it isn't a month like it was with Noah in there either. Overall he is in better condition right now at this stage than Noah was too. The neonatal doctor came in today and told us that there was a 50/50 chance he'll go on the ventilator. It's a "wait and see" thing. They said usually in the first 3 days of life it will get worse, then they usually start making a turn around for the better. He is on a nasal cpap machine to help with his breathing, his little chest just is moving so fast. It breaks my heart. But Brandon and I have been through this before and are very positive he will be fine.

Noah came to see him yesterday with his "I'm a big brother" t shirt on. He could have cared less. He was however interested in the lights on the monitor and kept trying to get to them. It was cute.

Anyways, need to run, about to go see the baby. Here are a couple of pictures for you to enjoy, they aren't very good because we can't get very close to him or hold him yet with all the tubes and stuff. But you can get a general idea of what he looks like, will post more as I get better ones.
Love,

All of us.

Andrew's Birthday

Ok,
So, today is the day Andrew will make his arrival. I have to be back at the hospital by 5 this afternoon and they will take him after they get me prepped and stuff.

I gained 11 lbs of fluid in a week, so they are taking him for my safety, which I hate, I really wanted to get a little further along. But he said there is a 50/50 chance he won't have to stay in the NICU. We're hoping for that half instead of the half where he does have to stay.

Please pray for us. We're a little nervous as anyone would be. I just want Andrew to be ok. Noah went through so much after he was born (ventilator, etc) and we are just going to believe this time will be different.

Thanks ahead of time for your prayers,

We love you all, and are looking forward to our early Christmas present today.

Terrie, Brandon, Noah, & Andrew

Doc appointment update

Good News!!! My BP was surprisingly good today. So I got another steroid shot and it bought us another week. So next week I'll be 35 weeks, which is one week closer that Andrew hopefully doesn't have to stay in the NICU as long. We'll take it. Doc said that if things are the same next week, we'll go another week and just get us as far along as we can. That makes us very happy!

The longer I carry him, the healthier he is.

Of course, if I go a couple more weeks, you know, that will be right about Christmas. I was hoping his birthday wouldn't be that close, but we'll take whatever we can get.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and please continue to pray that I carry Andrew as long as possible.

We love you all,

Terrie, Brandon, Noah & Andrew

Just an update!

First of all, let me

thank the moron, who identified himself as "George from Alabaster" who called here at 2:30 AM and woke me up from a deep sleep to tell me he needed a female to talk to. I told him to call someone he knew that I was sleeping, he kept saying "I just need to talk", etc etc. I finally had to hang up on him after telling him I wasn't interested in talking to him. After that, I was completely weirded out and couldn't go back to sleep thinking this guy had my address or something too. I didn't get the feeling he was suicidal or anything or I would have tried to help him probably. I just got the "weird guy" feeling. Anyways, Thanks!

We were really busy this past weekend getting stuff as ready as we can in case Andrew makes his debut on Wednesday. We got a tree put up that we had bought last year since Noah was so small, we didn't want to put up our big nice tree. I have to say, it didn't look quite so little in our townhouse. In our new place, gosh I think our ficus tree is bigger. Noah likes it though and that is really all that matters. We put minimal ornaments on it, since all he will do it try to pull them off anyways. We put up our stockings (all 6 of them) ours, Noah's, Andrew's, and the dogs of course. I'll put a picture up soon, it looks cute.

Anyways, we also got most of Andrew's room cleaned out so we can finish the necessities. All that is left is to put up the bed and get a few small things and pack us a bag for the hospital. Gosh this is all happening so soon! We are still praying they wait until next week to take him instead of this one, but whatever is best for both of us, we will deal with.

Hope you all had a good weekend. We got a sneak peak at a couple of our pictures from a few weeks ago, I'll put one on here for you guys to see. We are so proud of the ones of Noah. We thought it was a total bust, Kim the photographer is just plain amazing. I've been worried for weeks for nothing I suppose. Can't wait to get the others.

Love you all, and thanks for the prayers, will update as soon as I can with news on Andrew.

Terrie

Youtube

He loves spaghetti o's as you can tell by his face and he loves playing with this bucket for some reason, he goes around screaming and growling with it on his head. ha

Posted some new videos on youtube. Here is the link if you want to watch them...

http://www.youtube.com/user/savindolphins

If it doesn't work, you can just type in Noah Butler and it should pull them up and you can click on savindolphins videos and see them all.

Andrew Update

We went to the doctor today. My BP wasn't great still, but was alright. Not bad enough to send me over to take him. (THANK GOODNESS!) For some reason I was thinking I was 34 weeks pregnant, I'm 33 weeks. Gosh, I can't keep up with anything these days. Anyways...I did get a steroid shot to boost his lungs, which means he will definitely be coming soon. Brandon asked the doc what his gut instinct was and we were told within the next 2 weeks. I have a doc appointment next Wednesday (the 10th) so it could be that day or the week after. What an early Christmas present huh?

Good news is, Andrew is getting bigger. According to the ultrasound, he is 5lbs 1 oz. OF course, that is not an exact number but they are usually pretty close. So we feel a little better about that at least.

We are going to try to get a small tree up this weekend and our stockings so at least Noah has something up for Christmas. So much to do, so little time.

Anyways, thats all for now. Will keep everyone posted

Have a blessed week!

Rooollllllllll Tiiiiiidddddeee

Ok, sorry, couldn't help but gloat a little bit. Yea Alabama!!!! We had to record the game to watch when we got home. It was kinda funny, we had to stop by the Wal-mart in Cullman on the way home from Brandon's grandma's house today to get a few things and we were trying to get home without seeing or knowing the score...well, this lady in there saw Brandon's Alabama shirt and told him the score, he was a little irritated. He didn't want to stop anywhere else because he said he figured some one would have the score in shoe polish on their car window. I did talk him into stopping at Purple Onion for some much craved hummos dip and wild rice. So we made it home without knowing the final score.

Ok....about our Thanksgiving..it was very uneventful. I cooked a 14 lb turkey, dressing, green beans and we had banana pudding and blueberry pie for dessert, all for the 2 of us, well 3 including Noah. He wasn't too impressed with it though, he ate spaghetti o's instead. He loves those!

Andrew is VERY VERY active. This next week I'll be 34 weeks. That is the goal the doctor set, but we are hoping with all we have and believing that I will carry him longer. Please pray that happens. We really don't want to deal with another child in the NICU. That is so painful seeing them on all the machines. When Noah was on the ventilator, our hearts just about broke dealing with that. But God got us through it and we believing the best for Andrew too.

Today we went to Cullman. Noah was actually a ham and very good. He was up about 9 hours and really impressed us. He did pitch a few fits when he got sleepy, like when he dropped his cookie and couldn't find it, he threw a tantrum and tried to pull his sock off in a fit of rage. It was quite funny. Everyone was frantically searching for the cookie to calm him down. It was finally found and all was good again. Takes so little to make children happy!

Well, I am worn out from the day. Tomorrow we are hoping to finally pick up the baby bed from my friend April. We are so unprepared. Maybe we can pull it together finally before Andrew arrives. ha.

Hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving. Please remember to keep us in your prayers the next few weeks. We have a doc appointment on Tuesday with an ultrasound. I'm hoping Andrew is a little bigger and all goes good to get us through to another week, which will be 35 weeks!

We are so thankful for our good friends and family. I have some pics and videos I took the last few days, too tired to mess with it tonight, but will try to get to it really soon.

Love you guys,

Update

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to update everyone on things. Had a doc appointment yesterday afternoon. My blood pressure still isn't being very co-operative. The doc said that his goal is to get me to 34 weeks, which is 1 week longer than I carried Noah. I am 32 weeks now, so we aren't talking about too far off. We're a little overwhelmed by this, especially since Andrew's room isn't ready. But that will all be ok. He put me on bed rest. So I won't be back at work at the hospital until after I have Andrew. Have no idea how long that will be.

We are believing for the best. Andrew isn't measuring very big, so we are hoping he will stay in there for longer than 34 weeks to get bigger. I will have an ultrasound every week from here on out and they will do non stress tests on him to make sure he isn't under any stress. If he does get under stress, they will take him immediately. With the high blood pressure thing, it's the mom they worry about, not the baby usually. He's just being very cautious, which we appreciate.

Basically, I have to stay stress-free, relaxed and not over do it, which is very hard for me, but I'll do it for Andrew.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for Brandon, Noah, and my wonderful family and friends.

Love you guys,

Terrie

An Overall Good 39th Birthday!

First of all, let me thank you all for the birthday wishes....it meant alot! I can't believe I'm 39. I wanted some crab cakes from Fox Valley for my birthday (what a pregnant birthday wish, huh?) so Brandon went by last night and got me some. OMG....they were EXACTLY what I wanted! I've been wanting them for a while, what an expensive thing to crave huh? We can't be getting those all the time. I do however have some birthday money that needs to be spent...maybe a little of it can get me some more crab cakes..haha. I'll have to buy something that I can show with the rest though, I hate to waste it on food.

I had an overall good day. We had our family Christmas picture made. I wish Noah had been more co-operative. He didn't really get a long enough nap and was kinda irritable! Hopefully we got a few good ones. I think we got some good ones of him by himself, thanks to the Christmas ornaments he liked, however he DID NOT do well for our family pictures. We'll have to wait a few weeks and see how they turned out.

The day didn't really go too well, but we persevered (hope I spelled that right) When we were bathing Noah, he slipped in the bathtub and hit his mouth and started bleeding. Thursdays aren't too good for this, since he hit his mouth last Thursday and bled everywhere too.

We barely made it on time to Kim's house...but like I said, you make do with what you got, right?

I work the next 3 days, not real excited about that. It'll be a rough weekend, BUT...then I'm off until the Friday week after Thanksgiving, so that'll make it worth it.

Noah has been eating the mess out of some spaghetti O's. He's got a decreased appetite since he turned one, so we'll take what we can get. He'll eat the veggies too, if we mix it. I'm happy with that. He's finally started to gain some weight, he's getting a little chubby. I really pray that he has Brandon's genes and not mine. If not, he'll be big as a house like me.

Well, it's bedtime and Andrew of course just woke up and is kicking and wiggling all around. He loves to keep me up at night, guess he's trying to prepare me for the many more sleepless nights I'll get when he arrives.

Love you all,
Terrie