Settling In

It's been a crazy few weeks, but overall we're happy to report that Vivienne is doing great! She's putting on weight (up to 9 pounds, 5.2 ounces and 22 inches long at our last pediatrician appointment - a gain of 11 ounces in one week!), sleeping through the night except for when we wake her up for feeds, and settling into her new home. We've had two pediatrician appointments since we got back and several in-home visits from a nurse and in every instance she has been pronounced healthy.


Bringing her hands together...so advanced!!



Allison and I are doing pretty well now but the first week after we got back was rough. Viv was throwing epic fits starting in the afternoon and continuing off and on until around 9pm. Complicating matters, I had two overnight out-of-town trips in the first seven days we were home from the hospital. When I scheduled them I assumed we'd still be in Philadelphia and that my absence wouldn't be felt that much. As it turned out, the nights I was gone were probably Viv's worst.

The good news is that Viv seems to have turned a corner. She's been a little moody later in the day but hasn't had an inconsolable meltdown for over a week now. We aren't sure if the issues she was having were related to colic, morphine withdrawal, not being comfortable at home or some combination thereof, but we're just glad that she's calmed down a bit. We were even able to easily console her after a feeding tube replacement (she ripped out the tube she came home with last week). She also made it through her latest bath without screaming her head off...yay for progress!

Enjoying a meal after a successful bath.

Last weekend, Allison's parents were in town visiting and did a lot of work to help us put the place in order. Our house wasn't really put together for a baby when we left for Camden at the end of February and when we got home there were a lot of little things that we needed to do but couldn't seem to find the time. One of those was finishing off the nursery:



Allison's sister Lauren made all of these pillows (with a little help from our nephew Landon).

Overall we're just trying to get into a routine. Our next step is to finalize childcare. We've decided to bring in an au pair from a foreign country through a cultural exchange-type program. Daycare isn't really an option (though we are checking into one in the area for special needs children), and hiring a nanny is extremely costly. An au pair provides steady assistance for a very reasonable price. We'll have to share our home for the next year, but we're hopeful that it will be an enriching experience. 

Finally, here's a few more pictures and a cute video to make up for the lack of blog posts. We'll try to keep Viv's adoring public satisfied in the coming weeks and months.

Her scar is healing very well; it's barely noticeable at times.