Homecoming!!!

So Friday was the big day!  We called the NICU before heading up to visit Sam, and they told us that we were going to get to bring her home!  We were so excited :)  The doc said that we should treat Sam like a healthy baby because that's what she is!  With a few instructions from one of our favorite nurses Cheryl, and we were on our way!  Here are a few pics of our departure :)

Pretty sure Johnny was listening or trying pretending to listen to the instructions?!?

Here's Sam in her going home outfit!  So cute :)

Here's the cake my mom got for all the NICU staff!  Everyone was so great, and we really appreciated all that they did for our little girl!!

Getting buckled in!!

Look at that sweet face :)

And those sweet feet!!

When we got home, we let Joey hold her and she is a proud big sister!!!

She loves to give her sweet kisses!!!

Here's a video of Joey holding her for the first time :)

It was an awesome day and here's hoping we have an awesome summer!!!  Thanks so much for all your prayers for our baby!!  We are so glad she's home!!

My Own Jammies :)

Hi, my name is Samantha Lynn Stout but my mommy and daddy call me Sam, and you can too!  If you have been following my story, you know it's been a rough week for me :(  I was born on June 2, 2010.  I weighed 7lbs 14oz and was 21 inches long!  I don't know if you know my mommy, but I was a huge baby for her 4'10" self :)  Once I was born, I got to see my mommy and she gave me a yummy meal for all my hard work, then they shipped me off to the nursery.  I have lived there for the past week.  They have stuck me with needles, put tubes down my throat and nose, stuck an oxygen tube in my nose, given me x-rays, and more.  It's been tough :(  In the past few days, I have been getting so much better!  First they took out my feeding and oxygen tubes and let my mommy feed me!!!  Then they took out my IV, and moved me into a big girl bed.  My mommy and daddy even got to put me in my own jammies today!!  Don't I look snug as a bug???

Now here's the fun news...my doctor said I get to come home as early as FRIDAY!!! If not Friday, then Saturday! I am so excited!  My mommy and daddy said that they have lots of fun stuff for me at our house!  I can't wait to get a bath in my own bath, sleep in my own bassinet, meet my sister and my family, meet my parent's friends, and more!  

Please pray that I can come home Friday!  Please pray that when I get home that I will continue to improve and eat well.  Please pray for my parents, that they continue to feel the peace and love of God and family and friends surrounding them.  Thanks for all the prayers so far, they have been appreciated!!!  Hope to see you tomorrow from my own home!!!!

Great News From the NICU!!!

So if you read yesterday's post, you know Sam had a great day and her breathing tube and her oxygen tube were taken out!!  They let us know that the doc would be in today and we were going to try to make it up to see her so we could get an official update!

I called this morning to confirm what time Dr. Foster would be in and she was actually there already.  I was able to talk to her and she said Sam had a great night!  Sam ate only from bottles and they were upping her volume of fluids and she was doing great with that!  The doctor said that they were going to up Sam's volume even more today and if that went well, they are going to take her IV line out of her belly button!  Once that comes out she is tube free and can come home soon!  I asked "How soon??".  She said that if everything goes as planned, Sam could be home as early as FRIDAY!!!!!!!  Are you kidding me??  That would be awesome!!!!

We got Joey up this morning and took her to Aunt Becky's so that we could go see Sam.  We got there and the doctor was still around and confirmed everything she told us this morning.  We got to hold Sam and give her her first 50 mL feeding to boot!!  She did great until she fell asleep after 40 mL :)  Johnny and I are just too soothing I guess, so the nurse stepped in and tried to wake her up to finish the rest of the feeding.  We had no such luck and had to stop at 40 mL.  The nurse said they are going to work on it through the day and hopefully she will stretch her tummy out enough to get up to 50 mL.  

It seems like this is the only thing holding her back right now, so please pray that she would eat, eat, eat!!!  We need this little lady to get that tummy stretched so that she can get up to 50 mL so that they can take the IV out.  Once that is done they will move her to a regular basinet {the bed she's in has a heater and all sorts of bells and whistles on it}.  She will be in that for a couple days tube free and IV free and then we will get to take her home!!!! 

I can't wait to have those chubby cheeks home and all to ourselves!!!  So please PRAY!!!! 

Today is the Day You Have Made.....

.......I will rejoice and be glad in it!

We have been praising God during this crazy time of our lives and we have been praying hard for His provision and comfort.  We have been feeling his love surround us and we have been feeling his comfort more than anyone could ever know! Thanks so much for everyone's prayers, we feel them...we really do!

Well today, and each day we receive any positive news on Sam, we rejoice as the Lord rejoices over His creation who is healing!  Yesterday we had a great visit, but today was even better!!!!!

When we went in this afternoon, we weren't expecting much.  This is usually when Sam is sound asleep and Johnny and I fiddle on Facebook or take some sleeping pictures of her or something like that. Last night Nurse John let us know that we may not get to hold her again because of her belly button IV.  He wanted us to hold her but knew some other nurses may not feel as comfortable letting us hold Sam.  So today when we went, it was time to feed Sam.  Cheryl {the Nurse on Duty} let us know that we were going to get to feed Sam today!  She pulled up a chair and let us hold and feed her :)  Obviously she's not too worried about her IV, and that's just fine with us!!!

Cheryl also gave us some other good news!  Sam had bottle fed all night and was not fed through her feeding tube at all!  She kept all her food down and they were upping her fluids from 25 ml to 30 ml and later today they were going to up her to 35 ml as long as she handled the 30 ml fine.  Also her oxygen was changed too.  She is breathing at 21% right now which is what you and I breathe everyday, so that is good news!!  She was taking in 7 Liters of oxygen each day, but they were going to lower her count each day by 1 Liter.  Today she was down to 2 Liters {that's right, 2} and doing really well!  We left her this afternoon with a sense of accomplishment!  They are pushing Sam to do great things, and she is rising to the challenges!  Team Stout!!!!

When we went back tonight, Nurse John was there and he admitted that he was worried about getting in trouble for what he let us do last night with Sam.  He didn't get in trouble :)  I have a feeling he only would have gotten in trouble if she had regressed because of something he did.  On the contrary, Sam was improving because of what he did!  Anywho, we walked in, and he asked "Notice anything missing??"

Our sweet Sam has no oxygen tubes and her feeding tube is gone!!!!!!!!!  John said that she hadn't had a feeding through the tube all day and she was keeping everything down, so he just took the tube out!  Then he said she was doing really well on the oxygen and he just tried her without it and she was doing equally as well, so he just took that tube out too!  Since both tubes have been gone, she has still been feeding with a bottle only {we got to feed her again tonight :)} and she has been upped to 35 ml.  She sucked that milk down so fast it wasn't even funny!  On top of that awesomeness, the entire time we were holding her, her breathing was staying between the 40 and 60 breaths per minute mark!!  This kid is a serious champ!  

{Look Ma, no tubes!}

{Just look at those pinchable cheeks!!!  She's precious right??}

Now the question that comes out of everyone's mouth next is "Great, when does she get to come home".  Believe me, we want to know that info too!  We are going to try and go in tomorrow when the doctor is visiting to see if we can get an answer to that question!  The only thing John said needs to happen for her to be "take home ready" is that we need to replace what she is getting in her IV each hour with milk.  Once the milk takes place of the IV fluid, and she is off everything for a few days, she should be able to come home with us!!!

All in all, a great day in the NICU for Samantha Lynn!  She's a week old already and I'm so glad she is getting better!  Please continue to pray for Sam's healing, and that Johnny and I would continue to feel God's peace surround us during this time!  We love y'all and thanks for keeping up with us!!

NICU Videos...

Yesterday was such a fun day and we got to do a lot with Sam thanks to our night time nurse John.  He's not really a rule follower, and we loved it!  We got to take her temperature, change her diaper, hold her, feed her, and hang out for a really long time!  Here are some videos of our time with Sam yesterday!!!

This is the longest video at 4ish minutes.  Never mind the talking in the background....it's not really pertinent info.  Feel free to listen in though if diaper changing and such isn't all that interesting to you :)

It was a process, but John let me hold Sam.  He had to unhook and re hook a lot of wires to make this happen!  He said it's super important for these NICU babies to be held and loved on!  I completely agree {anything for me to get a hold of that baby girl!!!}!  We had to keep her laying as flat as possible so her belly button line wouldn't come out, but I could handle that!!!!

Here's another of me holding her :)  She totally pulled her feeding tube out a little bit and I had to stick it back in...yuck!!!


And I got to feed her :)  She was hungry and chowed down on her food super quick!!


Here's Sam with daddy.  I left the room for a little bit to pump {sorry for the TMI} and daddy got to watch her get all snuggled up and ready for bed!  They wrapped her up like a baby burrito, but some heated blankets on her and gave her 2 hats to wear!  This girl was snug as a bug when it was all said and done :)  Here she is talking before it all went down!


That's all the ooey gooey goodness we have for you right now!!  Hope everyone is doing well, and again, keep up the praying!!  It's what's keeping us going, I just know it!

Sam Update :)

Yesterday I was released from the hospital.  It was really weird to leave the hospital without Sam, and I even got teary eyed as we pulled out of the parking lot.  She's our baby and the thought of not being in the same building as her is a little crazy.  We came home, picked up Joey, gave her a nap then once she woke up, we dropped her off at Grandma's to head back to the hospital to see Samantha.  She was doing well and we got to see her awake which was fun!  Here's a video of her wigglin' around :)

Again, it was hard to leave her yesterday when we had to, but we know she is in great hands in the NICU.  The nurses are all so willing to answer our questions, and they even offer up information when we don't know what to ask.  The days are blending together, so I'll just let you know what they told us today about Sam as far as an update goes...

So today was a great day for Sam!  We got to visit her twice and she was doing well both times.  The first visit was during Joey's nap {thanks for watching her Liz}.  We are trying to go while Joey is asleep so she doesn't feel like we are dropping her off with someone each time we get the chance.  Anywho, Sam was doing well.  We got to change her diaper, check her temperature and talk to her!  They said her food digestion wasn't where they wanted it to be, so they slowed her feedings down to 2 hours instead of 1 hour.  Hopefully this will give her body time to digest all her food before her next feeding.  Here's the device they are using to regulate her food intake...

We left after about an hour of hanging out and headed home.  Tonight Aunt Amy came to hang out with Joey after we put her to sleep for the night so that we could go back and see Sam.  Thanks Aunt Amy!!

This visit was AWESOME!!!  There was a nurse there tonight named John who doesn't really play by the rules!  He let us know how she was doing which is great by the way!  Her breathing has stayed pretty consistant in the 40 to 60 breaths per minute range.  Her body temp is good and she is keeping her food down like she has been for the past few days!

All of a sudden, John went and got a rocking chair and told me to sit in it.  I thought it was because I just had a baby and what not, but then he started unhooking all her wires and I asked him "Am I gonna get to hold her??".  He said "Yep!".  

I had to be super careful because of her belly button, and we couldn't move her around a lot, but I GOT TO HOLD SAM!!!!  We were talking with her and holding her hands and keeping her from trying to pull things out of her.  

She did get a hold of the feeding tube and pull that out while I was holding her.  It was fine though because John let me feed her too!!!  She's been on the regulator, and she's supposed to be on it, but he said that she had a bottle feeding last night and it went well, so we should try it again tonight!!!

I got to hold/feed her for about 40 minutes or so and it was amazing!!  I loved our time tonight and John is our new favorite nurse!!! Once we were done, Sam was bundled up and put back under the warmer.

We gave her sweet kisses and came home with lots of fun memories!!  What a great night at the NICU!!!  Can't wait to see Sam tomorrow.  Hope the good news keeps rolling in!

Thanks for all your prayers everyone!  Please continue to pray for her complete healing.  Also pray that God continues to surround us with his love and understanding!  We have truely felt the blessing of your prayers over the last 5 days!