Sandy

What a week it has been! Hurricane Halloween, indeed...

We were able to fix dinner, give Sloan a bath, then...BAM, , this happened:


We lost power at 8:37 pm Monday night. Once the power went out, it got bad. Once cell service went out, it got worse..We were able to keep up with most of what Sandy was doing thanks to our phones & Twitter. But shortly after we went to bed at midnight our cell service went. Tuesday morning we had a 15 minute window where my Blackberry worked, but after that we were unable to communicate with anyone. It's a strange feeling to know that you are living in what feels like the Stone Age, yet people one mile north of you are continuing life as if nothing has happened.

It is worth a quick detour in our story to talk about the NYU Langone evacuation. It was one of the last stories we read before we lost service, and we were devastated by it. Those were the same nurses that cared for Sloan for 5 weeks. They are the most amazing, wonderful, kind, caring people you can imagine - absolutely heaven-sent. I am not surprised to hear that all of their patients made it out ok...the care they give is simply outstanding, but I can't even begin to imagine having a child that needed to be evacuated from the NICU in the midst of the storm. I am so grateful for each and every one of those nurses.

Around 10 am Tuesday Barry ventured outside to see what it was like out there. He was determined to walk as far as it took to get cell service again. Lo and behold, he walked all of 5 blocks and his phone lit up with emails and text messages from concerned friends and family. Our cousins, George & Carol, who live on the Upper West Side had volunteered to take us in. We packed a suitcase and the bottom of the stroller and set out on our journey. Here is a photo gallery of our journey northward...

Tree damage Union Square East

We walked west on 13th a few blocks. There were very few people on the street and even fewer cars. By the time we got to University Place one of the more under estimated issues became apparent: traffic lights. Not just for cars, but the walk/don't walk signs for pedestrians. It is ingrained in a New Yorker's mind to look for the cross walk signs, but now there were none. They seemed to be telling us we were on our own...

Normally busy movie theater, shuttered.

The view down University 

Finally! A business that is open - selling coffee, but in the dark. 

The view east on 13th (our street)

ConEd trucks lined up in Union Square

 All the ConEd trucks in the world weren't going to fix our problem though; they had to fix the transformer before anything would come on. As we continued North, we noticed something very odd - all of the people outside appeared to be tourists. We guessed that most New Yorkers were holed up in their dark apartments. By the time we hit Madison Square Park - 23rd & Broadway - it was a curious site. LIGHTS!!

North: Lights! 

South: Dark. 

The first store we saw with lights...ironically, a lighting store. 

When we hit 26th & Broadway it waas like a different world. Lights were on and cafes were crowded. It was shuttered on one side of the street, and life as normal on the other. It was as if nothing had happened. Onward we strolled...north on Broadway through more tourists, past Macy's (with lights) and Herald Square. About an 45 minutes into it we hit Times Square

"Power is everything." Don't we know...don't we know. 

Baby's first trip to Times Square

View South - no cars!

Our next site was the infamous dangling crane! Talk about a tourist trap...

We were one of ~40 people taking pictures. 

 Around this time, George met us on the street to escort us the rest of the way. Their night had been pretty uneventful - high winds knocked down a tree across the street, but other than that they were unscathed (lucky for us!).

Tree down at Columbus Circle 

Another view of the dangling crane from Columbus Circle

 As you can imagine there were a lot of downed trees in Central Park. I was surprised there wasn't more damage, but there were quite a few. Crews were already working to cut and remove the majority of the mess. Likely in anticipation of the now defunct marathon, but alas...we were almost to our destination!

About an hour and a half and 4 miles later, we finally rounded the corner to George & Carol's apartment. Lights, hot water, and a phone charge were in our future! We could finally plug back into the world. 

One of the first things we did was turn on the TV to watch the storm coverage. We were amazed at the devastation in our little corner of the world. We were simply without electricity, hot water and cell service...that was nothing compared to so many folks along the East Coast. This is such a densely populated area that the devastation is felt times over. Ocean and Bay met all along parts of Long Island, taking homes and transportation with them. The majority of people were not able to get to work - which for many was the only place with electricity. Basic public services were rendered useless up and down the coast. It seems trivial when so many are without power, water & heat in November, but in NYC there is quite a lot of garbage piling up on our streets. I'm sure things will get back to normal soon, but I feel for those that have lost their homes and are still without power as we brace for a Nor'easter that is supposed to hit mid-week. As is the New York way, we will get through this & be even stronger for it - but we have a long way to go. 

Barry was downtown checking on our apartment when the power came back on Friday evening. There were many hoots & hollers on the street when it happened. We are eternally grateful to George & Carol for taking us in. They were so kind to have us for the entire week (and even babysit Sloan one night). I will have another post soon about our week as Upper West Side residents, but for now wanted to post our story about the storm. 

2 Month Check In

Today is Sloan's two months mark...Sloan and I (Kerri) celebrated by going to a breastfeeding/new mom's group up at NYU Medical Center. It's a pretty great thing to have - not only is it a great excuse to make yourself get out of the house (I'm being braver about taking her outside), but the camaraderie can't be beat. Today there was a a 6 day old baby there, but outside of that Sloan is still the smallest baby...she's also the prettiest & most awesome, but I digress. 

Some quick 2 month stats from our Dr appointment last week (the % are adjusted for her 32 week gestation):
Head: I think she said 10 cm? (~35th %)
Body: 19 1/4 (50th%)
Weight: 6lbs, 1oz on Wednesday (10th%) and today we were closer to 6lbs, 6oz!

Yeah! I'm 2 months old!

This picture is cute and all...but two quick things to point out about it. First, it only looks like an easy picture to take. She is so small, floppy and upset in the 1 month picture that its not worth posing. And here is tonight's first attempt at taking the 2 month photo: 

FEED ME NOW! 

And finally, my favorite part of the night. I came into the living room to my two favorite people just like this on the couch:

 I mean, seriously, does it get any cuter?!!?!

Special Delivery for the Loudis Family...

OMG! There is a baby in our apartment!! Now what?!!

There were about 12 hours Yesterday where we weren't sure if she would come home today or not. She had a brady yesterday while I was nursing her, and another quick one (3 seconds) this morning during her feed. The Dr's were not concerned since it was during a feed (the most common time because there is so much coordination involved). Her caffeine results came back at a 3...so she is now a graduate of the NYU Hospital NICU!!

Ready to go! 

We signed the discharge papers, dressed her in baby clothes and packed up all of Sloan's belongings around 12:30pm today. It was so much harder to say good bye to the nurses than we thought it would be. They have all been so wonderful to us and given our baby girl such excellent (and loving) care. They won't ever read this, but for posterity sake - a big Thank You to Dr Howell and the day nurses Kayla, Margot, Ruth who took our first family photo, Amal who has given hours of advice, and Laura & Leista who discharged us. And to the night nurses, Carolyn, Rowena who showed us how to bathe her, DeAnna who first helped mom bond with her, Ingrid the Physician's Assistant with the cat glasses, and finally Lillian who loved Sloan so much she asked if she could take a picture of her for herself. We'll forever be grateful for the loving care and countless hours of kangaroo time!

After a quick, but emotional good-bye we were off for our first cab ride...then a tour around her new New York City home! It's been quite the journey; the quickest yet tormentingly slow 33 days we've lived through. We've been so blessed throughout all of it, even more so now that our story has a happy ending (though this is really only the beginning!). Thank you to everyone for all the kind words and, most importantly, prayers. We would not have made it through this trying time without our family's & friend's support. Our perfect little angel is home!!!

In my first non-hospital clothes! 

Our last photo in the NICU

Look how little I am! 

Good-bye Tisch Hospital and your long elevator lines

Konked out in the cab

2 weeks and change...

Hello World! 

I started writing this post on Sloan's 2 week birthday...but time has gotten away from me (and she's not even home yet! I'm really going to disappear once she comes home). Here are some of her latest stats:

1640 grams (3 pounds, 10 oz). She's had 4 straight days of positive weight gain!
Feeds are up to 30ml and she takes them in 30 minutes now (originally feeds took 2 hours).
Bradys - averaging about 1 a day for the past week or so.
She is doing a great job regulating her temperature, so they have her in a shirt & swaddle now.

She hates her feeding tube and tries to pull it out daily. The other day when I was there she got about 4-5 inches of it out before we had to push it back down. The next step before she can actually have it taken out is to take her feeds via bottle. They introduced bottles to her on Tuesday afternoon, but she was not crazy about it. However, Wednesday afternoon she took a whole 10ml via bottle! Thursday and today she has been less enthusiastic and only taken ~5ml per try (when she will try). Babies typically learn the suck/breathe/swallow reflex 34-35 weeks - which is why full term babies have no problem feeding - but with Sloan being so small, she is just a bit behind. But once it clicks, it clicks - so  we think next week will be better.

There is talk about taking her off the caffeine next week - maybe Monday or Tuesday - depending on how her bradys go this weekend. Once that happens it takes 7 days for the caffeine to clear her system, then she must show 5 "episode free" days before being declared brady-free. Of course, we also have to master the eating thing, so we've still got work to do.

She poops on Mom during kangaroo care all the time and she threw up (through her nose) on Dad yesterday. It's like she's a real baby or something!

Now for some of our latest pictures...working on a larger album, but there are just so. many. pictures.

Proud Dad

Shhhhh! Sleepy Baby

This was the day she took 10ml via bottle...

...then she promptly fell asleep in Mom's arms

A kiss from Mom

Special time with Dad

Funny face! 

Squirmy baby

Squishy Face

Another quick update...Sloan got moved to the front of NICU!!! There are 4 or 5 'pods' in the NICU and apparently the babies that need the least intensive care are towards the front. We had been in the next to last pod this whole time, so you can imagine our surprise when we went to visit her last night and she wasn't in her spot!! We walked all the way back there and stared at the incubator for a second and said "That's not our baby." They had moved her all the way to the first pod! Now Sloan is front and center when everyone walks in (the only downside is that it's not as much privacy as we'd like, but that is ok). The nurses also said she is showing really great 'feeding signs' - hands to her mouth, smacking her lips, etc. and they will likely try to feed her through a bottle next week. That is typical for 34 weeks, so she is right on schedule. They're also going to try to put some clothes on her soon to start testing her ability to regulate her temperature.

Now on to the real reason for this update - to show off Sloan's "squishy face". She has this funny little habit where she'll be sleeping peacefully, then make the most ridiculous scowl/squishy face for a few seconds...then go back to normal. It is absolutely hysterical & we caught it on camera last night!

Enjoy!

Videos for your enjoyment...

Just posting a few videos we have taken the past few days. They help show how tiny Little Miss Sloan is. She weighed in at 1480 grams today, so down 10 grams. They assure us the fluctuation is normal - I'm sure she'll be back up tomorrow. She did get her IV out today, which means the only tube left is the feeding tube. Everything else is just a few leads to monitor heart rate or body temperature (which I'm told she is very good at already). She is still on a maintenance dose of caffeine too. Not sure how long that continues, but it helps with the bradys so we're all for it.

Video from Barry's first kangaroo time:

And another quick one taken as we put her back in her little home yesterday - she was so alert!

Pictures Tell A Thousand Words

Now that you've read all about our birth story and have heard about Sloan's first week of life, it's time for more of what everyone wants - pictures! As you can imagine we have a ton, but have narrowed the best down into one album for easy viewing.

But, before I post those everyone should know that Sloan wants to hear from you! Since we are all connected through text, email, Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare these days, it only made sense to make sure Sloan was dialed in as well. We have set her up with an email and Twitter account:
Email: sloanloudis@gmail.com
Twitter: @sloanloudis

So, if you'd like to follow her growth progress, check her out on Twitter. Most importantly though, if you'd like to welcome her to this little world we live in, tell her a story, or just drop her a line because you are thinking of her - please send her an email! We'll be sure to read her all of the notes when we do her bedtime stories...and one day when she is older it will be a nice keepsake as well.

Now without further adieu -- pictures!!
ps - the slideshow moves rather fast and we can't change the speed, so if you're having trouble reading the captions either roll over the slideshow for manual controls. Or if you'd like to manually scroll through the album, use this link.

Introducing Sloan Yates Loudis

Baby Girl "BG" Loudis (formerly known as Warby) came into this world on Wednesday, August 15th at 10:04am, and weighed in at 3lbs, 1oz. She surprised her parents with her early arrival, but she apparently had somewhere to be - and quick! The rumor is that she wanted to make sure she didn't miss any football games...

Snug as a bug in a rug

For a 32 week old preemie, she was surprisingly strong. She came out able to breathe on her own, and some of the NICU nurses said her sucking abilities looked more like a 34 week old baby. Apparently she is already acting older than her age...  She is a feisty little thing and is always squirming around in her incubator. Arms flailing around and legs sprawled out across her little nest of a home. There was a time when they had a nose cannula to help with oxygen, but she kept messing with it and that experiment was over.

From the beginning they inserted a feeding tube into her mouth. They started with about 5ml of food, but quickly learned it was too much so they dropped her to 4ml and established a good starting point. Her intake has increased 2 ml every 12 hours since and as of this blog posting she should be at about 20 ml per feeding. They feed her each day at 1, 4, 7 & 10 - both am & pm. The feeds take about 2 hours to go through, she digests for an hour, and then they do it all again. As of Sunday they moved the feeding tube to her nose because those flailing arms would pull it out. Mom & Dad think she looks better with the tube in her nose anyway.

Reaching for the tubes

As is the case with a lot of preemies, her bilirubin levels were high so by Friday they had her under the lights to help prevent jaundice. She got to come out briefly on Sunday & Monday, but her levels have risen again and she is back to getting a suntan. This is a fairly common problem to have and we're told levels typically subside 7-10 days after birth.

Under the lights. Note the sprawling arms & legs

The biggest medical hurdle so far have been 'bradys' (short for bradycardia). These are episodes where the heart rate drops below a certain number (100 in our case). Between weeks 32-34 is when babies develop the ability to breathe, suck and swallow at the same time. If this coordination isn't quite perfected yet, the breathing will become really shallow and the heart rate drops. Each of these episodes only lasts a few seconds and they're typically brought out of them by a little jostle or stimulation. On Friday, BG Loudis had 16 of these episodes. The doctors were really alarmed at this number so they first dropped her feed amount. The bradys continued, though not as often, so they decided to give her caffeine on Saturday evening. She ended up with 10 bradys on Saturday. By Sunday the number dropped to 4, and on Monday there was only one. Tuesday was our first brady-free day, so we have made significant progress. However, we aren't out of the woods yet - there was one brady today (Wednesday) but it only lasted a few seconds and she brought herself out of it.

Cuteness

Once she has proven she is over the bradys, she'll become what is known as a "feeder & grower". This just means that she has to get bigger and stronger. By Tuesday night she reached her birth weight again (roughly 1400 grams). The next milestone is around 1700-1800 grams. This is when she'll be big enough to start regulating her body temperature. Once she can do that, her brady spells are gone, and she is at least 1800 grams she can come home! 1800 grams is only a rough estimate though - they've done all sorts of precautionary tests to make sure nothing else is causing her size issue, but they've all come back normal. She is likely just a really small baby, so they may want her to be just a bit more than 1800 grams.

Now on to the more fun and less medical stuff. It took us until Sunday, but we finally named our sweet little Warby: Sloan Yates Loudis. You have to understand that we had a list of about 9 names when she was born. Our plan was to go to dinner for Barry's birthday (Sept 4) and narrow down our list to a Top 3, take those to the hospital with us and then decide. That obviously did not happen, so while I was in my drug-induced haze we narrowed it down to a Top 5, and by late Saturday we had a Top 2 - Greer or Sloan.  He came back to the hospital on Sunday morning, said he had slept on it, and felt like Sloan should be the winner. After doing a little research, we learned that Sloan means "warrior", and after the fight she has shown us already, how can you argue with that? It was very important to me to honor my paternal grandmother who passed away just last December, so we gave her the middle name Yates, which was MawMaw's maiden name. She is now officially Sloan Yates Loudis, but rest assured she will still answer to Warby - and Mom and Dad are definitely guilty of still calling her that every once in a while.

Our final list of names - it stared at Mom for days in the hospital bed

Finally, our current status... Mom & Dad go visit Sloan at least twice a day. Typically one of these visits will consist of "Kangaroo Care" time - basically skin on skin time for at least an hour. The first session was a huge hit on Sunday night and our little Baby Girl began to sleep much more peacefully afterwards. Mom likes to go in the mornings for the 10am feeding and sit for as long as two hours. Dad finally got to do his first session last night and thought it was pretty awesome. Sloan had the hiccups for the first ten minutes or so, then spent the second ten minutes squirming around on his chest trying to find a nipple - we finally gave her a binky and she settled down quickly. Each night when we go back, whether we are kangaroo'ing or just saying Good Night, we are reading her a book. The first night was "On the Night You Were Born", then it was "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?" and finally "The Going To Bed Book". Tonight's selection is "Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too?".

Mom and Kangaroo Time 

Dad and Kangaroo Time

Best By Oct. 08

Stop mocking me, Apple Juice. 

Most of you have been lead here by the big events of the past week - our precious baby Sloan (formerly known as Warby) was born on August 15, 2012. I'm sure many of you are thinking "but I thought you weren't due until October 8th?". Well, you'd be right. Here's the low down on how we skipped 8 weeks of pregnancy (for the record, I don't recommend anyone else trying to do this)...

It all started back during our Week 28 and Week 30 check ins. The Week 28 check in was with a midwife who thought my blood pressure was getting a little high. They did a few blood tests & everything came back normal, but they suggested I start taking my BP at home just to keep tabs on it. During our Week 30 visit, my blood pressure was much better, but now I wasn't showing enough belly growth between the two visits. So a follow up appointment with the imaging center was made for 8/8. We soon discovered that Warby was only measuring in the 5th percentile (anything below the 10th percentile is considered the 'danger zone') and that, coupled with my elevated BP numbers, could be cause for concern. The Dr ordered two rounds of steroid shots as a precautionary measure (they help with lung growth) and instructed me to come back twice a week from now until Week 36.

Our first check up was on August 14th - Week 32. All of the Doppler images of the placenta looked better (check for blood flow, etc), but my BP was 140/90 exactly. The Dr got a very serious face and told me that if my numbers went up at all for our next visit he would be sending me to the hospital for monitoring. Little did he know I was headed there anyway...

Finding a cab to the hospital 

I woke up Wednesday morning with cramps (now I know they were contractions) and bleeding. I also was not feeling Warby move, and she was always very active. After a quick phone call with my Dr (who had just reviewed the notes from the previous day's imaging visit) she suggested we just go ahead and go to the hospital.

The On-Call Dr (Dr. Flagg) was waiting for us and they whisked us away into a triage room. They strapped me up to some machines & quickly found Warby's heart rate - it was at 148, a good number. Relief! She was still there! But, in the time it took Barry to sign three admission papers, I had a sudden hot flash and another contraction. The nurse came in and said her HR dropped to 90. They had me lay on my left side, lay on my right, then get on all fours to find a better pulse. Each time I moved positions, another 3-4 doctors would come into the room. Dr. Flagg quickly announced "we're going to have to deliver your baby now". It appeared as though I had developed preeclampsia and it was causing the placenta to separate from the uterus. They immediately started wheeling me to the Operating Room - so fast in fact that my IV, which was still being put in, almost got ripped out. They told me they would try to keep me awake and just give me an epidural, but about 10 seconds in the OR they decided it was best to knock me out. I just told them "do what you have to do". I said a quick prayer and the gas mask went on my face...

Barry had to wait outside the operating room from here on out. He was putting on scrubs as he walked down the hall, and barely had time to process what was going on. There were quite a few anxious minutes outside of those doors, but everyone that passed in and out assured him that things were going well. Finally, a few minutes later he heard crying and knew that Warby was here! We got to the hospital no earlier than 9:30am; the time was now 10:04am and our daughter was here.

Proud Papa

"Warby" (the hospital called her "BG", or Baby Girl Loudis) was born at 3lbs, 1 oz. She was breathing on her own (Praise the Lord for the steroid shots!), but they took her to the NICU pretty quickly. They woke me up about an hour later with the good news; Barry also insisted I look at the awesome view from the OR...I was not interested in anything but sleeping. My blood pressure was still pretty high in the recovery room so they put me on Magnesium Sulfate. Talk about making you loopy! For the next 36 hours I would sleep for 2 hours, then wake up for 30 minutes and struggle to focus/keep my eyes open. Rinse & Repeat.

By Thursday afternoon they wheeled us up to the 13th Floor and we got settled in our room. I was finally able to meet Warby that night around 7pm. I was still a little out of it, but it was such a joy to finally meet my little girl. They even took her out of the incubator so I could hold her for a little while.

The next three days were a blur of NICU visits, needle pricks and blood pressure cuffs. By Sunday afternoon our time was up and we had to head home. It is a sad moment to walk out of the hospital with all your material stuff, but without your baby. But, as you'll see in the next post, she is being well taken care of by the best Dr's & nurses one could hope for.

It's not a very conventional birth story but it's our story; and we couldn't be happier or more blessed to have our perfect, little bundle of joy.