One Month Old Brooklyn

So Brooklyn is a month old today, and I decided to do a little impromptu photo shoot. Of course I am biased, but I think she is adorable!! Her eyes are so big, but they say preemies are often that way for a while (until their head catches up, hehe).



She is a squirmy little girl!

Brooklyn's (exciting) fourth week

First of all, congratulations to my sister, Heather, and her new husband, Ned on their wedding Saturday. It was a beautiful day of celebration. We are so happy for you!!

All dressed up and ready to come home. If you notice, there are no cords to watch as she is now unhooked from everything, even the feeding tube!! Yeah!! We were so excited to bring her home on Sunday.

Family photo, with all the equipment and monitors in the background. We are thankful for the excellent care Brooklyn received, but will be glad to be done with machines and monitors.

Sleeping so peacefully in her open crib (finally keeping up her temperature on her own).

Here is Brooklyn in her open crib. It looks like a regular crib, just much smaller.

And finally in our carseat ready to go home!! It has been a long road, but every bit was worth it to bring her home healthy and happy:)

Finally, some at home pictures. I am in awe of God's care and faithfulness. He was with her every moment even when we couldn't be, and now He has entrusted her to our care. What an awesome responsibility!

And a classic pose, napping with daddy, the first of many:)

The rest of the family

Well, I realized that I have maybe been neglecting the rest of the family as I blog about Brooklyn's entry into the world, so here is a glimpse at what the rest of us have been up to.

The girls loved hanging out with their aunt Heather for a week!! Here everyone is playing with some of our old dress up clothes from when we were children. The girls' princess castle is set up in the background. Way to use that architecture degree, Heather!

Haddie also graduated from preschool shortly after I got home. Unfortunately we missed several days at the end including her class picture, but we were still happy to celebrate her graduation. She had so much fun.

Getting her diploma at the beach-themed party.

And at the hospital...

Haddie got a chance to visit her little sister in the NICU when she was just a few days old. She had to wear a mask and wash her hands VERY well (2 minutes, they make you set a timer). She was sooo good, we were both impressed.

She was so careful in the NICU and enjoyed seeing her sister (under the bili light which is why the light is funny).

The girls came to visit me in the hospital on Sunday after going to church with their grandparents. It was fun but hard because they (especially Haddie) wanted to be close to me and have me hold them and I wasn't really able too. Haddie cried when they left and it absolutely broke my heart.

Brooklyn's third week

Here I am still in the isolette, this is how I see my mommy.

Notice they moved my feeding tube to my nose so I can work on drinking from a bottle.

Mommy gets to help take care of me by taking my temperature (we do this each time before I eat, to make sure I have enough energy to eat and digest my food).

Sweet little girl!

I've been able to have some visitors while I was in the hospital. Here is a rare shot of my grandma, mom, and 2 aunts. They don't all get to see each other very often any more.

Brooklyn's second week

Well, here is week 2 in the life of our little miracle baby.

This first picture was taken inside the isolette when she was 8 days old (34 weeks). I can't believe she was already smiling!! This picture is a little blurry, but it just melts my heart. She can't wear clothes yet because she still has the umbilical IV, which is really delicate, so they keep her in a closed bed and regulate the temperature inside.

There are 2 little doors on the bed I can open to reach in and touch her. She is such a sweet, bright eyed little girl. Here she is with her feeding tube in her mouth.

This is one of the first times she was old enough to try to eat with a bottle. At first, it was just once a day so she didn't get too tired out. They feed her most of the time with the feeding tube because they want all her energy to go into growing. I guess the doctors have figured out that if she takes more than 20 minutes to eat, she is actually burning more calories than she is getting, so anything she doesn't take with the bottle in that amount of time, they feed her through the tube that goes all the way into her stomach. At first she really wasn't too sure about the bottle, but she picked it up quicker than some babies who were earlier and hadn't started to develop their sucking reflex (32 weeks, weren't we lucky!)

Brooklyn is 12 days old here and they have taken out the umbilical IV and put in a pic line (an IV threaded all the way to her heart-scary!) so now we can finally wrap her up and hold her.

She is a pro with the pacifier, this will be my first time using one. You can't see it in these pictures, but the doctors are concerned that her belly is tight and distended and she might not be digesting everything correctly. So, and this was very hard for me, they stopped feeding her completely for 3 days and put a suction tube into her stomach for 2 days to keep her completely emptied out and give her intestines a chance to catch up. She also had several x-rays. Apparently there are some pretty serious intestinal infections that preemies are susceptible to, so this was necessary. It was really hard to see her on the suction, though, and to hear her cry because she was hungry and we couldn't feed her. Thankfully they were giving her IV nutrition, but still a sight to break a mother's heart.

I think she is just the most precious thing ever. Can't wait to be able to bring her home. It is weird to think that the girls have a baby sister and Sierra hasn't even met her yet (Haddie was allowed 1 brief visit to the NICU, but Sierra was too young).

Brooklyn's first week

So this first picture isn't of Brooklyn, but some friends at church got us a cookie bouquet and Haddie was SOO excited!

Each girl has her name on it, and Haddie was especially happy when we told her Brooklyn was too small for her cookie, so Haddie could "help" her eat it. She also had a lot of fun with the ribbons that came with the bouquet.

What a little angel. Here is Brooklyn with daddy's hand on her in her little bed, called an isolette.
We had to touch her through the holes in the plexiglass.

After 3 days with the bili light, a mask to shield her eyes, and the c-pap machine (from my last post, which covered her nose and mouth), it is so wonderful to see her face with just a feeding tube in her mouth. You probably think it still seems like a lot of wires, but we were so glad to see her face for the first time. If I am there at her scheduled time, the nurses let me check her temperature and change her diaper. I was excited to do something for her but so nervous to do her diaper with all the cords and IV's hooked up. The IV in her belly button is the most fragile, and I was really nervous. They won't even dress her until she gets it off, and we aren't really able to hold her much with it in, either. The nurses are so careful and so protective. I am thankful, but it is strange to have to ask permission to hold my baby, especially when the answer is no!

Welcome, Brooklyn Nicole

Well, I have some catching up to do. We have had a lot going on in the Ulrich household, so I will try to start at the beginning and work my way up.

Brooklyn Nicole
Born 4/30/2009
3lbs, 8ozs
13 inches

Here is a pretty new picture of her the day she was born. She was born on the day I turned 33 weeks pregnant and had to be on oxygen for a while as well as moved to the NICU in Peoria, where she still is. I went to the hospital on 4/29 with severe abdominal pain. After a day of tests and ruling out a lot of things, I started going into labor. The doctors gave me medications to stop labor, but still couldn't find out what was wrong. Meanwhile, my pain is only manageable under some pretty heavy duty drugs. On Thursday, they transferred me to OSF in Peoria so I could be at the same hospital as Brooklyn if they had to deliver her early. At OSF they took me into surgery pretty quickly without really knowing what was wrong but suspecting my appendix.

Once I went into surgery, they took Brooklyn out after realizing that sometime ago my appendix had ruptured. We don't really know how long before, but it was pretty serious. I ended up having a blood transfusion the next day and received 4 units, so I lost quite a bit of blood. The next days, I perked up quite a bit and enjoyed visiting Brooklyn in the NICU, but of course I missed my girls at home. It was (and still is) very hard to be torn between the 2 places. More to come on Brooklyn next time (I could write a lot but don't want to get too long).

P.S. I don't know why all this text is underlined; sorry if it makes it hard to read.