Just an update!

It's been a while since I've updated on here so I thought I'd do a quick one. We are closing on our house in 2 weeks and 6 days (am I counting down? Oh yes I am!!) and we're moving exactly 3 weeks from today. I've been super busy trying to pack while also taking care of the girls--not an easy feat! They keep me sooo busy! Olivia is 2 and gets into everyyyyyything! Ella is a high needs baby and needs to be constantly held. For the most part, she doesn't love being put into my sling or carrier either so it makes it difficult to pack. Last week, my mom came over most days so she could help with the girls but even then it can be tough to get any packing done.

Olivia breastfeeding her baby sitting on Auntie Faiths lap

Olivia got that doll from my grandma after Ella was born.
It was bigger then Ella when she was born. Look at it now! 

Ella staring at her Great Grandma while she sang to her <3

Ella is doing excellent! She's still on O2 and we have an appointment with the pulmonologist on Monday. She weighs over 9 pounds now!! I don't know the exact weight but several days ago she was 8 lbs 14 oz and she's been gaining about 2-2.5 ounces a DAY! She's such a little chunker...she has a big huge double chin, fat rolls on her thighs..she's so sweet and chunky! She's getting more alert everyday and can hold her head and shoulders up really well. She also rolled from her back to her side the other day and follows people with her head and eyes. She's right on track with where she should be with her adjusted age.

Shane got hit by a car tonight

So, tonight we got home from visiting Shane's dad and we pulled into the parking lot of the apartments. There are two handicapped spots, side by side and there was a car parked dead in the middle of both of them, still running. Shane got out of the car to tell the person to move but they weren't in their car. Then they came out of the building attached to us and Shane told him he had to move. The guy told Shane that he "couldn't tell him what to do and he wasn't going to move". Shane told him we had a disabled daughter and that the guy wasn't allowed to park there and we needed to. They argued back and forth and the guy went into his car, grabbed some stuff and WALKED AWAY. So we called the police (all the while, both girls are in the car, crying) and were standing behind his car.

The guy came back out and I had taken a picture of his license plate (but not the car in the parking space SIGH) and was on the phone with the police. I told him I was on the phone with the police and they were on their way out. He got into his car AND STARTED BACKING UP.I started moving out of the way and Shane went to move me out of the way and the guy in the car HIT SHANE WITH HIS CAR. He actually HIT HIM. Shane slammed his hands down on the trunk and the guy HIT HIM AGAIN. A piece of the guys thin trim came off and he got out of his car and started screaming that we had "effed up his car and we were going to pay". HE then takes out HIS phone and called the police on US, telling us we were going to pay for this and that we "effed up his car" etc etc. The police came out, we had already pulled into the spot because the guy had moved and was parked at an angle behind us. 

The police came and spoke to us and I explained what had happened. They talked to the guy, who started arguing with them about parking in those spots. Yes, they argued with the police. The police were unable to do anything because the picture I took only had their license plate in it and the guy said he didn't hit Shane intentionally (UH LIE, I was ON THE PHONE with dispatch when he hit him!). They were pissed at the guy and chewed them out for like 10 minutes but in the end, the guys reparked and the police gave them a warning. 

It gets even better, we came in and called the apartment manager who said they wouldn't do anything to enforce the parking spots and all we could do is call the police. Shane asked them to send out a notice to the residents asking them not to park there and the manager refused!!! He said he "wouldn't do that and we'd have to keep calling the police" because it was "the police's business". 

I cant believe this happened. I'm so upset that this keeps happening and we still have 4 freaking weeks to live in this dump. 

Just life

Well we got some wonderful news! Our offer was accepted on the house! Hurray! We close on February 25 and I'm HOPING we'll be be moving in the next weekend. The paint colors are super weird in there so I want to get the living/dining area as well as the kitchen painted before we move in. I'd LIKE to paint the master bedroom before we move in because the light blue doesn't match our comforter AT ALL but it's not my main concern. The living areas are the biggest thing to me and I'll worry about the rest later.

I had blogged the other day that Ella might be off o2 in 3 (now 2) weeks? Wellll, that changed. Yesterday, when home health came they noticed that Ella was having some mild retracting (pulling in under her ribs). Now,  a lot of babies with chronic lung disease are apt to have some retractions, it's just kind of part of the package but she told us to keep an eye on it. Well, by evening, I noticed they were slightly deeper and she was also taking deep shuddering breaths pretty frequently. So I called the pediatrician and spoke to the on call ped. I thought we'd have to go back into the ER. Thank goodness we didn't, but we did end up turning Ella's O2 back up to 1/8 of a liter. This morning we talked to her pulmonologist on the phone and they cancelled the overnight sleep study for now. She's just not quite ready, and that's okay!

On another note, when Ella was weighed on Tuesday, she weighed 7 lbs 6 oz. On Friday, at her pulmonology appointment she weighed 7 lbs so she gained 6 oz in just a few days!! The really exciting thing about that is that I only had her on one bottle since her medications were moved to only once a day. So that's alllllll boobie milk except one fortified bottle! Hurray!

I wanted to get pictures of them in their matching jammies. Olivia kept saying
 "Nooo I dont' want to hold her!"
 She wanted to play with her cousin instead! 

I fought for this picture hah

Olivia, Ella and cousin Kyra

7 lbs 6 oz--what a change from 2 lbs 10 oz! 

Lots of exciting things in the Johnson household!

On Friday, we brought Ella to the lung specialist and lots of exciting things occurred at that visit! They put her down to 1/16 a liter (she was on 1/8) and took her off the caffeine. We are weaning her off the diurel (diuretic) and sodium so she'll be off that by this next Friday. In 2 weeks, Ella will have an overnight study done (at our place) where she is off the O2 all night and on a sat machine to see how she handles it. If she handles that well, she could be off O2 by the end of the month!! As of Friday, Ella was still 20 inches long but she now weighs 7 lbs!! Hurray!

Also on Friday, we went and did some house hunting. Our lease on our apartment is up on April 1 and with the market like it is, it's such a great time to buy a house. We're in the market for a pretty cheap house but there are SO many houses for sale that we actually have a lot of options. We didn't really expect to find something but the first two houses we saw were actually contenders. They weren't great, and they needed some work but we would have been okay with them. The third house we saw though...oh wow. We walked in and immediately fell in love. It's AMAZING! It's a 3 bedroom 1 3/4 bath with a family room AND living room. It's a single family home in Crystal with a 2+ car garage and a HUGE fenced in back yard. It's absolutely adorable. There are hard wood floors throughout the entire first floor and the basement has a fireplace. There is a 4th room in the basement that is called a play room on the listing but it's essentially a bedroom. They just can't cal it a bedroom because it doesn't have an egress window. Well, it was $15K less then our price range and we knew immediately we wanted to make an offer on it. We did look at some other houses and saw a few possible choices if we don't get this one but really, nothing that we LOVED like we love this one! Here are some pictures. They don't do the house a lot of justice because we took them quickly but you get the point.

Olivia just had a short bout of the stomach flu yesterday. We're really hoping that neither of us or Ella get it, but sometimes with these stomach bugs, only time can tell. Shane has been off work for the last 17 days and tomorrow, he's back to work. :-/ We have a fair amount of meals in the freezer that I made while Ella was in the NICU and a few things we made while Shane was off so that'll get us through a few weeks so I don't have to worry about cooking. Even though Ella has been alive for 3 months, she's still essentially a newborn and we're still figure out our groove with everything!

Here's some pictures of the girls from the last several days. Everyone keep your fingers crossed...your toes...your eyes...whatever you can, and pray we get this house!!!! :)

New Years Eve trip to the ER

This morning when we woke up, as I was changing Ella, I noticed that she was retracting in her chest just a bit. That's when the chest is sucking in under the ribs, which can indicate respiratory distress. It was pretty mild and right after, she got the hiccups so I decided just to keep an eye on it. We went to a small New Years party with just a few (HEALTHY!) friends and then came home for a nice long nap. I had seen it still while at our friends house but it was still mild. This evening, I checked and she still had the retracting. It hadn't gotten any worse but since it was still there, I called our pediatrician's office. I spoke to the on call ped who said that based on Ella's history and her current respiratory status that he wanted her seen immediately at Children's. So, off we went to the ER at Children's in Minneapolis.

When we got there, she was still having some mild retracting but everything else was totally fine. They hooked her up to a pulse oxymeter which indicated that her O2 saturation was 100%. She sounded totally clear, no temperature and looked great. We went back into a room and the doctor saw us and everything was the same except the retracting was barely noticeable. The doctor said that her belly was very full and had a lot of gas in it and that can sometimes cause babies to retract like that. They did do an influenza and RSV test just to be on the safe side though. If either of those come back positive, Ella will have to be readmitted into the hospital. We're really hoping it's not either of those two things because if Ella gets RSV or the flu, it is much, much more dangerous then if you or I get the flu. She could end up back on the vent or she could even die from it. With preemies like her, especially with the chronic lung disease and being on O2, it can be deadly so we're praying that it's not that. Thankfully, the doctor seemed relatively sure that it wasn't that.

We were in and out of there pretty quickly and got home about 10 PM. So no trips to ER in 2011 yet! ha!

What a merry, merry Christmas!!

I think this was probably one of the best Christmas' we've ever had. We are so blessed to have two beautiful, amazing girls and to have them home on Christmas was the best gift we could have EVER asked for! Ella came home 8 days before Christmas and has been doing wonderfully. On Christmas Eve, we baked Christmas cookies and watched The Muppets Christmas Carol, which is something we do every year on Christmas Eve. Great Grandma Phyllis was going to come over, but unfortunately she had a cold and we can't let anyone who is sick come around Ella. We'll have to celebrate with her a little later!

Baking mama's special butter cookies on X-mas eve! 

The stockings were hung over the entertainment center with care...

On Christmas Day, we opened gifts with just our little family. Great Grandma Carol, Grandma Jany, Grandpa Paul and Uncle Tim came over in the afternoon, and we opened more presents. We had a wonderful meal and watched Christmas movies all day. It was a nice, relaxing Christmas.

We got lots of pictures of Olivia...but not any of us together as a family. I'm not sure how we managed to miss one of those. I was kind of bummed about that, but on Sunday we have someone coming over to do some professional pictures in our home. So we'll make sure to get a good family photo together then.

It was a simple Christmas, but a wonderful one. It couldn't have been a happier Christmas, with our Ella home and our girls together. My wish was to wake up on Christmas morning, with a girl on either side of me. And on Christmas morning, I woke up with one girl curled up in my arms, and the other curled up on my back. My Christmas wish came true! <3

First full day home

Wow, what a journey it was going through the NICU. It's amazing to finally be home. Yesterday, we didn't even know 100% sure if Ella was coming home until we were driving to the hospital. We were about 90% sure but you never know with the NICU! We got her all ready to go, got her medications (it's a good dang thing Ella qualifies for MA because of her prematurity and chronic lung disease because a single months worth of just ONE of the meds she came home on would have cost $1500), went over discharge and 3 hours later...we walked out of the ICC to start our life as a family of 4!!! 


We got home and we could hear Olivia in the apartment...she knew we were there and she was trying to open the door to greet us. She immediately knew we had Ella and was enthralled! She was giving her hugs and kisses right away. I sat on the couch and she brought a blanket over and started playing peekaboo with Ella. It was so sweet. We spent the day lounging around with the girls, letting Olivia get to know Ella and just relaxing as a family of 4. We got take out from our favorite Chinese restaurant to celebrate Ella coming home. 


All in all, it was just a nice coming home day. We did absolutely nothing except watch a movie and sit around relaxing with the girls. Olivia is absolutely in love with her little sister and Ella seems to be pretty fascinated with her big sister! Ella is breastfeeding like a pro and she wakes up to eat. We don't have to set alarms or force her to eat. The only problem I've encountered so far is she seems to be a one boob baby so far--she does NOT like my right side and will scream if I try to get her to eat on that side. I'm going to work on that though--I don't want a one boob baby!!! 


Here's some pictures from the day!

Now that Ella is home, I'm still planning on continuing to blog about our family and update everyone on the girls and just life in general!!