Updates on Christopher

I've been busy (lazy?) and haven't posted updated photos of baby Christopher. He's changing so much that I can't put it off any longer. I'll start with the above photo when he was 1 week old and just home from the hospital. So adorable!

Below are two photos when he was just shy of 2 weeks old.

We skipped a week of photos, so here are two when he was 1 month old. Do you see how smooth and round his head got as his hematoma healed?

Finally, here is a photo we took last Wednesday. Notice anything different?

You're correct. No oxygen canula! Last Wednesday our home health providers called and told us we should do an overnight pulse oxymetry test. That means they gave us yet another monitor, told us to take Christopher off of the oxygen for the entire night, and asked us to return the monitor the next morning. We had to take advantage of the opportunity to film him without his canula. It was like seeing his face for the first time. We also got to take the socks off his hands since we didn't have to wory about him removing his oxygen tubing. Aren't his little hands beautiful?

Our biggest news yet is that the pediatrician called us last night and told us the results of the test . . . no more oxygen necessary! Just in time for Thanksgiving we can report that we are grateful for one less set of wires, no portable oxygen tank, and 50 feet less of tubing to trip on around the house.

Now I'm off to make the cranberry, cherry, and toasted walnut chutney for tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Cheap Meals

O.K. friends. Here's the deal. I need some great ideas for cheap meals. With Chris and Eva allergic to dairy products and gluten, our grocery costs have increased by a ton. We need to get our costs under control. Please post your favorite inexpensive meal ideas as comments. Even if they have dairy or gluten, post them anyway. We can all benefit and I might be able to modify them for cheap anyway!

Christopher Neal Holmes is Here!

On Thursday, October 16, 2008 we welcomed Christopher Neal Holmes to our family. He weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz. and was roughly 19 inches long. I went to the hospital around 9:30 a.m. and I delivered him at 8:34 p.m. It was my longest labor to date--full of lots of unexpected twists and turns, including forceps!!


Unfortunately, he aspirated some meconium during the delivery, and had to be rushed to the respiratory therapists at the hospital, so I have no sweet pictures of me holding him after his birth--I had to wait for 2 days to be able to hold him in my arms and nurse him for the first time.


After 2 days of treatments with the CPAP machine, surfactant, and antiobiotics we thought we'd be able to bring him home, but his body just wasn't ready yet. His bilirubin levels were increasing and his little lungs were still hazy. That means we all got to experience the NICU for another week. He received 5 more days of antibiotics, 2 days of "bili lights," an EKG to rule out heart problems, and quite a few more IVs, pokes, and pricks. On Thursday October 23rd, we finally got to bring him home. He still has to be on oxygen to strengthen his lungs, but we're hoping that within the next month he'll be off the oxygen. Many thanks to Emily for taking this adorable picture.



Here are some pictures of Elena and Eva meeting their baby brother at the NICU for the first time. You'll see from the pictures that they each enjoyed touching his cute little piggies. He's still hooked up to the CPAP machine in these pictures.

Getting Started

We love everyone else's blogs, so we decided to set up one of our own. We hope our friends and family enjoy ours as much as we enjoy theirs.


For our first post, we want to share some up-to-date photos of Elena and Eva. This August, after the Holmes Family Reunion, Grandma Holmes convinced us all to get some new family pictures. These are two of the pictures we took. Note that you can also see a glimpse of baby Christopher in mommy's tummy behind Elena.