So close, yet so far away

5 days.

Never has 5 days seemed so close, yet so far away at the same time.

In 5 days we will be able to hold our baby boy in our arms, kiss his little cheeks, and count his tiny toes.

I had my last doctor appt today and it went well. I'm not dilated or effaced at all so he will hopefully stay put until Tuesday. I will have one last ultrasound on Monday at 330 just to double check that he is still a happy and healthy little dude.

I am grateful that Adam's parents will be in town and are letting us go out for one last night on the town on Valentines Day. We are getting a couples massage in the morning. Then I have my ultrasound that afternoon, and then we are headed to dinner and a hockey game! It will be great to have something to keep my mind off of the excitement of the next day.

This weekend we are going to hit up the zoo (not sure which day yet), and on Saturday night I have a girls dinner with my bestie Anneke. It will be great to relax and fit some laughs in!

5 days people....5 days. :)

Feeding Tube Awareness Week

I was not aware that there was a feeding tube awareness week. However, I am so glad that there is! We have some people in our lives that accept the feeding tube, and others that question what we are doing. They ask, "Well have you tried this? How about this? or what about that?" when talking about her eating by mouth. While I understand that it is well intentioned, it does frustrate me. We have therapists who dedicate their lives work to helping kids like Bree, and they see her on a weekly basis. We are trying our best to help her, and encourage her to eat with her mouth. For now, the g tube is a part of our lives.

I am so thankful that there is such thing as a feeding tube. Without it, Bree would not be here. She is not able to eat enough food or drink enough liquids by mouth in order to sustain life. So yes, she does get her nutrition differently than other children. Yes, it does take more time. Yes, I do wish that she didn't have to have a g tube...but she does. So we accept and we do our best with what we have.

 I can guarantee she is much better fed than most children her age because we control exactly what goes into her, how many calories, and ounces of fluid/food she has a day. For me, that is a comfort. She is getting the best nutrition that she possibly can be, which is allowing for the best brain and body growth for her. When she is sick, we can still give her food and fluids as long as her little stomach will hold it in. She gets all of her medicine through her tube, and I don't have to worry about how much she spit out.

We love our tubie.

Spectacular Bree

I just talked with Bree's speech therapist and he said that if she continues to progress at the rate that she is...she will NOT qualify for the developmental preschool program. This is GREAT news! In our state, kids from birth to three who need therapies have their therapies either come to their house, or they go somewhere. Once they are three, they are put into the state developmental preschool program and receive their therapies that way. He said that she may still need some speech therapy at least once a week, but she won't need it enough to have to go to the developmental preschool. His exact words were that she is "borderline" for needing the developmental preschool. He suggested keeping her in the preschool that we have her in now in order to keep her progressing along with her peers since she responds really well to that. Just knowing Bree and her tendencies to imitate what she sees around her, he worries that by going into the developmental preschool she would regress and adapt to what her special needs peers are doing. Since she is borderline for even needing to go, she would probably be one of the higher functioning kids there. He would hate to see her regress when we have the ability to keep her in a preschool where her peers are functioning at a normal level and she would strive to copy them and be like them. My heart is so happy to hear that news!