Happy 1 Month Birthday to Landon

Our little doll baby has made it one month today. This month has gone by extremely fast and slow at the same time. It has been the hardest, scariest, happiest and most incredible month of my life. It is hard to imagine that when my water broke 3 months ago, we would make it to this moment. I remember all of the uncertainty. My dearest desire during those months of waiting and hoping I could keep him in one more day was to know whether or not he would survive. I would have given anything to have a magic crystal ball where I could see for sure what my heart knew all along, that he would make it. The impact this little man has made on the world in his short month of existence is awe-inspiring. Landon makes it very clear that there is a God and he has a purpose for even the tiniest of us. We are grateful that God decided to pick as imperfect people as Ryan and I to have such a gift as our Landon.

That being said, that crazy baby definitely keeps us on our toes! After a nearly perfect week with little to no heart attack moments for his parents, Landon has become quite feisty these last few days. As a preemie, Landon has to find ways to demonstrate his feistiness and unfortunately two of those ways are making his heart rate drop and lowering the amount of oxygen saturation in his blood. Anytime either of these things happen, a loud alarm goes off on the monitor next to his isolette. Most of the time, he quickly brings up his heart rate and oxygen levels within seconds. Other times, his nurse has to intervene by giving him more oxygen. This is totally normal preemie behavior as his nurses and doctors often tell us, but that doesn't make it any easier when you are watching your baby with alarms blaring every few minutes.

Another reason this may be happening is because Landon is feeling much better and realizes he doesn't like his belly open or a tube in his lungs. Part of me is secretly happy that my baby has enough spirit to tell us he is mmmaaadddd at these things, while the other part of me weeps for the pain and discomfort he has to endure. We are extremely lucky to have his primary nurse Kimmy, in times like these. She gives us perspective by pointing out things like the fact he is a fighter and he is telling the world that he deserves to be here because he earned his place. She is pretty much his second mother. She knows what Landon likes and doesn't like and will fight like a mama bear if someone tries to bug him (ie a doctor trying to poke at him) after he has had a hard day. I think God puts people in your life to make your journey easier and Kimmy is one of those people.

Although Landon has been giving us a run for our money, he also had some positive things happen in the last few days. He now can suck on a pacifier or binky as we call it. That is a very positive step from a developmental perspective. He gets really angry if you take his binky away as evidenced in the picture above. This week he also had his first eye exam. Preemies are at a high risk for a condition called ROP. Basically, because his eyes are still immature and growing there is possibility the blood vessels in his eyes could go crazy and actually grow in such a chaotic fashion that they could make his retina detach. Luckily, his first eye exam did not show evidence of this, but since his eyes are still so immature they will continue to monitor every week for this condition. The eye exam involves getting his eyes dilated, which he didn't like much since he kept his arm over his eyes to protect them from the brightness for the rest of the day.