A Star Wars Christmas

Cloned Jack.

This is going to take a while. Those two instruction books are hefty.

Lego, Lego, Lego

legocastle_cheltenham_svw_012, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Jack and I (and mummy, and Uncle Nick) have been building lots of Lego with Jack. He wants to set up the figures in his new Lego Star Destroyer for me to take photos of next.

Annabel and Kim at home

annabel4wks_home_svw_019, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Annabel is getting bigger! (Slowly). She crossed the 4lb mark this week.

Tom and Lisa Birks

DSC00590, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Tom and Lisa were married yesterday. Awesome weekend, great to see you two get hitched!

An expanding set of photos from the day are appearing on Flickr. I guess that some of the less attractive or more embarrassing photos will find their way to Facebook too.

Annabel is home!

annabel_home_svw_005, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Annabel came home yesterday, in plenty of time for Christmas.

Caffeinated shopping trolley

Dad's probably shouldn't do the shopping.

Uncle Nick

DSC00513.JPG, originally uploaded by samwebster.

My brother gets his first cuddle.

Notice anything?

DSC00518.JPG, originally uploaded by samwebster.

No nasogastric tube. It's only temporary, but she's doing very well at learning to feed from the breast.

Jack's first cuddle

Clean

DSC00490.JPG, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Annabel staring out of the window, wrapped in towels, after her first bath. Bathed by daddy, of course.

Annabel

annabelhand_singleton_svw_001, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Keep an eye on Flickr, as I'm still uploading photos of Annabel. You can see from her face that she's putting on weight.

Logitech Harmony 555

A new, simplified all-in-one remote for babysitters. They were struggling to switch the TV on before I bought this. My mum can use it, so it must be good. And it took about 35 hours less than the previous programmable remote to configure too.

2 weeks old

DSC00471, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Annabel continues to thrive, gaining another 85g in the latter half of last week. Yesterday she had her monitoring wires removed, and she had a go at breastfeeding directly from her mum.

Annabel, day 12

Annabel is still progressing, and is now on larger 4-hourly feeds. Naturally when I went in to see her today she had been sick, wee'd and pooed, and then snotted on me. It's nice to see that everything works.

Bowling

I forgot to blog this, but we went bowling with friends and the kids on Monday. The UV lighting was fun.

Rain, rain go away

DSC00434.JPG, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Rainy school mornings in Wales.

No incubator

DSC00439.JPG, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Annabel is out of her incubator, and into a cot. The temperature in the incubator was lowered bit by bit, and Annabel was staying warm so she's in a cot, wearing a baby-grow and covered by blankets.

Another step closer to coming home.

Cozy

annabelday9_singleton_kmm_012, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Kim and Annabel spent most of the morning together. She was weighed today, and has gained 90g on her Sunday weight. She was very contented and sleepy this morning, as usual.

Bloater

This is what happens when I get sent out to do the shopping. Mmmm, fishy.

Annabel's second week

Annabel is into her second week now, and has moved out of the intensive neonatal care room, into the high dependancy unit, and now into the special care baby unit. She is being fed mum's milk every 3 hours and we're trying to disturb her as little as possible to let her sleep, conserve energy and grow. She's a very contented little baby. If her care and development continues this well all the way to Christmas I'll be very happy. She'll be getting a little toy in her incubator soon, and some time later she'll be in a cot and dressed in the huge array of pink premature baby clothes that people have been buying her.

She was under the lamp again today, as she was still a bit jaundiced. The photo-therapy helps break down the bilirubin while her liver is still not fully functioning yet.

Van meets house

Oops. It looks like someone left the handbrake off.

Daddy's first cuddle

And my big boy

My beautiful baby girl

Day 6 for Annabel

Day 6, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Look at my baby girl!

Jack is much better, and I haven't picked up his tummy bug so I went in to see Kim and Annabel this morning. Annabel was having a long skin-to-skin cuddle with her mummy, which she really liked and she was very settled when I arrived. It was the first time I'd seen Annabel without a hat on (I was sure that she had been born with it on).

She has lost weight (she now weighs 1.36kg) in her first week, but she has been building up her feeding and was taking 9ml of Kim's breast milk every hour today. 9ml looks like a huge amount when you really see how tiny she is. She's still on and off extra oxygen but all the tubes have gone except for the feeding tube you can see in her mouth. She's very active when awake, and keeps hunting around for a nipple to suckle on both in her incubator and when with KIm. She may have a go at breast feeding soon, but the gastric tube will remain important for feeding for some time yet.

There are more photos on Flickr, and I'm putting together her own website at www.annabelwebster.net.