She DID IT!!!!

Yaayyyy!!!!!!!!! Melanie is now on the growth chart!!! I took her in to the Dr. tonight to make sure her cough was "just a cough" before we leave for Iowa tomorrow morning. We had good news all around. It is just a cough, her chest sounds normal which means I was one of those run-to-the-dr-with-a-little-cough moms (a little embarrassing I have to admit), but now I will have peace of mind for the next week. The other good news-Melanie weighed in at a whopping 18lbs 3.5oz which put her in the 5th percentile!! We have been oh so diligent trying to get her weight up, ice cream, licking chocolate off the spatula, mac-n-cheese, suckers, cookies and some high calorie milk!! Since it's working I guess we'll have to keep spoiling her a bit and see if we can make double digits in the percentile chart!!

Here are some pictures and a video of Melanie's friends from the NICU neighborhood. **side note-I typed this before uploading the pictures...well they didn't upload so I put them all together in one video. I'm going to leave the picture descriptions below since I can't add that many words in the video***

Here is a picture of Melanie with Dr. Gelfand, her primary doctor in the NICU. He is an amazing dr and we will forever be grateful for all he did for Melanie. He is the one who came up with the idea to insert a tube into her lung to drain the 'stuff' inside. He then had to persuade the rest of the Dr.s and then perform the procedure!! We know all things happen of God's will alone. We also know that Melanie would have had a lot of problems with her lungs if that procedure wasn't done and thank God that Dr. Gelfand was Melanie's primary Dr.

Here is a picture of Melanie's favorite weekend night nurse-Kelly We went back to the Hospital after the NICU reunion to say 'hi' to anyone that was working. So glad we could see Kelly and get a picture with her.

And then there's ONE of the other favorite weekend day nurses-Jane. Jane was the nurse taking care of Melanie right after she was born. We will always have a special bond with her because she walked us through the hardest weekend of our lives (and some more after that too). We tried to get a picture of all the kiddos with her....maybe next year they'll cooperate :)

Melanie's friends from Nursery 1. These kiddos are so strong. They each had their own struggles in the NICU and continue to fight their own different trials each day. We praise God that He has sustained all of these little ones and are thankful for all of the blessings He has given them along the way. Brady and Paige and Levi.

The parents from nursery 1. We will forever be thankful for the help and encouragement from these 4 parents. They walked us through the ups and downs of the NICU and provided lots of needed laughter during the good times. We love you guys!!

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Late Pictures

We have been without our camera for about a month now and it's driving me CRAZY!! Hoping it will be here before we leave next week for Christmas in Iowa. I found and discovered our old camera works so I'll try to take some pictures and videos of the craziness at the Westra household. Little Melanie is into EVERYTHING!! For now, here is a quick little collage of my attempt at a one year picture for Melanie. After two days of trying, I gave up and went to Target for her pictures thinking then I could focus on getting her to smile....WRONG. The little stinker has become quite stingy with her smiles as of lately. I also put some pictures of her enjoying her birthday cake. That was her first taste of sweets (aside from a crumb of cookie a couple times). She LOVED it!! She now gets to eat birthday cake and ice cream everyday....seriously. I've been told to add fat to her diet in every way possible. Some examples they gave me: when giving her mac n cheese use whole milk and real butter (she's never had mac n cheese). Add butter, oil, and dips whenever possible. Hagen Daz ice cream every night (460 calories per scoop vs 200calories of regular ice cream), etc. I'm not ready to set her up on this kind of diet just yet. We are changing what she eats and offering her more sweets. She also is quickly learning she can have a high-calorie bottle of milk whenever she wants....even twice during the wee hours of the morning if she so chooses :( but I'm not adding butter, oil, and dips to everything just yet. We'll see how her next weight check goes.

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