Smaller than Pat's Hand

He really is small. Take a look. His head looks so small next to Pat's hand. But he is getting bigger everyday.

Rooming In

Dad and Ben Rooming In for His final night in the Hospital

The night before preemies are discharged from the NICU, they have the parents come and stay overnight with the baby in a hospital room to make sure the parents are ready to do all the feeding and care for the baby and have all of their questions answered. Tonight is our night to room in the hospital with him. So here we are hanging out in our hospital room with Bennett. Tonight will be our first night getting up for all of his feedings and it probably sounds weird for all you experienced moms out there, but I am kind of looking forward to it. Tomorrow morning we get discharged.....yippee and real life outside the hospital walls begins!

We are off to Dallas tomorrow to stay at Angel's moms apartment. She is soo soo nice to offer it up to us and I could not be more excited to have a place with a kitchen and laundry after a week in and out of hotels and hospitals! Thank you so much Laura...what a blessing!

I have noticed that Bennett has a pose that we catch often on film. I call it his karate chop. You can see it in Wednesday's photos and here is his karate chop pose from today. Maybe he is going to be our little karate kid.

The Girl Next Door

On the day that we arrived in TX, there was another baby born and placed through our adoption agency in the same hospital as Bennett. The hospital put that little girl's crib right next to Ben's and the two have been side by side ever since. Yesterday we found out that an adoptive family had been chosen for that baby and they were coming all the way from Hawaii to pick her up. They named her Nahla. Ben's little friend is going to live in Hawaii. Yay Nahla! We are so happy for you!

Ben (July 12) and Nahla (July 16)

A Few of Today's Snapshots

He is holding his own bottle now:)

The Carseat Challenge

He passed!! All the preemies have to take the car seat challenge before they can be discharged from the NICU. This morning we had to bring in his car seat. They buckled our little man into the car seat and hooked up his heart rate and respiratory monitors and monitored him in his car seat for two hours to make sure he does ok sitting up in a car seat for an extended period of time. He passed. He actually seemed to really like his car seat...and that is good because we have a long drive back home ahead of us. I forgot to snap a picture of it, but he looked very cozy in his car seat.

All the babies looked so cute just sitting in their little car seats doing the car seat challenge. I think we are really going to miss our NICU family when we are gone. They take such good care of us and its so nice to have the experts around to answer any of our new parent questions at anytime. This morning our nurse Deb, snuck some extra bottles and formula for us so that we have what we need for the car ride home. She is a hoot. She came around the corner with a garbage bag and was like, "Here you guys...take this....this will make the car ride so much easier. Now run along. Get outta here before they see you. " We hussled out of that NICU so fast and now we have some of the premade formula bottles to get us to TX. Yay Deb. What a blessing these nurses have been. Ben is in very good hands!

Bath Time

Today the NICU nurses helped us to give Ben his first sponge bath. He was not too fond of it given that I think he got chilly about half way through it. But when he was done he looked cuter than ever and smelled soooo good! Dad even styled his hair for a fresh after bath look.

All ready for Bed. Night Night little Ben.

Newborn Clothes

Ben just drowns in newborn clothes (1st picture below) so today I splurged and bought a couple preemie outfits (2nd picture below). Eventhough they will probably only fit for a blink of an eye, he looks so cute in his new little clothes that fit. I am sure it won't be long and I will be shedding a tear as I pack away his newborn wardrobe. For now we treasure our tiny little preemie.