I Almost Forgot

Yes, I know I'm behind on my Thankful days. I'll post those today. Zachary had to get his second Synagis shot this week (boo). He now weighs 7 lbs 7 oz. Dr. Steele was very impressed with his weight gain. He checked his ears and listened to his lungs to make sure the congestion hadn't settled in and thankfully it hadn't. He's still a little sniffly, but overall he seems to be on the up and up. We go back December 23rd (Merry Christmas to Zachary) for our 3rd shot.

We have a game plan for Monday's eye appointment. My mom is going to go with me. We're praying Zachary's eyes are getting better. We have an appointment with Duke on 12/9, but if for some reason things are getting worse and Dr. Magolan talks surgery my mom's boss has offered to make some calls to see if he can get Zachary seen earlier at Duke. We definitely want a second opinion before we put Zachary through any type of surgery. We know the eye surgery is laser, but he will have to be hospitalized, which we'd like to avoid at all costs. We're praying for a complete and total miracle.

On a happier note, Zachary loves to giggle at his big brother. Andrew has taken a liking to Tom and Jerry cartoons. Andrew got tickled so hard at one cartoon he had us all laughing. Zachary included. If you tickle Zachary's belly he will giggle. I love it! He definitely recognizes my voice and will follow the sound. Hopefully I can catch him on video giggling. It is rather cute.

We've got lots to do before next Monday (12/8). We will be homeless for a couple of days. Packing this house has proven harder than I thought. I try to pack stuff, but then realize we have a use for it so I has to stay out. It's frustrating. This week I told Robbie I'm pulling out our suitcases and packing a one week supply for me and the boys. Everything else gets boxed. I'll actually pack a little more for the boys since they are more prone to accidents and such. We've given a ton of stuff to Goodwill. I am starting from scratch with this house. We have a hodge podge of stuff and it's gotta go. Have I mentioned I "heart" craigslist? We've sold a ton of junk on there. Once we get moved in and settled I'll post pictures. Oh, did I mention after we move (i.e. 5 days later) we're on the road to Florida? We are officially nuts. God grant me peace, strength and patience and anything else I've left off. I'm gonna need it.

Off I go. There's more to come.

Day 4 - Thankful

Today I am thankful to be an American. We may get our fair share of bad press (more so now than ever before), but no where else in the world can match what we have. The freedoms we have are phenomenal. I love that I can walk the streets and not have to cover every part of my body except my eyes or that I can say "Thank you God!" and not be persecuted. I was able to exercise my right to vote on November 4th too. I am proud to be an American.

Day 3 - Thankful

Today I am thankful for my job. I work with wonderful people (you know who you are, JPC, MWP), have a great boss and don't mind what I do. With everything in the world going topsy turvy I am glad I have a good job. My employer (especially my boss) hooked this sister up when I had to camp out at Duke in June - August and then allowed me to work a flexible schedule so I could spend time with Zachary each and every day while he was in the hospital. I was able to defer my maternity leave until my little man came home from the hospital, which is what I'm doing now. I am blessed and so thankful!

Zachary and I just returned from the eye doctor. Things didn't go as I hoped. His right eye is worse (since his appointment last Friday). His left eye hasn't changed, but the doctor is concerned about the plus disease that hasn't corrected. He used a couple of words I've heard before, but have no idea what in the world they mean. It's hard going to these appointments. It's hard for me to hold my angel and know his eyes aren't ok. I'm trying to be thankful they haven't gone to Stage 5 and that he's not blind, but it's hard. I want to cry every time the doctor walks out of the room. I keep myself together to avoid having anyone ask me if I'm ok. That would be the loaded question of the day. I tell Zachary every time the nurse brings him to me after the torture has been completed that it's ok and Mommy will make it better, but I'm not sure how to hold up to my promise. We go back on Monday to have his eyes checked again. Please pray things move toward progress.

Beautiful Life

Our beautiful life...

Day 2 - Thankful

I am thankful for my family.

I'm head over heels in love with the 3 men in my life. I am shown every day just how blessed I am to have a husband who works hard so the boys and I can have a roof over our head, food to eat, clothes to wear, toys to play with, cars to drive, etc. Yes, I do work, but Robbie makes sure we can pay for what we have off what he makes. He's cool like that! Robbie and I are both thankful and blessed for our 2 healthy boys. Our lives just aren't complete without Andrew and Zachary. I "heart" the Perry guys!

My mom - she is without a doubt the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful human being ever created. God broke the mold when he made her. There aren't enough adjectives to describe her, but she's pretty special to me (and my family) and I'm thankful she is mine. I'm thankful she loves me and Zachary so much that she's retiring in February just so she can keep him. Zachary Perry doesn't know just how good he's got it!

Last, but not least, my brother, sister in-law and my two incredibly cute and cuddly nephews. I am thankful they live close by and 0ur boys can grow up together. I am thankful for a big brother who had my back when I couldn't watch it myself. Of course I had his quite a few times (ahem). I'm thankful for Lauren who loves my brother and is a wonderful wife to him. She rocks as a mom too! I'm thankful she and Chris had Colin and Robson and made me an aunt. Aunt Mimi loves her boys tons and tons. I'm especially thankful they are a Godly family and desire nothing more than to serve the Lord with all they have.

I am thankful for my extended family and the family that's not ours by name, but ours by heartstrings.

Day 1 - Thankful

Yesterday was crazy busy and I didn't get a chance to post my "thankful" message. That said, I am thankful for life. I am thankful yesterday was crazy, which means I was living and breathing to enjoy everything around me. I am more than thankful I have a savior who gave his life so in return I'll be able to have everlasting life (Andrew is in the process of learning John 3:16). This year I've witnessed the birth of a new life and the departure of a life. It's precious and not something I intend on taking for granted anymore. How about you?

What are you thankful for?

Sniffle Sniffle

My sweet baby has the sniffle sniffles. I'm pretty confident he picked them up from Andrew. Saturday morning I noticed his little nose was running. As the day progressed he started to sound congested. We're trying to keep his nose cleared as much as possible and keeping an eye on his temperature and breathing. We go to the doctor on Tuesday for his Synagis shot. I pray his cleared up by then. If not, we'll be making a doctor's call. He hasn't been sleeping well since the congestion started. He sleeps better in his car seat, which makes perfect sense. He slept 6 hours (3 on my chest and the rest in his car seat). We have the head of his bassinet elevated, but he can't seem to sleep more than 3 hours at a time in that. I do hope things clear up soon.

Eye update (this makes me want to sniffle sniffle):
Things didn't go as I'd hope they would. His left eye is still better than the right and a ridge that the doctor saw last week is gone (YAY!). His right eye on the other hand has gotten a little worse. I'm still not all that confident on my ROP knowledge, but the doctor told us at our first appt they measure the level of ROP in the eye by clock hours. Zachary's right eye has 2 clock hours (on the drawing it looked to be located in the 6:00 - 8:00 hours) that have progressed to stage 3 ROP. The doctor wants us back this coming week for another check up. He didn't feel this was enough to cause alarm (hard for me not to feel this way) and said it could still correct itself. I'm going to continue to see this doctor until our Dec 9th appt at Duke. If Zachary needs surgery I want it to be at Duke.

On to happier things... Zachary has really started to "converse" with us. He loves to talk back and smile at the right times. He and I have really in depth conversations. It's nice. He loves for me to kiss him on his lips. He likes to kiss back and even slobbers on me. Eskimo kisses seem to be a big hit too. I'm not sure just how much he can see, but he does appear to follow our voices and "looks" like he is looking at us when we talk to him. He's holding his head up like a pro. Actually, he's been doing this for a long time. He rules tummy time, can move his head from side to side (again, has been since we left the hospital) and is a tummy sleeper (GASP!). We don't believe in all the hocus pocus of the back to sleep campaign. Andrew hated sleeping on his back, Zachary hates it and thus we do tummy sleep. Right now I've been putting Zachary on his side to help with the congestion part. We're working on touching our toes. The physical therapist wants us to work on loosening up his legs. Hopefully by February (our next SICC appt) he'll get a star for doing his homework.

Tomorrow I'm going to start a new challenge (it's not really hard). Each day for a year I'm going to write about something I'm thankful for. With Thanksgiving this week, I thought it would be fun to give thanks for all the many blessings in my life. I have a ton, a ton, a ton of things to be thankful for and I'm not going to let the moment pass me by. God has been way too good to me and it's high time I give him the credit.

Good night!

It's 5:00 a.m.

and Robbie and I got 6.5 hours of sleep. Zachary got 8.5 hours of sleep!!! My boy slept 8.5 hours ya'll. Praise the Lord to the highest heights! I'm sure this is probably a one time thing right now, but for today I'm going to act like we are on the right track. Zachary has really been a good sleeper for the most part. We usually get a 6 hour stint followed by a 4 hour stint. The time in between can vary from 30 min to 2 hours of awake time. Could be worse, right?

Pray for Zachary (and me) today at 10:30 a.m. We have another eye appointment. I hate them! I hate hearing my child scream blood murder when they exam his eyes. It is nothing short of torture. I really hope we have some good progress. I'll be sure to let you know how things go.

It snowed. Did you see it? Second time this week we saw a mass of flurries. They didn't stick, but it still counts. Maybe we are in for a nice, white winter. White Christmas anyone? If you were in the Raleigh area last year at this time it was in the 70's. Robbie wore shorts on Thanksgiving.

Have a good one!

Happy Fall Ya'll

News Flash

Zachary and I were talking this morning after he finished breakfast and he gave me the cutest smile and a sweet baby sound. I do believe I got my first smile! Way to go, Zachary!

1,000 watt smiles melt my heart!

S is for SOLD

It's official, we sold our house and are moving in December. We're not moving far. No need to worry. We're moving to the Holly Springs/Fuquay Varina area (about 15 min down the road). We close on our house December 8th and hope the builders are done on ours by December 12th. If not we'll be homeless. Robbie and I are excited about our new house. It's got a bigger yard, flat driveway (a huge must for Robbie) and has plenty of room for us plus some. Robbie will finally get his media room (AKA man cave). We met with the builders today to get our game plan established. I'll post pictures of the progress. For the time being I have to pick out what color I want our hardwood floors.

We'll have everyone out to our new pad once we move in.

SIC Appointment

We were here today.


Pretty isn't it? Today was our first Special Infant Care appointment. We went back to our old stomping grounds today. A little deja vu hit me. Our appointment was at 11:15am. We didn't walk out of Duke until 2:15pm. It was a L.O.N.G day. We met with the physical therapist who gave Zachary rave reviews. Yay, yay, yay! She wants us to work on his legs to get them a little more flexible, but she was very impressed with his ability to hold his head up and move it from right to left and vice versa. My super baby I tell ya is something else! Dr. Ashley was also impressed with how he's doing. He's overcome reflux (darn reflux, was the bane of our existence for a while) and has put on weight nicely. He's now 7 lbs and growing. Our biggest battle right now is the ROP. We can't seem to shake it. Our appointment this Wednesday didn't bring us bad news, but it also didn't bring us any news of improvement. We are the same as last week, which was the same as the week before. We're no worse, but no better. I've decided that I want Zachary to be followed up at Duke with his ROP. We'll be saying adios to Dr. Magolan and hello to Dr. Wallace. Regardless of our TCN experience I still feel very comfortable with the doctors at Duke. We don't have to go back to Duke until February.


We saw Gavin and his mommy today. Gavin is our ICN BFF. He was born 4 days before Zachary and his due date is one day after ours. Gavin has done very well too. He's 9 lbs 4 oz and super duper duper cute. I cannot believe how big he's gotten. I was bummed that Zachary wasn't bigger, but Dr. Ashley assured me that an ounce a day gain is fantastic. I wonder if breast milk is the "skim" milk of milks and formula is the "2% or whole" milk version?.? Either way both boys are little miracles. It was wonderful seeing Gavin's mom and catching up. I've missed our daily talks, but I don't miss being in the hospital. Gavin hasn't quite gotten his sleep pattern down pat. His poor mother barely gets 2 hours sleep before he's up again. We, on the other hand, are blessed right now. Zachary will go down btwn 8 - 9, sleep until 12 or 1 and goes back down 6 and sometimes 7 or 7:30. We are LUCKY!


I was hoping to run into the L-V triplets, but we didn't. Gavin's mom said she saw them a while back and Emme was home and doing well, Grace was hanging in there and may even be home now, but Quinn wasn't doing so well. You may remember me posting that he was having a shunt placed in to help drain fluid from his brain. Well, he may have gotten meningitis, the shunt had to be removed and may have to go back in. They are thinking now he might have brain damage and possibly cerebral palsy. Please pray for this sweet family, for Quinn and for the doctors caring for him.

My child is up and hungry. There's more to write, but this will hold you over.

3 Months

Halloween Pics

I didn't do a great job of taking pics Halloween night. Andrew in true fashion decided to throw a fit and so I gave up. This is all you get.

Ol' Fat Zach

Don't read that wrong. In no way do I think my precious child is fat. Robbie was mentioning one night that they used to call our childhood friend, Zack, Ol' Fat Zack. Andrew heard this and now he refers to his baby brother as Ol' Fat Zach and says it with much enthusiasm.

How is Ol' Fat Zach these days? Well we bounce from one appointment to the next. We have something scheduled almost every day.

EYES - We had an eye exam today. We had an appointment on Monday, but the doctor no-showed us. Don't fret, I'm working on sending my no-show invoice to him. $50.00 should cover the cost for gas and time wasted. Zachary's eyes are no worse than last time, but they are also no better. Pray about that would you? We go back in a week for a re-check.

WEIGHT - We also had a weight check today. Ol' Fat Zach is now 6 lbs 10 oz. Can you believe my little man is scratching at 7 lbs? Man, what a journey this has been! By next week he'll be 7 lbs. He's averaging an ounce a day. We won't do any more weekly weight checks since he's doing so well. The nurse said I could bring him in if I want, but it's not necessary since he's doing so well.

SLEEP - Zachary does so so on napping, but he's getting the night time sleep down pat. I really can't complain. We've stopped holding him until he falls asleep. I spent almost an hour trying to get him to sleep. I finally gave up and put him down. Within 5 min or so he was fast asleep. Last night was a great night. He went down around 8:30pm, woke at 12:00am, was back down at 12:30 and slept until 6:15am. Not too shabby! He's a noisy little sleeper that's for sure. He will cry and be fast asleep. He's squeaks and squawks too. I'm looking forward to the down at 9:00pm and up at 7:00am sleep. It'll be here soon enough. He's doing great considering he's really only supposed to be 2.5 weeks old.

Welcome Hailey Elizabeth

Zachary is excited to announce the arrival of Hailey Elizabeth, his newest friend. Hailey was born early (33.5 weeks) just like Zachary so they already share a bond. Hailey weighed in at 5 lbs 7 oz and is 18 inches long. Hop on over to Beth's blog to check out this new cutie.

Congratulations Jon, Beth and Avery! Oh, Hailey also shares her big sister's birthday. What a great birthday present Avery received!

Happy Birthday, Avery!

We love you all!
The Perry's