Big News from London

He's home!

We are so very happy. Monday he totally aced his sleep study AND car seat study in one day, so they let him graduate from NICU to world. We're so proud.

As you can see, he has his concerns.



But at least he is out of this:


And instead is home doing this:


And being a little lemur baby:


(Just that day Grace and Claire had been noticing his little grabby instinct and talking about how awesome it would be if human babies were still like little monkeys that would just cling on all day while you just go about your life)

Also:



STEVE HOLT!

Two Weeks Old! (Or Negative Four Weeks Old, depending on how you count)

He made it to two weeks! What a little champ. In honor of this achievement, let's have a retrospective of JD's funny faces.

He starts strong:



Comments

Jenn, bless her, had the genius idea of allowing comments on the blog. To which I replied "You can't make comments on the blog?? Weird." So now you can! I'll be the first to go when the machines rise up to take over the world. They are just too smart for me.

So I do think you have to click on the actual post to comment -- you can't do it from the main page. (Can you??) But however you do it we'd love to hear from you!

Previously on JD's life...

Okay, here's the recap!

He was born July 28th (happy birthday, Zoe!) at 22:11, which was 33 1/2 weeks for those of you counting. (His due date was Sept 9 -- happy birthday Schmop!). He was 17 inches long and 4 pounds 2.5 oz.
He was rushed to the NICU while Grace recovered, and was put in an isolette and stuck with many sharp things. Poor guy.



They told us in NICU Orientation that all the babies have ankle monitors, Lindsay Lohan-style, so an alarm goes off if someone tries to steal them. I can totally see some mom in a wild moment of panic grabbing her baby and heading for the hills. I can understand the impulse -- doesn't he look sad in there?? Grace kept wanting to jailbreak him. But then he couldn't breathe, which would be awkward. So she elected to keep him there.


Grace was in the hospital until Tuesday 


And is now home and healing up just fine. (We just keep calling her Lady Gaga because she's incapable of wearing pants (because of the incision)) Unfortunately we had movers come on Monday... so she came home to a bit of a mess.



That is an understatement.
I'll have you know Kathy Spencer and I shoulder dollied those things all by ourselves.



(This is Gracie's Amelie face.) 

Meanwhile, JD kept getting better and better. Initially he had a feeding tube and was only getting very tiny amounts (like 3 ccs of milk a day) to see if his little tummy could handle food, he had a thing in his lungs to hold them open while they formed, he was on oxygen, and he was jaundiced so they had to put a billy light on him that also meant he had to have a blindfold, plus the normal IV drips, heart monitors, thermometer, etc. Basically all you could see was his little back and chest breathing. 


First he started keeping down his food and getting more and more of it. They even started to let Mama and Daddy hold him for a few minutes. 







After he got out from the billy light they let Auntie Claire hold him too. 






Cute family.


For those medically-minded among you (or those of you who want to compare/contrast to their own preemies), and because people keep asking questions I don't know the answer to (what the crap's an Apgar?) here's a snapshot of his Kardex. (HIPAA violation??) (JD says it's okay)

More later! Maybe even LIVE VIDEO of him hiccupping. Y'all. Most adorable thing ever. It's kicks Sneezing Baby Panda's ass. Just sayin.

Bonjour!

Welcome to our new blog. Observe an adorable child:


This is John David Ramses Canfield. These are his loving parents:


So many lovely people have called with concern and questions, we thought it might be nice to have all the info in one place! So Grace and I (I'm Claire by the way. Hi!) will be posting updates as they happen, and also many adorable pictures for us to coo over. As we do.

So, welcome! We'll post a vital stats in a minute.

Much love,

Grace and Claire (aka Lily and Vivian aka the Darling Mermaid Darlings