Catching up!

Wow! The time has just flown by - well, that's our excuse and we're sticking to it.

Wales was pretty good. We got some well needed sleep, did some shopping and .... well that was pretty much it really! Our only real touristy thing was the view from the back garden:


We missed Noah very much, but we miss him every day, the only difference in Wales was that we didn't get to visit him in the hospital. Luckily for us his Auntie Anneke called us every evening to give us all the latest updates. His oma and opa were also visiting him and so Noah had 3 people to amuse, bathe and feed him - he was a very happy little boy.

Towards the end of that week he had some diarrhea which really knocked his system out of whack. As represented here by the (it seemed always and forever) sleeping Noah.


He had been doing so well. He was breathing for himself 18 hours a day but needed to go back to 8 hours a day because his system was so tired. He also started to gain more fluid in his body cavity which is also tiring for him. This situation hadn't changed until this Saturday. Thijs and I have been quite concerned for little Noah, but it was so very weird because although he was sleeping very deeply, when he was awake he was really happy and very interactive, which you wouldn't expect from a baby that was supposedly quite ill according to his machines. Look at him here doing a good Rocky impression, including an 'Adriaaaan'

The riddle was solved on Saturday when we walked in to find one nurse busy helping Noah breath manually while another was swapping his usual computer and breathing apparatus for a new set. All of his tubes were cleaned and replaced and 'lo and behold' everything started looking better for Noah. His continued lack of progress was diagnosed as hardware malfunction - there was a leak in the machine which caused a malfunction in the recording done by the computer! HUGE relief.

Noah is now able to breath for himself for 9 hours a day. He has a slight cold and so suffers with a lot of mucus blockages so the nurses are keeping his breathing practice low until he gets over the cold. However he is growing to be a little fat man! He is now a very wonderful 6225grams and the latest measurement taken at the beginning of the month was 58cm in length. He's now up to 100ml of milk seven times a day instead of 85ml. Way to go Noah!
As you can see here, not only fat, also greedy. No need for mum or dad to hold the bottle anymore!



Thijs is now working in Ede on a new project which he finds pretty cool as it's a new environment and the position offers some new challenges, which is always good. It's quite a commute though, but he starts very early and this allows him to leave early to get to Rotterdam for an afternoon visit with Noah. It's very tiring for him.
I get to bath Noah everyday now because I'm in so early. See here in the bath, drying off and all dressed!



I'm a little stress bunny at the moment. The relentless pressure is getting to me. I find myself able to function day to day, but it's hard. Sometimes it's all a bit too much and then a good cry or a mad rant to one of my friends is needed. That usually helps a bit. So many things are difficult but I thing that's the most frustrating is the lack of privacy with Noah and the lack of power to be able to change anything about the situation. My mind knows that time will heal everything, but for now it's just a case of gritting teeth and getting on with things. Thank God for Thijs and thank God we have each other and such good family and friends that we can turn too.
We're both trying to stick to a schedule in order to bring some order to what feels like a chaotic situation. I've got an appointment scheduled with the family doctor and the work doctor in order to see what can be done to help us in this situation. We're both realising that in order to be there for Noah we also have to take care of ourselves a little bit too.

I'm going to go into work on Wednesday and finally take in the traditional "bischuit met musijes" to celebrate the birth of Noah with my colleagues and I'm really looking forward to that. Apart from developing schedules and visiting Noah we've also been busy taking more photo's and even taking a few videos. So we promise to post them soon.

Speak to you soon!

The Drostens.