Our little Benjamin is doing fantastically well! We are so impressed with his resilience, but after our month in the hospital we are not surprised how strong he is. Here’s a little update on Ben: Ben is on day 5 of a 9 day feeding protocol. He is being fed breast milk through his NG …
Author Archives: Alison Allen
The NICU & Our New Normal
We’ve had a solid month of adjusting to an assortment of “new normals” – from my hospital admissions, to waiting in limbo, to now being home but with a baby in the NICU. Each scenario has had its ups and downs, and this one is no different. I got discharged from the hospital two days …
An Update from the NICU
Our little Benjamin is four days old now! Ben is doing fantastically well and we couldn’t have been happier to hear from the doctor that he is “boring” – that is basically the best news ever. Ben is in the NICU {Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – pronounced “nick-you”} and will be there for several weeks, …
Ben’s Birth Story
Alex and I got to meet our little boy, Benjamin Ames, earlier this week on May 31st. Ben was born at 33 weeks 2 days gestation and weighed 3 pounds 3 ounces and was 15 inches long. The story of his arrival, including the days and weeks leading up to it is quite a dramatic one, …
Meet Benjamin Ames!
The newest member of the Allen family has arrived! Our little peanut, Benjamin Ames, made his way into the world at 11:21 a.m. on May 31st, more than six weeks before his due date. Alex and I are over the moon and can’t wait to introduce him to our family and friends! Ben was born …
33 Weeks!
There have been numerous occasions over the last three weeks where I didn’t ever expect we’d make it to 33 weeks, but here we are! I’m still in the hospital and will remain here until we meet this little fella. Our latest plan includes the scheduled c-section on Monday June 6th. Unless he needs to …
A Week in the Hospital
I’ve officially been living in my hospital room for a week now {plus the 5 days I spent on my two previous admissions…….} and it’s looking like I’ve got about 2 more weeks to go. So yeah, it’s been a fun month of May so far! Alex and I are extremely fortunate to be in …
D-Day
Today we got a new doctor {our “doctor” is whichever doctor happens to be on the floor at a given point in time – usually they rotate every few days, so we’ll have the same doctor for a few days and then a new doctor the next few days} and a new plan! This new …
Ultrasound Results & What’s Next
We hit our next milestone today: the growth ultrasound! We received some very unexpected but fantastic results from the doctor: the baby grew and he grew at the rate he should have grown at! Here’s the scoop: Baby is still below the 1st percentile and always will be unless he grows at a rate that …
Getting Ready for Baby Allen
After the craziness of finding out we’re going to meet our little boy sooner than expected, one of the first things we tried to focus on was making sure we were physically ready for him to arrive. Thankfully we had been really on top of things from the get-go. It was helpful to have several of …