Like I promised in my tweets yesterday, I would upload some pictures of our visit to Maui. However, when I was watching the pictures and videos today, I noticed that we didn’t had that much pictures, and they’re actually mostly whale pictures and not much of our visit to Maui itself.. and as for the videos, they are also a bit disappointing as we didn’t even have enough to edit it to a normal video.

I can explain, though, we wanted to film some on board but I was mostly busy with my photo camera, and Michelle had her hands full on the baby, who woke up while we were on the ship and got hungry. And, well, the number of pictures we made of Maui are a bit disappointing because we left both cameras in the back of our car the whole time, instead of the front so we could easily make some pictures.

I guess we will have to go to Maui again soon to make some more pictures and videos.. we might do it multiple days, so we can do a bit more than just watch whales from a ship.

Anyways, I should make a short report of our trip to Maui. Like I said before, i was especially curious of how Isabella would behave in the airplane. She usually is a very sweet and quiet girl, but yeah, how would she behave when the air pressure will be different and when she gets her ears popping? Well, it all went a lot better than I expected. She was ok with everything and I don’t think she was impressed by it all, even though I had my own ears popping quite a few times haha (I have it worse on these short flights anyways, it’s like they climb at a faster rate with those small planes). The turbulence during the landing in Maui was also no problem to her, she went to sleep because of the rocking haha. No, I doubt I would have worry for when we make the long trip to the Netherlands.

Going through security with Isabella was also pretty easy. I read a lot up front to see how it would be, and I also read quite some horror stories, but we didn’t experience any of that, everything went extremely fast and easy.. it was almost like I traveled alone.

Once we got to Maui, we first picked up our rental car, went to Walmart for some bottles of pre-made milk for Isabella, and then we ate some food at Sam Sato, a local restaurant, as Michelle love their dry noodles.

After that we drove from Kahului to Lahaina, on the west side of Maui, and we noticed that the land there was so extremely dry. I already read about it a couple of weeks ago in the paper that some areas didn’t get enough rain, but I never expected it to be this bad. It really looked like a desert at some spots.

Once we got to Lahaina, we weren’t sure if we wanted to make a boat trip to watch whales. They announced that we might see high waves, as high as 25-30 feet, around the isles, and well, you don’t want to be on a small boat with that kind of waves haha. But fortunately it looked like the water was really calm, the sun came through and all of the sudden we noticed a whale jumping up from the water, a bit like the one in the following picture:

No, unfortunately this isn’t made by me, we didn’t see any other whale jumping up like that unfortunately. Michelle just noticed this picture and her reaction was “Hey, we didn’t see them like that during our boat trip, we have to go back, we only saw lazy whales” haha. We will do that for sure, it was really fun to do.

We bought some tickets for the boat trip and boarded shortly after. We have seen quite a few whales, and even though it was not like the one above, it was still very much worth to do it. It was really beautiful to see it all. But ok, I know some people want to see the pictures instead of me talking, so here I’ll keep quiet for now so you can see the pictures. Some comments are below the pictures as usual

Right, I think this should do it for now. I promise to have more different shots the next time we are in Maui (and we might have some underwater shots, we wanted to make a submerged tour but we didn’t had enough time for that now).

On the first pictures of the humpbacks you can see a mother with her calf, and on the last photo’s you can see a female with a male between us and the female. He probably did this to protect her from us because, well, imagine yourself that our ship would want to mate with her, that’s something he obviously didn’t want haha.

After we returned ashore, we drove towards Kihei, where we wanted to get some Shave Ice, but Isabella became a bit cranky, she was tired and didn’t sleep much, she got hungry and she needed a clean diaper.. well, I would be cranky too in her case haha. So we parked at a beach park and stayed there for a bit while we relaxed and watched the sun going down on sea.

Once Isabella was ready, and we got hungry, we went back to Kahului where we wanted to eat at Koho. And what do you think, once we finally sat at our table, Isabella started to cry pretty hard… I didn’t know where to look, it was so busy and then your baby starts to cry.. pffff… thankfully she was quiet once Michelle held her and she could see the ceiling fans (she loves those, especially when they’re on haha), and then we could still enjoy our food, which was very good in my opinion.

After Koho we bought some donuts at Krispy Kreme, who make really delicious donuts. And after that we went towards the airport of Kahului so we could fly back to Honolulu.

By the way, I really noticed how easy it is to become prejudice thanks to the terrorist threats and such, we had a pretty odd person on board of our plane (we saw him already at the check-in) that raised some questions with me (and with the flight attendants as well as I could hear (we sat on the front row in the first class, so you hear everything they say)) and there were a few more people who didn’t make me completely feel at ease.. it is a prejudice, and probably nothing special, so it is kind of sad when you think about it, but yeah, thanks to all those negative stories in the news, you sometimes think twice. I really notice you look more around these days during flying.

Oh well, the flight back went pretty smooth. We sat pretty comfortable in the first class, and Isabella had fun as well I think. There was no turbulence when we arrived (which is pretty nice because those planes are very small) and the flight was also over in no-time, we were hardly airborne for 30 minutes haha.

Right, like said, next time we will have more different pictures, and probably also a video

In other words: merry Christmas and a happy new year!

I know, I know, it has been quite a while since I last posted a message, and of course posted some pictures. It is not like I didn’t have anything to tell, but the new thing (about me moving here) is a bit gone and to post things double is a bit odd too. We don’t go out too much lately, also because of the H1N1 (mostly becasue it is a huge risk for Isabella), so we miss a large part of things to tell already.

But ok, the end of the year 2009 is getting closer, so it seemed like a plan to write a new post before the year would be over again (plus I received lots of questions of people as they wanted to see new pictures and such of our little Isabella haha, so yeah, that also had something to do with it).

Isabella is doing well, by the way. She is still a very sweet baby, with the hours between 5PM and 8PM as exception.. I think she doesn’t like the transition from day to night that much, because she can cry quite a bit in those hours. Officially she is a bit colicky (a baby has to cry for at least 3 hours 3 days per week, and 3 months to be classified as a colic baby), which was something we could expect as she was so early (it seems to be one of the complications) but fortunately it is not as bad as you hear sometimes about, it is usually not more than three to four hours and it doesn’t happen every day.. oh well, if that is everything, then it isn’t as bad as it could’ve been

Isabella now weighs a bit more than 10 pounds (over 4.5 kilos), so she gained quite a bit. Thankfully she is healthy, and I have to say that sometimes I was a bit afraid as they say that an early baby, such as Isabella, can easily end up in the hospital during the first year due to all kinds of complications. So we can say that we were very lucky so far

My family can call themselves a bit less lucky, though. At first we would go to the Netherlands during the holidays, because I haven’t been in the Netherlands since I moved here over a year ago, and also because none of them has seen Isabella in real life so far. But the H1N1 has made us decide to delay it until it would be a bit less bad, if Isabella would get infected with that flu, it would be very deadly for her as she is still so young and, well, you don’t want to risk the life of such a young baby.

But ok, enough talk for now, I should post some new photo’s of the little Isabella..

In November we went back to Waimea Falls again, mostly because it rained a few days earlier and we could expect a nice waterfall:

91 years age difference:

Recently I noticed that Isabella was sucking on her thumb for the first time.. I wanted to make a picture of it but unfortunately it never goes the way you want it.. oh well, still made the following photo’s:

And then the last few pictures.. A few days ago an uncle of Michelle came to visit Hawaii. They had not seen him for about 12 years (and then I complain about my one year haha), and of course we made some photo’s:

And that was all again for now. I don’t dare to make a promise about me posting a new message before the end of the year, you’ll always see that something comes up so you can’t do it haha.. It will come.

From a sunny, and warm Hawaii (it is still 85-90 degrees during the day, it is a dry and warm winter) we wish you a Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

Yep, time flies. Isabella is two months old now (and a day), and the funny thing is that she wasn’t supposed to get born until tomorrow (October 27).. that she is already here, and is in good health, can only be seen as a small miracle.

I know, I know, I didn’t post in a while, and with that I didn’t show anything of Isabella anymore. This is mainly due to my busy schedule nowadays, mostly because of Isabella of course, but also because of some projects that I am working on, and because of that, I didn’t see much time to write something again.

Well, Isabella is, like I said, in good health. She has been to the doctor’s office today for a checkup as she is two months old now. They took her weight (she also gets her weight every week at the lactation nurse, because she was born so early and her weight needs to be closely monitored), and they took her length also. According to this scale (I don’t like this scale, as I will show you in a graph), she is now weighing  6 pounds and 2 ounces (2778 grams), and her length is 19.1 inch (48,5 centimeter). When you compare this to when she was only just born, then this is a big difference as her birth weight was only 2 pounds and 10.9 ounces (1220 grams). Yeah, she seems to be on a roll with her weight. I’ve placed her weights in a graph, by the way:

As you can see, there is an odd gap in that graph. This was the other time that they took her weight at the doctors’ office, and not with the (more secure) scale of the lactation office. Two days after that weight, she was weighed by the lactation nurse, and there she was back in her normal line. So if there is such a difference between those two, then she should actually weigh more right now. But ok, I won’t find out about that until next week.

At the end of this visit, Isabella received 3 injections and a small drink. She had to get a number of vaccinations, against things such as Polio, Diphtheria, Hepatitis B, Rotavirus, and more of these things. The nurse who gave her the shots, warned me that she might cry a lot as these injections seem to hurt badly. But what do you think, there were two small screams, and that was it. The nurse was quite surprised and said that normally all kids seem to cry a lot. I told her that it was possibly because her adventure in the hospital, where she had a lot of shots, and that this might have been a minor thing for her. But oh well, whatever may be the case, I am pretty proud of her that she is so incredibly strong.

Those shots made her pretty drowsy, which they told me that might happen. I don’t really mind that this happened as I now have the time to write a message here haha. She might get some fever, as a side effect of those injections, apparently there is a big possibility. I hope she wont get it, I doubt she’ll like it.

Anyways, I also have to give you guys a few new pictures, so you can see she grew a lot. So here are a few new ones of today:

She is currently pretty drowsy and sleepy, sometimes a bit weepy, so I will make some new pictures somewhere later this week, on which she will be a bit more awake, and a bit less weepy

A few people asked if we couldn’t post a few more new pictures of Isabella online. Of course we can, here they are:

Isabella is finally home since Sunday afternoon!

She was able to get into her new carseat pretty easy, so we didn’t have to purchase another one lol. I have to say that I feel a bit like she is drowning in her carseat, she is so small compared to that seat haha. As you can see on the following pictures, she really needs some extra support from those sheets:

This carseat is, however, just a temporary solution, as soon as she is big enough, she is going into her own real seat. Personally I think her real seat is a lot nicer and better in color.. plus we can have it on a stroller, so I don’t have to carry her constantly, which is also nice haha. Her own seat looks like the following, by the way:

Next to the seats above, she also has another seat which is placed in Michelle’s car for when she takes Isabella with her. But ok, that one is also a bit too big at the moment haha.

We stayed in the hospital the following night, Saturday to Sunday, because they offered us to room in for a night, so we could see if we’re ready ourselves.. they offer this to everyone so everyone can get used to their child for a night, to see if everything goes as planned, and when it does not go as planned, so that the nurses are still close by also. I had never heard of it before but I kind of like the idea, it is a good tool to get a feeling of how things are.

Of course we didn’t sleep much that night, of course there was Isabella making all kinds of sounds (not much, but still), there was a lot of noise coming from the hallway (after all, it is a hospital, not a hotel), and every now and then there was someone checking up on us around the time that Isabella needed to get her food. So we didn’t get much sleep and are pretty tired right now (because, yeah, try to catch up on your sleep when you have to feed a small kid every three hours haha)..  oh well, things will be alright

Here’s a few pictures of Isabella in her new environment, we will post some more photo’s of Isabella in her new room later of course:

It looks like we, even though it is a bit faster than expected, can bring some good news. But let me first start where we ended at the last post about Isabella.

The day after Isabella was allowed to stay out of the isolette, she was allowed to try breast feeding. This was, again, above all expectation. Instead of just playing around, which was the thing they expected, she seemed to be able to drink pretty well already.

When we arrived the day after that, it turned out that Isabella was moved a bit to a different location, but when we opened the door, we didn’t know this yet, so we saw the following:

This didn’t look anything like Isabella haha, it’s a doll which they also use for CPR classes and such. But, yes, it did make us wonder about it at first haha.

Then there were a few days in which not much new things happened, this is one of the reasons why I waited before I would write a new post. One of the things I can tell you, however, is that she wore some very cute outfits, like this one that she got from my mother:

Besides this there was not much to tell you, until we heard a couple of days that they would start to let her take all the feedings during a day by bottle or by breast, and that she would probably be allowed to go home in about a week. That was really good news, so we thought

When she would come exactly, was unknown yet, but we were asked to bring the carseat for her, so they could test if she fitted in it and if she wouldn’t get any problems with her breathing and such when she was in it. So we brought this carseat last night, and they tested it out last night (by the way, the carseat is a little bit too big (Isabella is only about 4 lbs, and just too short for it), so we can buy an extra seat for her this afternoon for the first week(s)).

Yesterday, when we visited her, I noticed that she was missing a cable on her body, as they took off the cable which they use to measure the oxygen in her blood. The nurse asked us if we didn’t notice anything else, and at first we didn’t as she was laying on her side, but it turned out that she also missing the feeding tube. They told us that this was done because she now took all feedings from the bottle,and they told us with that, if everything stays the same, that she could go home on Sunday.

Wow, that was really good news. I thought it was also a bit scary, which is not that weird of course, but oh well, it will be ok. We’re very happy about this news!! Really good news, and that it came on the day that marked her as being a month old (time flies), made it extra fun.

Tonight we will bring a new, and smaller, seat (this is one of the conditions to get her home.. in the Netherlands they do not make a problem out of it (well, not with Larissa back then anyways) and you can actually just hold your child, but over here things are a bit different, they don’t give you your baby without a fitting carseat.. oh well, it does make things safer, of course). So hopefully (and I expect it will be) we will be able to take her home this Sunday, we can’t wait!

Here’s some more photo’s of her without the cables in her face:

So, the next posting will probably be about her finally being home

And here is the follow up of my previous post, now with the photos and a video of the show of the Thunderbirds, the premium demonstration squadron of the US Air Force.

The pictures of the open house at Hickam can be found here: http://www.joosten808.com/2009/09/20/wings-over-the-pacific-2009-at-hickam-afb/

Right, this is a different post from what we’ve seen the last time, no baby post this time haha. Michelle and I went to “Wings Over the Pacific”, the open house on Hickam AFB in Hawai’i, last Saturday.

During this open house, there were many planes that you normally only see on tv or in movies, it was allowed with many planes to enter them, and even sit in the cockpit. The Thunderbirds, the premier demonstration squadron of the US Air Force, was also there and they did a really nice show.

The day was really great, but I will try not to tell too much in this post, I’ll just keep it to the photos. In this post you will find the photos of the open house itself, the photo’s and video of the Thunderbirds can be found here: http://www.joosten808.com/2009/09/21/the-thunderbirds-on-wings-over-the-pacific-2009/

Last week was a week full of surprises. First was there the helmet that she was allowed to take off, and all the other good news, and then we got to hear on Thursday that they wanted to try for the first time to let her drink from the bottle (the breast would be too heavy for her)! They didn’t expect that she would drink a lot, it was more to give her the taste of the milk, but unexpectedly she still drank a bit (4ml). She gets 28ml every three hours, so the rest was given to her through her feeding tube. Michelle was the one who gave her the milk:

The day after, on Friday, it was my turn. The nurse said that she didn’t think she would drink much as it was only the second time she tried to drink, a few ml would be all according to her. But what do you think? That little one drank 19ml of the 28, a lot more than expected. Isabella was really awake at that time, so this probably helped, but still, it was great to see her doing so well.

It was Michelle’s turn on Saturday again, and the nurse that was there at that time asked how it went on the days before Saturday. She said, after she heard how things went, that she expected it to end up somewhere between the 4ml and 19ml. But what do you think? She drank 27ml, almost everything that she had to drink at that time! Unbelievable, right? And that was not everything on that day, they also took out the tube that was up her nose for the extra air, so even that backup was not needed any more. That was another pleasant surprise for us, but not the last one haha.

Tonight, Sunday evening, we were at the NICU again, and on the moment we opened the door, we looked into the direction of Isabella’s isolette, but.. we saw the following:

An empty isolette? We didn’t know what happened, so we got kind of scared, but quickly the nurse told us what happened. They lowered the temperature of the isolette today, and that went pretty well, so well that Isabella now is allowed to lay in an open crib next to the isolette, without any extra heater. This means that Isabella now probably has no problems to keep herself warm. They do frequently check up on her now, to see if her temperature is still ok, and the isolette is still next to the crib, just in case she is cooling down, but still, it gives us some new hope that she can come home soon.. for now it all looks well.

Of course she had to drink again, she came up until 25ml, so the other three were given to her through the tube, but this was not really weird (and again it was above expectation) because, not long before she got this bottle, she also received 15ml through a bottle from a nurse. So in total she drank more than before. She is doing a bit better everyday, before you know it, she can come out of the hospital.

Yep, the helmet is gone since a day or two, they also took off her IV and PICC, and she gained over a pound already. Things are going well with the little one.. she even wears clothes these days, she starts to look more like a baby this way

Isabella still has a tube going to her nose for air. The airflow is off, but it is out of precaution so that, when they need to give her extra oxygen, they can easily give it to her also. There are actually two tubes going to her nose since today as her feeding tube is now going through her nose so that Isabella cannot easily pull the tube out of her stomach (she is very lively and she loves to grab things, and when it was in her mouth, it was very easy for her to pull it out).

Isabella is also allowed to get outside the isolette longer when we are there. I had her for a very long time in my arms yesterday, and today it was Michelle’s turn, we kind of take turns with each other. Isabella mostly does have to wear a hat when we she comes out of the isolette, but that looks pretty cute on her

Fortunately there’s only good news to tell when it is about Isabella, and that is a very good thing I think. I can ensure you that it is not always good news on the NICU floor. When you are there for a couple of hours, you can easily hear and see some of the things on the other baby’s and, no, that is not always good news.. sometimes I feel a bit guilty towards those people because I am happy that Isabella is doing really well. But oh well, those things happen, I know that too.

Anyways, we have a few new pictures to show you of Isabella without a helmet, while wearing clothes haha. You know, I wonder if Isabella is the only one getting clothes (the clothes are coming from the hospital, by the way), I haven’t seen any other baby’s in clothes anyways. Oh well, doesn’t matter, it looks pretty cute I think