Feeling Good

Thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers. Life is good now that we have brought Sadie home. She is a very healthy little baby.
lots of love,
Sarah & Brady

Sadie coming home

Brady feeding Sadie

Sadie pic

Sadie Bobadie Bananabana bo badie

Sadie is doing great passing all her tests. She is being moved down to the special care unit where we will take care of her 100% of the time, but will have nurses nearby just in case. We hope to have her home in 24 to 48 hours.

Sadie doing a lot better

Sadie is doing great. We hope to take her home this week. We just have to get her to eat a little more and make sure she can regulate her own body temperature. She has been improving in both areas. She has already gained 3oz. She is almost 6 lbs now..... HUGE!

Sadie with Sarah

Sadie laying down

Sarah holding Sadie

off C-pap

Sarah and I just got to hold Sadie for one hour. She didn't need any oxygen. We fed her and changed her diaper. Sadie was in good spirits and seemed content. She is off C-pap for good now. Hopefully she is transferred to the lesser special care unit tomorrow.

Pic2

Don't want to show too many wires so some pictures will be a sneak peak.

Sadie: 5 minutes old

Xrays

7:30pm Sunday. Sadie is doing better. She is still in the newborn ICU. the xrays show less dense fluid in her lungs. they will try to take her off C-pap tomorrow afternoon to see if she can breathe on her own easily. We are very optimistic at this point.

update2

3pm sunday. they took off C-pap for 20 minutes and she was breathing easily. Brady even changed her diaper and took her temperature. She gets an x-ray at 4pm today to see if the fluid has been leaving her lungs.

udpate1

12:30pm sunday. we just visited Sadie. it appears she is doing better. On the C-pap machine her signs are normal (130bpm heart rate). When they take it out she struggles a little bit, but it appears she is improving. At 4pm today we get an xray to see if there is progress (less fluid in the lungs). Mom is doing well and walking around today.

Complications

Sadie didn't cry when she first came out. She was laboriously breathing. It wasn't getting any better after an hour. You could tell she was having a very hard time breathing. She has fluid in her lungs, which is screwing everything up. She is on a machine now in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit) to feed oxygen easily into her lungs to work the fluid out. This is a process that will take 2-7 days to solve, but it appears that things are straight forward and she will be fine. Thank you for thinking of us. Time to sleep. Will update tomorrow.

Welcome Sadie!

It is official. What a Mother's Day gift. Sadie is here (05/10/09). Weighing in at a featherweight 5 lbs 14 oz. 17.5" in height. Mom is doing great. She is a champ (she can really work the pelvic floor muscles). Pre-labor took a while (40 hrs), but once we got admitted at 5pm saturday it only took eight more hours. The epidural was a lifesaver.

Actual Route vs Proposed Route

So far we have raised $7500. We are still looking for donations as we would love to raise $10,000 for the trip, but we are overjoyed with the generosity already. The second picture shows our actual route through the region, which is moderately different from the original proposed route that I posted back in March. The red lines represent cycling progress while the green lines represent public transport (bus, ferry, train, van). The total distance is 2,327 miles. The time spent in each country is as follows: 40 days in Italy, 17 days in Turkey, 14 days in Croatia, 12 days in Greece, 4 days in Bosnia, 4 days in Montenegro, and 1 day in Slovenia.

The beach

Italians love the beach (who doesnt). Italy doesnt have enough beaches for their own citizens, as evidenced in the picture of a beach near Rome. That is why Croatia is a very popular destination. There are many Italians who like to go to Croatia to get away. Croatia has endless beaches, but it is no longer the unknown place that it was. Prices are slightly cheaper than Italy, but not significantly. The trip has been tough on our wallets, but we knew that going in. Hotels are the big expense. In Italy they budget accomodation is usually $100 US. Coming back through Italy to Rome we camped more frequently. This reduced our expenses significantly. It is still relative, because camping was $35-$45 US/Night for us. Camping, a few times, was the same price as hostel accomodation. Turkey was the cheapest country we visited with Bosnia a close second. Montenegro was next cheapest followed by Croatia. Greece was slightly more expensive than Croatia and Italy was the most expensive. The north of Italy tends to be more expensive than the less wealthy south.

Day 86: Lido di Tarquinia to Aranova - 45 miles

We are definitely on the home stretch now. Some thoughts on the trip. It has been tough for both of us. The terrain has been tough and we have been caught with intense heat and intense rain. There have also been times that road conditions were awful, not from gravel roads, but long distances with rough cobblestones. Despite some hard times, the trip has also been very enjoyable as we havent biked everyday. We have stopped to see a lot of things and have relaxed adjacent to many a beach and many a pool. During the hot temperatures we found it essential to get next to a body of water after a long hot ride. For me (Brady) the trip has been hard at times, but most of the time I wasnt allowed to show that I was tired as I was supposed to be the responsible one. Sarah had some tough times that she will talk about later. In her words: on some days she lost the battle with the road. She was able to overcome these difficult times to be refreshed on the next day, motivated to continue. So much so that she is the one that could go on from Rome for another month without flinching. I, on the other hand, am excited for the easy living back home (the grass is always greener approach). I have visions of the great things back home: family, friends, favorite restaurants, TV, movies in english, the english language, a clothes dresser that stays in the same place, a washer/dryer, cell phone, internet all the time, and a home.

Day 85: Pitigliano to Lido di Tarquinia - 55 miles

Sarah is feeling better. We got out of Tuscany and into some easier riding. It has been very hot and I dream of water all day long. Swimming in it, dunking my head in it, drinking it. Pic 1 - Fashionable new xmas trees?

Day 84: Castel Di Piano to Pitigliano - 34 miles

June 27th. Southern Tuscany. Pitigliano is a breathtaking city once a jewish settlement, but that is a different story. It was built on top of a volcanic rock outcropping with cliffs on three sides. The town is very charming. Small alleyways appear to drop off to the jungle below and the distant hills. The view can be captured from everywhere with narrow passageways giving a peak of the great view in every direction. Pic 1 - Pitigliano from a distance. Pic 2 - Sarah enjoying the view. Pic 3 - Storefront decoration. Pic 4 - Pitigliano from a distance.