Baby Jesus

Baby Jesus likes Dr. Browns bottles the best!

I am not totally sure what the Christmas play at church is going to be like, but I do know that the nativity scene is going to be totally made from photographs. So today we went to a church members ranch/barn/stable thing and took these pictures with Cody and Jessica.
This is a great picture from my camera. The photographer was going to send me his pictures too which I'm sure will be way better! It looks like there is paparazzi on the right side of the stable ;o)
It was chilly chilly in the wind, but inside the stable was better.....until they took her warm cozy clothes off! She was not a fan, but she warmed up in the hay and cloth.

Silly Walmart Man

Meet the pacifier! (or any other cute name you wish to call it)

This is 1 of 2 pacifiers that Makenzie brought home from NICU. They are different in there than the ones they give the regular babies, not sure why though. Cute huh......not really! Not cute because they are the ONLY two pacifiers the girl will take and calm down with when she is upset. PICKY PICKY not sure where she gets that from!

Well....Today at Walmart we were on the toothpaste isle and the beloved pacifier fell on the ground. This put the pacifier out of commission until it could be sterilized in the steamer at home. We finish our shopping and get to the checkout where the out of commissioned pacifier falls out of the stroller again and on to the flood. I said "Ewww I'm willing to let the pacifier fall once on the Walmart floor and still use it but twice is out of the question." My mom and Emily quickly give me 'the look' and we all laugh because OBVIOUSLY I am joking. The ding dong behind the register as me if I would like him to throw the pacifier away!!!!! I started laughing at him and told him we would just take it home and sterilize it. Obviously he does not know that I am already going to have to break into the NICU and steal a bag full of these orange pacifiers when these two get lost or start to get nasty and I'm pretty sure that the law might consider that stealing but it will be totally worth it!

Tomorrow is Halloween and my costume for Aubrey's party is amazing....I'm sure you will be loosing sleep tonight wondering what it could be! Pictures tomorrow!

HA HA HA

I do not like Spencer and Heidi, nor am I a fan of Jon and Kate BUT this is freakin hilarious!!!!!!!!! Happy Halloween Friday!

Cute Skeleton

She is too cute! I think I kinda like her...a lot!
***grumpy voice***This is the crappy swing from Target. It's the 2nd one we have had in 4 weeks and the motor is about to go out on it too! Me and Graco are gonna have a battle soon over it!

We made it to the Pumpkin Patch today!

We went to the pumpkin patch today!
First we went to the church to deliver some Halloween goodies to the ladies we love up there. Then we went to the pumpkin patch and took pictures! She did so good for both events!

After the pumpkin patch we went to DFT and met with Lori and some of the other teachers. My mom was gonna wait in the car but I told her "Come inside and watch how these teachers are gonna oooooo and awwwww over her." I don't think she believed me, but sure enough everyone we passed wanted to steal her and take her home!

Frankenstein Brownies and Pumpkin Pictures

Tonight I made Frankenstein Brownies and man are they fun!

I'm going to deliver them around town tomorrow and Wednesday ;o) I love Halloween even if it is 'Satan's holiday'. I love the cute pumpkins and ghost and monsters!!!

I was going to take Mak to the pumpkin patch with Gregory and Aubrey this weekend but for some reason it didn't happen. Pumpkin pictures were taken in the living room though!

3 baths in 1 day!

Yesterday my to-do list was to give the dog, the baby, and myself a bath. Good news is that all 3 task were successfully completed, bad news is that it took all day! I know my day is starting a lot later than it did before Makenzie, but it still seems like it takes all day to get my chores done.

Makenzie has been sleeping from around 10pm until 11am, waking up every 4 hours to eat. She is so good at night though, she goes right back to sleep after eating and a fresh diaper. That is a hugh blessing!

Mom Confession #1: Last night Mak woke up around 1:30 to eat. I got up, warmed the bottle, and started to feed her. I didn't pick her up, I just held her head up a little bit. I woke up again at 2:15 with a sleeping baby in bed and an empty bottle. OOPS!!! Guess we missed that burp!

Makenzie is doing good !

She loves to sleep in her boppy! Lola curls up next to her, and I get the last sliver of whatever is left on the bed ;o)
We played dress up for the Tech game last night!
Gregory and Aubrey are sooooo interested in her!
Does it get much sweeter than this? Coming home was a pretty easy transition. She was on a good schedule of eating every 3 hours already and we have been able to stretch that to 4 in the last couple of days. She is so funny, I find myself just sitting with her and laughing at her faces and grunts. We have had a handful of visitors and have enjoyed their company. This weekend I made her birth announcement cards. Not sure that I love love love them but they will do, and with my mom's discount at Kinkos they were cheap so that makes them better too! My stepsister came over and took some newborn photos of Makenzie yesterday and they turned out great! She made her first big outing to Old Navy on Saturday which I know is against everything the nurses told us at the hospital BUT there was a good sale!!! I was only there for 25 minutes and I held her the whole time so nobody could get their coodies on her!!!

Oh My Blog....

Oh My Blog....How I have missed you the last few days!

It has been a fast few days around here though and my computer didn't come out of my hospital bag until this morning. But since my last post Makenzie has improved 100000%, She is ate more at the hospital, breathed at the rate she was supposed to and left on Tuesday morning around 11 o'clock with a clean bill of health! While we are on the topic of hospitals, I knew going into Round Rock Hospital that some/many people had told me to deliver somewhere else, Round Rock was bad, blah blah blah. I obviously delivered there anyway and now looking back I would not have had it any other way! The labor and deliver portion of the event was great, the nurses were great, I liked my doctor, and everyone was nice to Alex and I (It might have helped that we knew one of the nurses. It was great to have Sheila on our side!) The nurses in the NICU were also fabulous! They kept us informed but they also kept the mood positive and happy. I felt so much better about leaving Makenzie with fun, happy, positive nurses.

Since we have been home Makenzie is doing sooooo good! She sleeps for about 8 between 10 pm and 8 am. She woke up to eat 3 times and then goes right back to bed! It's been good so far, probably just jinxed myself though :o) Last night we tried the whole bath thing! It was not successful...oops! She was really really unhappy with the idea of being naked and wet, she was also hungry. She had just slept for 4 hours and hadn't ate before the bath extravaganza. Oh well...lesson learned. Next bath I am going to try to keep her half covered with with a warm washcloth and see if she likes that any better.

Her swing stopped working this morning :o( sad story! I am about to get dressed and take it back to target without the box and I'm sure that it will be a great adventure! I read the reviews and a lot of people wrote how the motor stopped working :O(

Also, Mak has a doctor appointment today at 2. I have a list with 3 questions on it, I'm not good about asking doctors questions usually, so a list is my attempt at remembering!

Day 3 Good News Good News Good News!

Makenzie is eating 8 times a day at every 2, 5, 8, and 11 o'clock that comes around. She ate 3 times @ 13mL (or possibly cc but I don't remember) and then last night at 11 Alex went to go feed her and she got to move up to the 27mL bottle! This is good because to go home one of the requirements is eating 30mL without having breathing issues, but she is looking good on that front. Also, last night at 11 when Alex was there they had turned down her oxygen flow to 1 and guess what comes after one ladies and gentlemen....0!!!! Her last set of blood work came back negative for infection and the doctor was going to make a call this morning about her antibiotics and rather or not she needs it anymore.

I am headed up there now to feed her and looking for more good news because our God is mighty and is way bigger than some poop that comes out too early! (PS: I have talked publicly about poop more since Thursday than I think I have in my life)

Makenzie update!

Makenzie update! The nurse practitioner just called and said that her chest xray from this morning is better than they thought! They are pulling the line out of her mouth and are going to try to bottle feed her at 11:30. If she starts breathing too fast or too hard they will stop the bottle and put a feeding tube in and feed her that way. Either way formula is goooooooooood! She is down to 2 liters of room air a minute and this is down from 4 liters of 30% oxygen a minute! The NP even said they will do one more chest xray and be able to say for sure that she is pneumonia free! She wasn't willing to set that in stone until after one more xray but thats still one xray closer to going home! The results of that xray will determine if they can stop the antibiotics tomorrow or not, but she said they are leaning toward being able to stop tomorrow. Once the antibiotics are stopped Makenzie has to be able to bottle feed at least 30mL of formula, breath with no struggles or pressure and then we can go home!!!

Day 2---night time update

The 'nice nurse' as we call her was with Makenzie today and she made her a cute name card. NICU nurses should be required to be cute and crafty I'm pretty sure! The 'grumpy nurse' isn't horrible she just does have as happy of a vibe as I'd like my sweet baby to be around :O)

This is Makenzie this afternoon. They use the aspirator to keep the pacifier in her mouth and that keeps her calmed down a lot. They keep her as calm as possible to keep her from crying and having to work any harder than she needs to. Oxygen thing in her nose is still at 3 liters but its room oxygen. She is getting a little jaundice but they haven't started any light treatments yet, the 'nice nurse' said they would make that call in the morning. She is still just getting iv liquids, but will try to start a feeding tube tomorrow if everything keeps getting better like they have today. I am at this point still scheduled to be discharged from the hospital tomorrow so we will work out the best visiting schedule for Alex and I for the next few days then. Right now we just visit for a few minutes at a time but after tomorrow I would imagine we will be staying for longer increments of time.

Thank you all for all the sweet words and prayers. KEEP THEM GOING!!! Pray for continued healing and for it to be speedy! We are ready to have her in her own crib and wearing the cute outfits you all got her over the last 10 months! Pray for our family and friends who have been coming to the hospital to keep us company, I know it is hard for them to come visit with no baby to see and hold but its been really great to have them here to keep our minds occupied a little more. Pray also for my recovery, no details needed there!

25% oxygen

Just a quick update: At 5am Makenzie was still on 40% oxygen, when Alex went to see her at 10am she was down to 25%. People usually breath 21% oxygen normally. This is an answer to prayer for sure but more is needed. They will continue to monitor her in the NICU and watch her while blood cell count to see if she is getting any infection. They have started her on antibiotics already as a precautionary measure. My doctor came to see me today and I am still scheduled to go home on Saturday morning but no word on Makenzie yet.

Funny stories: Right after I delivered the doctor handed Makenzie off to the nurse and they were working on her and the nurse turned around and said "he is doing good, hear him cry" I remember saying "What! Did you just say he?" and my doctor quickly correcting the nurse and assuring me that Makenzie was a she! THEN after a while and they moved me to the recovery room, which was dramatic enough because I had just left Makenzie at the NICU but then there was a stinky blue bow on the door! Our friend and nurse Sheila took that down ASAP and told them it was a girl so to bring a pink bow, but we didn't get one all night last night and this morning there was still no bow :o( but just now when Alex came back into the room he said there was a pink bow!!!

5 am....so early!

It's 5 am....that is in the morning, and thats early! The nurse came in to do some blood work on me at 4am, that was a delightful needle prick or 2 in the back of my hand because she knew my arm wasn't gonna work.

Since we were up Alex called down to NICU to see if we could come visit, which we could. They allow the parents down there anytime as long as there is not any procedures being done at the time on Mak or anybody else that is in there.

Mak is on 38% oxygen as of 5:00 this morning. That is 2% less than last night, which is good. Everything is just going to happen slowly for a few days. Her color looked a lot better and she seemed to be breathing a tiny bit easier but still fast and with labor. Her blood work from last night indicated that her white blood count was low. This could be that she is stressed or that there is an infection somewhere. They started her on antibiotics and will see how that helps her blood count today.

They have given her a pacifier and that little girl was going to town on it! It was as if she knew I had purchased WAY too MANY pacifiers over the last few months for here ;o)

Prayer Request:

1. Pray for more rest for Alex and I

2. Pray for Mak to continue to show signs of improvement, any little bit helps her to get better

3. Pray for our friends and families that are being so supportive right now and are being super great even though this has been a little rocky.

Makenzie is here and needs your prayers.

Our little princess is 7.10 ounces and 20 inches long. She had some issues breathing because of the meconium aspiration and is in the NICU for the next few days. Essentially she had her first bowl movement while she was still inside of me. Actually we know this happened between when my water broke at 8:50am and when they checked me around 10am. Then sometime during the delivery she was in distress and sucked that stuff into her lungs and belly. Thus causing a lot of doctors and nurses to come work on her after birth and then take her to NICU. They are going to keep her there for a while (nobody is fessing up to how long) and work on getting her lungs cleared out and keeping sicknesses like pneumonia away.

Please pray for Makenzie to have a fast recovery and for Alex and myself to trust in the Lord with ALL our heart, ALL our soul, and ALL our minds.

HMMMMM...

The pitocin has been set at 2.5 all morning ( says the nurses) and just now another nurse walked in and said "hmmmmmm thats odd lets move it to 4." So can nurses just make that call without discussing it with anyone else?!?!?! Apparently so! But stronger medicine means more contraction, which means more dilation, which means LETS GET THIS PARTY STARTED!!!!

This is a little itchy!

I got an epidural at 4am this morning. It was not nearly as bad as they make it out to be. They numb everything up really well before they get ya with the needle. That medicine helped me sleep for a good 5 hours, which was fabulous! Then this morning was good, had some visitors, Sally, Emily, Matt, Lori, and even Miss Sheila Vance came into work when she wasn't scheduled to come be my nurse! YEAH! I love her!

On a sad note: the epidural was wearing off and I asked for some more (this is not sad, this is normal) but the new stuff they pumped me with made me super super itchy, I might go nuts. They said there is something they could give me but she didn't sound too enthusiastic about giving that up. I am gonna try to fight through the itchy but I am not sure how long I will last ;O)