Thanksgiving

Yes, I know this is a bit late seeing how Christmas is next weekend, but I still want to share. We are especially thankful this year at Thanksgiving to finally be a family of 4 & to all be home together. 

It was a great Thanksgiving. We had lunch with Chris' family & dinner with my family. It makes for a lot of eating but we really enjoy spending time with everyone. 

 Granny Ruth (Chris' grandmother) holding Avery for the 1st time.

 Riding her trike at Grammy & Paw Paw's

 Playing in Grammy & Paw Paw's backyard

 Gram (my grandmother) holding Avery (her 17th great grand) for the first time

Uncle Bob & Avery

Cousin Morgan feeding Avery

Avery's 1 week old check-up

This morning we took Avery to the Peds Clinic at the hospital for her 1 wk old check & she is doing great. She weighs 8 lbs, 7.4 oz which means she gained 7.1 oz since discharged on Friday. The dr did ask us how much we have been feeding her & we said 2-3 oz & she was a bit shocked. He said little ones this young really shouldn't be eating 3 oz yet & that we were over feeding her. Little does he know what we have dealt with having Emma, the heart baby/non eater so, if Avery said she was still hungry we would feed her more. So he told us to slow her down so her tummy & brain can learn when she is full instead of just sucking the bottle down. We will see how this works for Avery.

I also asked the dr to look at this knot on the back of Avery's head & he seems to think its just skin & tissue but to have our pedi at home to watch it. It really reminds me of the staf infection my niece, Morgan had when she was 2 wks old so that is why I wanted him to look at it.

He also said her jonduice looked a lot better & that she is free to fly home whenever we get permission.

Sick in Hawaii

I really can't think of anything worse right now that being away from home, in paradise with a 6 day old & sick. Tomorrow Avery goes for her 1 week old newborn check-up & after that we plan to find me a doctor. I have some kind of upper respiratory crud which I assume was caused by the combination of airplane germs, lack of sleep, jet lag & hospital germs. Lucky me.

I have been trying to keep my distance from Avery but its so hard. She is getting to know us & if she is awake she really wants to be held. I just try not to cough or breathe on her too much & put her down once she doses off. Hopefully I can get some meds tomorrow so will not spread this crud to her & be free to hold/cuddle her all I want.

Chris has been awesome & did all the feedings last night once we realized how sick I had become & has taken care of her & me most the day. He went out several times today to get me more drugs & some white hot chocolate, YUM. He always spoils me when I'm sick.

She's here

Little Avery Elizabeth was born Monday, october 24th @ 1:54am via c section. We didn't get to see her until tuesday due to our huge delay in the Atlanta airport. We were suppose to land in Honolulu @ 2:40pm but actually got there @ 12:15am after tech problems with our plane & waiting on a new crew.

Avery weighted 8 lbs, 0.1oz, 20 in long. I never would have guessed that length, she looks short & chubby. In fact she was only 3 oz more than Emma & 1 in longer. She had a hard delivery with low heart rate with each contraction & was sent to the nicu for breathing difficulties. She hard time eating too but started figuring it out late Wednesday afternoon.

She stayed in the nicu until Thursday evening & was then moved to the step down unit & was discharged friday about 1pm. So far she is a very sweet & good baby. She only cries when she is dirty or hungry. She of course likes to be or swaddled. I think she looks a lot like my niece Morgan, which is funny. She has light brown hair & deep blue eyes that I think will probably turn brown.

We will not be posting any pics publically of Avery until we get home & our family gets to meet her, sorry. Hopefully we will be able to leave in 7 days but it may be as many as 14 depending paperwork & adoption laws.

She's coming

The text came in yesterday @ 9:44am that Rachel was in early labor & at the hospital. I ran outside between bible class & worship to give her a call to find out they were admitting her + she was only 1.5 cm. The baby's heart rate was was very elevated but then started dropping during contractions, so they started her on meds to speed things along.

Their plan to speed up the delivery didn't really work. She is contracting but not dilating. It's been almost 24 hrs sine the first text & she still isn't here. The we heard was 6 hrs ago she was @ 5 cm. Hopefully our new little one will be here soon so Rachel can rest.

Patterson Farm 2011

Yesterday we took Emma to Patterson Farm & she had a great time. Grammy & Paw Paw went too, but could only stay for a little while. We fed some farm animals, went on a wagon/hayride (with no hay), pick pumpkins, ate a picnic lunch, played on the playground, rode trackers. tricycles & the cow train, had duck races, milked a fake cow & took a lot of pics. The only thing Emma would not do was get in the corn pit, which she wouldn't do last year either. She didn't ride the ponies or horses either, but thats because we didn't pay for it this year. She didn't miss it though, she had a blast.

 Looks like she is having a chat with the goats.

 Emma & Paw Paw hanging with the goats.

 Heavy

 Chris & Emma on the cow train

 Trying out the tractors

 Now lets try the tricycles

 Driving the playground tractor

 Horse swing

 Crawling through the tire tunnel

 Duck racing with Daddy

 Milking the fake cow

 "Say moo cow"

She did very little smiling for pics while we were there. 

This is the same face we got all day, but its still a precious one.

Officially Well

So this morning Emma went to her pedi for her 2nd follow-up appointment to check her white cells, red cells & platetlet counts & they were all back to normal. She is officially well. Now the trick is how long can we keep her that way.

While there, Dr. K suggested she get her flu vaccine since they had plenty in stock so Emma got her 1st flu mist. In the past she has only gotten the shot but since they had already stuck her to draw labs we thought we would try the mist. Plus Dr. K said studies now show the mist is more effective on children & the shot is more effective for adults. We will see how it goes.

Chris & I plan on getting our within the next week as part of prepping for the arrival of the baby. Here's to hoping for a flu-free household this winter. 

Sick Baby

So Emma started with a fever last Tuesday afternoon, just low grade at first & continued with a fever for the next few days but much higher at 103 - 103.5. So I called the dr to see if they wanted to see her & they said their rule is if they have run a fever for more than 3 days to bring her in & that is just what I did.

Now this was Friday & her fever had come down some to 101.9 but I wanted to take her to make sure it wasn't an ear infection or something. Dr. K checked her over & couldn't find anything right off but she wanted to run labs to see if she could find the cause of her continued fever. It is very rare for Emma to ran a continuous fever & one that is high. 

They stuck poor Emma twice to double check the results that showed her white blood cell & platelet counts were very lows. Dr. K was hoping this was just a bad virus but she said she couldn't send Emma home in good conscience without knowing for sure. We always have to be careful that her fevers are not related to an infection in her blood stream or her heart so Emma was admitted to the hospital. I felt so bad for her, she was so tired (little to no nap) & now we had to go to the hospital on a weekend of all times.

They started doing labs not long after we got there & I must admit, I had to leave the room to get backup. The backup wasn't for Emma but for myself. I do not handle medical things well at all & had already endured 2 sticks at the dr office, this one was more than I could handle. I didn't want them to have to deal with a fainting mother on the floor so I had to excuse myself. Thankfully my sister, Karen took over & stayed with Emma for the 30+ minutes it took them to get what they needed. 

The lab results came back & they were the same as Dr. K did, low white cells, red cells, & platelets. They also did a urine sample which never showed anything. Their first impression was that it was just a virus too, but they also wanted to rule out any blood/heart infections. 

The next day they ran labs again & it went very well, Chris went with Emma & it only took 5 minutes or less not 30 like the night before. When we got the lab results back Saturday afternoon, they were not what we had hoped for, her numbers had gone down a lot. They warned us this was possible since we didn't know if they were done declining or not. So they scheduled more labs for the next morning, Sunday.

They came to get Emma about 8:15am & these labs didn't go well either. They had to stick her several times & had to call in a PICU nurse to try. It took about 30 minutes for them to get it & Emma is so hard to get blood from, tiny veins. We got the labs back very soon & her white count had quadrupled & they decided it was safe to send us home.

Their diagnosis was still the same as when she was admitted, just a bad virus which they see a lot in little ones. They did give Emma some antibiotics while we were there but thankfully didn't need to take any home with us. Our only orders upon discharge was to follow-up with Dr. K in the next 24-48 hrs & we did so on Monday.

Little did we know Dr. K would have a little different plan. She called right before we left the house Monday morning for Emma's appointment to check on her & then found out once we arrived at the office she wanted us to wait until later in the week to run more labs to give her counts a little more time to come up. She went ahead & did labs anyway since we were there & her white count went back down again but at least her red count & platelets went back up. So she sent us on our way & asked me to bring her back next week. Emma will go back Wed. morning for more labs & we are all hoping her counts are back to normal. If they are not Dr. K plans to send Emma to a specialist to so a consult.

County Fair 2011

So I am a bit behind on blogging due to the arrival of our new addition coming soon & Emma being sick & hospitalized but we will discuss that one later. 

We took Emma to the county fair again this year & even though it was chilly & rainy we all had a great time. We ran out of tickets before Emma got to ride all that she wanted but we actually found some & Aunt Beverly shared hers too. I think Emma's favorite was the helicopters & the carousel but the batteries on our camera died so we didn't get as many pics as we would have liked. Here are the best ones.

Emma once again was not a fan of feeding animals at the petting zoo unless it was out of a cup, but she did like seeing them. She apparently doesn't like being licked by them. 

 This is a very cool sand sculpture that was on display from the back side.

 Talking to the goats.

 Yes, I still have my black eye.

 Feeding the goats from a cup.

 Attempting again to feed a sheep from her hand & she didn't not like it at all.

 Look at this sweet llama face.

 In the helicopters with Chris.

 Uncle Bob & cousin Morgan on the trucks.

 Blurring Chris, Emma & Uncle Bob on the trucks.

 Morgan climbing. (Did you notice how Emma & Morgan are dressed the same, pure accident)

 On the roller coaster

Morgan getting on the motorcycles.

We Are Expecting...

a baby girl thru adoption & are over joyed. We have waited so long to be matched with a birthmother & it officially happened on Thursday evening. Rachel. the birth mother, is living in Hawaii where she is mobilized working in the Army Reserves PT & a Respiratory Therapist at a local hospital. She had a long list of preferences for the adoptive family she wanted & we met every single one, including active members of the Church of Christ & a stay-at-home mom. She is due Oct 27th so we only have 5.5 weeks till the big day, so we have lots to do. I have already washed all the newborn & 0-3 months baby clothes, blankets, bibs, burb clothes... now all we need to do is prepare her room. We went & looked at furniture Friday night & picked some out. We also need to move Chris a desk into our room which will require us purchasing a new one & tearing down our current office. So as you can see, we will be very busy the next few weeks.

Emma at first wasn't too keen on the idea until we told her she can feed her, help rock her to sleep, give her a pacie & then she started to like the whole "big sister" idea. She has never liked being around "real" babies but loves her baby dolls so we will see how this really play out once we bring her home.

A Morning at the Park

Tuesday was my youngest niece Morgan's actual birthday & Karen wanted to do something a little special for her, so we took the girls to the park. I must say, they had a great time. It is so funny how different these to are especially when it comes to confidence & strength. Emma is so timid at the park & rarely will go down the slides without assistance & Morgan just goes from one to another freely. Morgan tries to encourage her to help her along & sometimes that work. Thanks Morgan for being her big cousin (not really, they are only 8 wks apart), when she needs it. I think they had the most fun running through the grass and looking for acorns than playing on the playground but that is fine too.

 Coming back from a brief run in the grass 

 Emma & Karen on the tire swing

 Morgan searching for acorns.

 Emma came to help & stored them in a boat she found in the playground.

 Emma on the curvy slide which she would only sit or climb on, not slide down.

 Morgan on the tunnel slide

One last slide for Morgan