Baby Pictures

The hospital baby pictures are up on the website www.our365.com, you can put Stella's birthdate in- January 29 and pull up her pictures! The password is 73441259181636....let us know if this one looks like MOMMY!!!
Also, things are going good, now we are just trying to get some sleep anytime we can!! Stella is doing wonderful, still a fabulous baby, eating every 4 hours and getting bigger everyday. We have another Dr. appt next week so I will update then!

Welcome Home Baby

We are home. Friday was busy from leaving the hospital to getting settled in our house, Saturday we were tired from the first night alone home with our baby and explaining to Sittre Paige why her sister came home....apparently she thought Stella would live at the hospital and today we hung out with our 2 girls. We are adjusting to having 2 kids....balancing attention can be hard, but Sittre Paige has been awesome. Being 3 years apart is a good thing, she loves looking at Stella and feeding "her" baby when I feed Stella but also she is old enough to play by herself. Right now, its good. On another note, having a preemie is a little different, we are struggling with some of the feedings, Stella won't stay awake, or she has massive spit-up from reflux.....I mean we are talking coming out the nose...yuck. So feedings are sometimes tough and extremely messy but other than that she is pretty much asleep. I think the longest we have seen her awake is probably 20 minutes. She can sleep through anything, they say that NICU babies adapt to alot of noise and she certainly has. Nothing wakes her up, not even sister's singing...a.k.a...screaming. We have Stella's first Dr. appt in the morning at 8:30, which should be interesting because we have lots of questions. But other than that, we are doing great thanks to all our family and friends. I posted a picture of our beautifully decorated door with a welcome home sign and a basket with diapers, wipes, and some great goodies! There was no card that said who did it. So I just wanted to take time to thank the "anonymous", it really is such a wonderful feeling to have friends that give all the glory to God and truly do things from their heart.....Matthew 6:3-4. (although I did find out....thank you Crys and Abbie!) One of the biggest blessings that God has given me is my precious friends. I am truly grateful and hope one day I can be the same kind of blessing that they are to me. Also we have an Aunt who constantly goes above and beyond for us, Joy, brought us some groceries and her homemade lasagna so that we wouldn't have to get out. We love her more than she will ever know and are so thankful for her!! I really want to be just like her, she is one of the most giving people I have ever known!

I also posted some pictures of our closet, a.k.a. "the family room" we stayed in Thursday night, and then a picture of us leaving Friday morning with our baby Stella.

Okay, its been a looong 3 1/2 weeks but we made it!!! It felt like we would never get here!!! So now we sit back and watch Stella grow. Our Savior and your prayers got us here, we can't say thank you enough!

About to leave...

Okay, Stella is all set to leave. We have taken her hospital baby pictures, done the routine discharge information, got the monitors turned off and now we wait for the Dr. to officially come tell us we can leave. The night went great, she slept and ate, and we slept with one eye open and proudly got up to feed her when it was time. Something we learned about our baby.....she is not a cryer.......when shes hungry, she grunts and makes ALOT of noise (its sounds like we do when we are stretching). Interesting. As of right now, she is a wonderful baby, things could be different when we get home with sister!
Thanks for keeping up with us, the journey home is almost over, we can't wait to get home and be a new family of four!

IN the family room....

We are here. The night has finally come. We are in the family room actually taking care of our baby. We got here around 5 and were literally thrown into a room not much bigger than a closet and told "here's your baby". So we sat on the bed looking at each other and then Stella, then each other and then Stella. Believe it or not, we were nervous. We were told she should eat again at 8:30 and other than that she's all ours. So since we haven't been with her 24/7, we sat there and watched her sleep for 3 hours, she makes lots of noises but sleeps so peacefully. She is still on the monitor just to make sure there are no heart rate drops.
At 8:30 we got the nerve to pick her up, so we changed her, kissed on her, and then gave her a bottle. She took the first 30cc's great and then we had to get the nurse to help us with the next 30cc's. She really had to work with Stella, I'm talking pinching cheeks, taking off blankets, lifting chin and basically bugging her. The nurse said she can just get way to comfortable and needs to be woke up during feedings. So we will try again at 12:30 to see if we can work on that a little better. We have taken pictures of the room but forgot to bring the proper tools to be able to upload them so we will post those later. As of right now, the night has started off really good, its 10pm and I have been holding my baby since her feeding so I might TRY to put her down and get some rest before her next feeding. Thanks for your prayers, as much as we are loving this room, we are certainly ready to be in our own house! We will update later!

Day 5...preparing for homecoming

Well the nurses have officially started to prepare us for Stella's homecoming. So Friday is still the day that we are suppose to bring her home. We learned this week about something called the "Family Room". This is a room that the mom and dad stay in with baby the night before the baby comes home. So we have plans to be at the NICU on Thursday at 5:00pm to begin the journey home. They do this in case the parents have questions throughout the night and most importantly to monitor the baby's vitals every 4 hours. The nurse told us we do all the work just like we would at home they are just there for support, in case something happens or we need them. We are excited for this night to come. We have watched 3 of Stella's roommates go home this week and can't wait for our chance!! Also, Stella weighs 5 pounds tonight!!! The Dr. put her on rice cereal with her formula to help her gain weight, and this also helps prevent heart rate drops and helps with acid reflux. So as of right now it seems to be working. She is eating about 60cc's every 4 hours, so schedule-wise the nurses have done a great job getting her ready for us. The Dr. has also talked with us about Stella getting a shot to prevent RSV, a respiratory virus that can sometimes be fatal. Since she was a preemie and has an older sister, she is a high risk to get this and this also means we are pretty much home-bound until April. Thankfully we can take walks around the neighborhood to get some fresh air, but malls, stores with lots of people and being around other kids is a big no-no. So needless to say, we are pretty excited about Easter, this should be about the time we venture out as a family. Well, that is all we have learned. The next blog, hopefully will be written from the family room, we are pretty excited to journal the first night with our baby. We are certainly praying for God to prepare us as we bring home a baby that is truly not much bigger than one of Sittre Paige's babydolls.

Day 3

We made it to Day 3!! Tomorrow we will be half way there and we are so excited. Stella is 4 pds 9 oz today. She is eating so much, they moved her feedings to every 4 hours instead of 3 and she is eating between 55cc's to 75cc's. She is growing and we really pray that by the time we bring her home she is 5 pds! Basically she is eating and sleeping and pooping....what every baby should be doing at 2 weeks old!!!

Most importantly, NO heart rate drops. Praise Jahweh!!!

Also, we want to THANK OUR WONDERFUL CHURCH FAMILY!!! Although we weren't able to attend, we were given a suprise baby shower last Wednesday night. We recieved so MANY awesome things....especially much needed diapers and wipes!! The love and support of our church has really pulled us through these last couple of weeks and we can never thank you enough!! Most importantly for the prayer lifting up our baby. Spring Valley Baptist is an anwser to OUR prayers!! Thank you!!! We love you!!!

We have added a picture of the most AWESOME diaper wreath that we recieved!! It is soooo cute!!! I might cry when I take it apart!!

The countdown is ON!! Day 1

We were told today that Stella's countdown home has started!! Today is day 1. If there are no heart rate drops she will come home on Day 8, that is next Friday!!! This was such exciting news, she is really doing great, her weight today was 4 pds 7oz, she is eating 55cc's every 4 hours, and she is keeping up her body temp perfectly. All we can do is praise God for the work He is doing right now. Again, please pray these next days are easy and Stella is at her healthiest. The only thing that would stop this countdown is a heart rate drop and the only thing that would stop the heart rate drops is the healing from our Ultimate Physician. No matter the outcome of these next days, we will never stop praising our God. In sickness and in health, He is most Holy.

Heart Rate Drop Prayer Request

Okay, we missed yesterday's blog, been a crazy week. We have started to realize we are getting a little exhausted, driving back and forth to the hospital, but still totally thankful for God's work in Stella's life. She has been doing really good the past 2 days. They took her out of the incubation unit and moved her to a regular NICU crib! Which was such great news, because that is the last "bed" she will move to before she comes home. The biggest concern in the crib is Stella keeping up her body temperature, this can be hard for babies, especially under 5 pounds, and they could start burning calories if they are having to work to hard to keep up the body temp. But our Stella is doing quite well with this, she is staying right at 98 degrees. Her weight is progressing, she is up to 4 pds 4 ounces, back at her birth weight! She seems to be putting on about 2 ounces a day. She is up to 45cc's a feeding and the Dr. put her on a bottle every feeding!! I got to feed her for the first time last night but we got soooo excited we forgot to take pictures!! We enjoyed the moment and Jared got to burp her. (He was jealous that I got to feed her but I reminded him that burping was just as important! haha)

We did have a minor setback last night that we are asking prayer for. She had a heart rate drop at 1:40 am last night, her first one since last Friday. We are trying not to be discouraged. Her last caffeine shot was Monday at 4pm, and they say that after 72 hours it is completely out of her system. They should start a 7 day countdown home tomorrow but we are not sure what the decision will be since she did have this drop. They could possibly hold off a couple of days now. We learned last night also that if she happens to have a heart rate drop during the 7 day countdown then they have to start the countdown all over!!! The nurse told us last night that even if they are on day 6, if they have a heart rate drop it starts over at day 1. So our major request now is for NO heart rate drops. As much as we want her home, most importantly we just want these to stop! It is crucial for these to stop in order for her to come home. We want her healthy but we selfishly would like her home with us as well.

Today Stella is 36 weeks old, if she happens to have anymore heart rate drops after 37 weeks they start to do other tests to see exactly what the cause is. With most babies they should just go away now and we hope our baby is one of these.

Good News....

Since Saturday there has been a lot of good things happening. For the past few days the nurses have been giving Stella 2 bottles a day and the remaining feedings have been with the tube in her nose. Sunday night I got to burp her after the nurse gave her bottle to her. That was really cool for me. We found out last night that they are going to start giving her a bottle every other feeding since she is doing so well with the feedings. We were also told last night that they have decided to quit giving her the caffeine since she hasn't had a heart rate drop since Friday morning. So it sounds like she should be going home Thursday or Friday of next week. We are very excited and can't wait to get her home. Lastly is her weight gain, she has been gaining wait very good. She is now up to 4lb 2oz and growing everyday. Thank you so much to everyone for the prayers and the things they have done.

Jared

Bottle Time!

Saturday has been a great day for baby Stella, and for us. Our wonderful friends and family gave us an awesome baby shower filled with much-needed things!! Thank you, thank you to all who came!!! We are so fortunate to have you in our lives and support us through this time!

Now to baby Stella, first she did have a heart rate drop yesterday, friday, at 10:50 am but that has been her last as of right now, remember 4 days after her last heart rate drop they start a countdown home so we are very prayful that this was her last one. Last night and today we were able to watch her being fed with a bottle!! We can't do this yet because she is just learning, once she gets the hang of it we will be able to feed her. She is able to get 2 a day only right now because fear of her burning off to many calories. So she typically has one in the morning and one at night and her other feedings are through the feeding tube, which is now down her nose to her stomach. Friday she took about half of both bottles in 20 minutes, which is about 15 cc's. Jared and I were nervous because yesterday we thought....this could be a really long process of her catching on but today we were amazed!! At her 5:30 bottle feeding she took all 33 cc's out of the bottle in 10 minutes!!! We couldn't believe the progress that had happened overnight! Of course this can only be explained by God's mighty hand. So bottle feedings are moving right along! We are anxious to watch her again tomorrow, it was very exciting to see our baby eating on her own! Probably starting Monday they will give her 3 bottles a day and then so on throughout the week until as last all her feedings are by bottle, this is also the only way she can go home as well. She is tolerating the feedings so good, and keeping all the formula down so we are thinking she is really hungry and ready to be home too! Her jaundice count is still normal so the lights are still out. Her weight is slowly BUT surely going up, she now weighs 3 pds 14.6 ounces. And really I told Jared tonight, just that little bit of gain is starting to fill out her face. We really hope by Monday she can be close to if not 4 pds!! She is still breathing just fine on her own and oxygen levels are staying just how they should! Other than that all she is doing right now is eating and sleeping, just what she should be doing the nurses say!

On a side note, we heard some nurses talking today about an NICU party and we said, wait they really have that? And the nurse said that every Christmas they have an NICU party for the babies that have been there the past year and they invite them back so the nurses can see them and see how they have been doing and growing. We thought this was major cool. You really do get attached to these wonderful nurses who take care of your baby everyday. So needless to say, we are super pumped about the party and can't wait to show off God's creation and miracle at the Christmas NICU 2009 party!!!

We posted pictures of the shower and big sister, and the bottle feeding and Stella trying to burb!!! (which she did by the way)

Love-Kristen

Happy 1 week Birthday!!!!

God is in control....the motto for Stella's first week of life. This is Kristen, I have decided to write the blog tonight. I don't feel deserving of all the prayers going up for baby Stella. She is just such a little miracle of life and God's awesome work.....the Ultimate Physician. She just continues to get better, she is up to 31cc's for her feedings, which take place every 3 hours. She has a feeding tube for right now, but soon she will switch to a bottle, which we are told could pose some problems since she hasn't learned to suck on a bottle and then swallow the formula, all while breathing. All she knows right now is that she is getting satisfied. So this we are told will be the next step. She has not had a heart rate drop since yesterday at 2:10pm! Praise God. This is such good news, she will still recieve the caffiene shot until she can keep going without the drops for a few more days. The IV in her head came out today, which hopefully she won't need another one. They won't start another one, unless she needs one. The jaundice light is completely out, her count was normal again today so she will no longer have to sit under that. The last issue that is concerning is her weight. She is down to 3 pds 10.9 ounces. The weight does take a while to put on so please be in prayer that she starts to gain (why can't this be my problem?). She is just 35 weeks, but she seems to be at a stand still on the weight so we really want to get those lbs on her. The incubation unit should also help this, it might just be a slow process.

I got to change her diaper today for the first time and have never been so nervous. Her legs are like twigs that you think one wrong move could make them snap in half. Her hinny is literally as big as setting two quarters next to each other, the preemie diapers are huge but they do the job and needless to say I actually felt like her mom being able to change her diaper finally! So who knew changing a diaper would feel so good?? She is also wearing gowns so we are posting pictures of her with some clothes!!

Again, I can't express how thankful we are for your prayers, love, support and concern. We are so blessed by all who care and continue to check on our family. We thank God everytime we pray. This life is filled with hard times, but its so much easier to go through with support. I hope that we are doing a good job keeping the updates and I hope you see how your prayers and our God is healing my daughter. Truly from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Happy 1 week Birthday my precious baby Stella!

Lights out...

The jaundice lights are out, which is another big step towards getting better. Stella had another good day....she is up to 25cc's of formula and should be up to 29cc's after the night is over. That is almost 1 ounce of formula every 3 hours. She also had her nasal oxygen tube removed, which means we can see more of her precious face. They told us that when her IV goes bad next it will not be put back in, but they didn't want to remove a good IV until it went bad. So whenever that happens she will only have a few monitoring wires left on her. Today she seemed much more alert. Kristen got to comb her hair after her wipe down and also put baby lotion on her. The next thing that we need to make progress on is her heart rate drops. She is still having at least 1 heart rate drop every 24 hours. Once she can go several days without having one, then we will be on an 11 day countdown as I had mentioned in a previous post. We got to put her in a gown before we left her tonight. I will post pictures of those sometime Thursday. We appreciate all of the prayers which have helped us be strong in this tough time.

Jared

It's getting better everyday

Okay, so today has been a fabulous day of improvement for our baby Stella (mom is doing better emotionally today as well). First, let me start off with her jaundice count which went down a whole point today, so they turned off 3 of the bulbs that were on her down to 1 bulb. Tommorow if her count is even less and is normal than they will turn the lights off completely....which means her sunglasses come off....which means we can finally look at her whole face and start trying to figure out who she looks like!!! Second, they moved her to an incubation unit, which we haven't got to see her in yet because they did that tonight but its a clear casing over her whole body, we are told this is a graduation step up from the open bed. The incubation unit is much warmer and quiet and they tend to burn less calories while they are in it and we want her keeping in all nessecary calories! The next step after the incubation unit is a baby crib that the "on-time" newborns use so we are half way there! Stella's feedings have been upped for in the morning to 18 cc's considering she does well tonight and the Dr. has told us that she is keeping her food down very well for her weight. So this is great news, the more she eats, the bigger she gets, the faster we get her home! She did have 1 heart rate drop today, which we would love to hear she has had none but its better than 3, so she will still have the caffiene shot until these completely stop.

Kristen got great news tonight, the nurse said that Stella should be ready for a gown or onesie to wear as soon as tommorow. Soon our baby won't be in the buff any longer.

I have posted some pictures of our visit today. Sittre Paige was so excited to see her sister.

Please continue your prayers, they mean so much to us, and as you can see God is performing some great miracles on our baby right now!

Mommy's Turn

Today was hard....for me, her mom. Stella is doing well. She did have four heart rate drops today, which ultimately means she will still recieve the caffeine shots. This seems to be the norm, especially for babies under 35 weeks and under 5 pounds. The nurse said Stella was doing real good because they see babies that have 18-30 a day, so yes, we are blessed. They upped her formula to 12cc's by tommorow morning, she is a hungry preemie (like her dad...just not a preemie). This is good, the more weight, the less problems. They did put a blue light on her because her jaundice count was a little high. Other than that things are about the same, she seems to be improving. I am so thankful to God for this baby. She is just an angel. I did cry alot today . This is so hard, I took forgranted the day I walked out of the hospital with Sittre Paige. No one wants to see their child suffer and looking at Stella today was overwhelming. I couldn't look at her without tears in my eyes, its hard to be at home without her and then even worse leaving the NICU to come home. I know this is God's plan for our life. I am so thankful that God HAS a plan for our life. Sometimes this life is just hard, so that is how I am going to sum up our life right now. Please continue to pray for the day I can love on my baby. I long for this day. Thank you all.

New pictures and an update

Good news...tonight we both had the chance to hold Stella. She is now off of oxygen completely and getting better by the minute. We are in love with her and can't wait for her to start getting off the caffiene so we can take her home. By the way she smiled at me tonight and loves for her daddy to hold her.

Jared

A good 24 hours

Ok, so the last 24 hours was a very good step for Stella. First I must go back to Saturday morning and say one thing that I left off yesterday. Stella, on three seperate occasions Saturday morning was experiencing a low heart rate. The treatment was to give her caffeine every 24 hours to help stimulate her heart rate and keep it up (see Kristen caffeine isn't bad for me). They said that once they start taking her off the caffiene that it will take 4 days to get her completely off of it, because they can't just cut it off all at once. Once they have her completely off then she will have a 7 day countdown before she would be able to home. So it looks like we are looking at 11 days in there once she starts to come off the caffeine whenever that might be. On to some good news though. The good news is in the last 24 hours she has gotten her oxygen intake down to 21% for the last 12 hours and her breathing per minute has gotten down to around the 60's which is the maximum of where it needs to be. The oxgen level is what the rest of intake in regular air, which is really awesome. This being the case they have taken her off the cpap and put a regular tube in her nose like any other person would have when in the hospital. Also they are now about to attempt to give her a teaspoon of some preemie formula and see how she handles that. So the last 24 hours she has made a tremendous step towards improvement, but we still have a ways to go. She has a line in her belly button that they draw blood from for blood work. They told us that she might get that taken out tonight or tomorrow. Once they do that, Kristen and I will finally get to hold our daughter since neither one of us has gotten to do that yet.
That's about it for the info today. We will get to sit with her some more tonight so I will be sure to update with some pictures and also let everyone know how the feeding attempts went today.

Thank you everyone for the thoughts and prayers. They mean so much to our family.

Jared