First Pumpkin Patch

Lydia's first ever pumpkin patch!

Lydia Goes For A Ride

Our Little Flower!

Butterflies are attracted to only the sweetest things!

Playing in the front yard

Focused

She is VERY focused during play time

Clips!

Her hair is finally long enough for her first clip!

Bath time

Lydia really loves bath time!

Lydia Talking and Scratching

Fair Time

Lydia at the fair with Grandma

5 months old

I can not believe how fast time is going!  I know I must sound like a broken record because every one warns you that your kids will grow up way too fast...and its true!  Lydia will be 5 months old on the 24th and she is the sweetest little baby.  We just got back from a great vacation with my family to Tahoe Donner, and over that week she seems to have grown over night!  She is now 13.5 pounds (which feels big to me since she has been a peanut since birth), laughing and giggling, rolling, shouting and screeching and started eating solids!  My sister brother in law and their two kids were on vacation with us. Jackson is 3 and Cosette is 20 months, its funny to see the pecking order and how kids naturally fall into line.  Lydia was so fascinated by what they were doing that she hardly made a peep.  Cosette definitely "runs the show" and is very cute and sassy.  She would come over to give Lydia and give her a big hug and kiss and say one of her favorite words "Baby".  Whenever she would try to snuggle her cousin, Lydia would yell out at her as if she was yelling at her to stop hugging her so hard and to back off.  It was a yell I have never heard before and she has not made the sound since we have been home... maybe Lydia will throw her weight around once she is big enough to fend for herself with her cousins;) It was really cute to see them all interact and it will be fun that she has a girl cousin so close in age, I'm hoping they will be good pals in the future.  I go back to work July 30th and it is a sad thought to be away from my sweet baby, but I know that it is time.  I have truly cherished my 6 months of maternity leave and I know there will never be a time quite like this again.  I am so thankful for my cute little family and can not wait to see how Lydia grows and changes month by month.  4 months was great and 5 so far looks even better:)

Lydia Splashing In The Pool

Lydia Playing In Her Jumper

Newest Thing To Play With

First Beach Day

Cousins

Laughing More and More

Baby has recently found her hands.  She loves sucking on just about anything and she's starting to enter the phase where everything is going in the mouth.  We think she may end up being a thumb sucker but for now she just gags herself with her own thumb so she will have to stick with the binky for now.

She loves her activity mat and is getting much better at grabbing objects and batting at her toys.

It has become more clear to me that Lydia needs to be rocked to sleep for a bit before going down for the night.  I was getting tired of roaming the house for what seemed like hours trying to get her to fall asleep.  This is her new rocker and she loves it...and so do I:)

King Size Crib

This little lady hated sleeping in the bassinet the first few weeks she was home so we borrowed Jessies Co sleeper to put in the bed with us and she loves it!  But what she loves most is being under the covers fully in bed with us!  She rolls around and kicks and sleeps so soundly, it is very sweet but also makes me nervous that it will become a "habit".   She is now 10 weeks and sleeping in her bassinet with only in bed with us when she wakes up for her early morning feeding.

Baby in the mirror

The pediatrician has been keeping a close eye on Lydia's weight.  She is gaining but not at the speed they would like to see.  It has been hard to know how much she is getting when she nurses since it is not something you can measure, but one of the major signs that she isn't getting enough intake is slow weight gain.  We have been supplementing her on top of her feedings so she will gain at a faster rate per doctors orders.  The whole feeding process has been really difficult and we have had to go back to pediatricians office weekly for weight checks.  I finally could not stand waiting a week to know if we have made progress or not, so we ordered this baby scale on amazon.  It is surprisingly accurate, so now we weigh her daily so we have an idea  how much she should be getting to gain a healthy amount of weight.  She normally screams bloody murder when I put her on the scale, but the other day she found herself in the mirror and sat there for over 10 min looking at herself.  Now she loves the scale! It is so cute seeing her starting to discover the world.

Baby is one month old today!  She is so sweet and we love her so much! The rocking chair was mine when I was little and my Dad painted it white for Lydia to match her room:)

New Video and Pictures

Homeward Bound

We are finally home!  So happy to have our little lady home with us and start adjusting to normal life with her.  Thank you all so much for your prayers and support through with difficult time.  We wanted to update you all on her last few days in the hospital.  The doctor did a follow up blood test to see if Lydia's white blood cell count was starting to trend down.  If it had not started to go down he informed us that the next step would be to continue with antibiotics for another 7 days.  At this point we could not bear the thought that our baby would need to stay in the NICU another week!  We prayed and thankfully the next day her white count was normal.  Doctor was very pleased with her progress and felt that it would be no problem her going home on Sunday March 3rd. It was so nice to have an end in sight and she continued to improve each day.

We are now home and loving spending time with her.  She is such a sweet baby and so cute!  We have a few follow up appointments with our pediatrician to make   sure she is progressing well and she is on an iron supplement due to the blood loss from the cord evulsion at birth.  But no residual effects from all the problems she had at birth and both the neonatologist and pediatrician reassured me that she will grow to be a happy healthy normal baby and there should not be any lasting problems from this experience. 

Right On Time

We have just finally found some down time to update the blog.  If you haven't heard yet, the last few days have been very emotional for Justin and me, but our new family is doing really well.

The whole thing started Friday with mid-level contractions that escalated to very painful ones around 2am Saturday morning.  After being at home all night we decided to call the doctor around 8am. She believed I was in the beginning stages of labor and told us to come in.  We did, but soon found that not much progression had been made.

Only a few hours after we arrived, the contractions became less frequent and they decided to send us home to labor a bit more.  After another long night of strong, regular contractions, the pain was too much to bear and we called in once again.  She again told us to come in.

They weren't surprised to see us again, but seemed to under estimate how much pain I was having and how much progress had actually been made.  After checking to see how far we had come in the night they found that I was 4 cm dilate and 90% effaced and the decision was made for us to stay.  Thank goodness because I was starting to feel out of control from the pain.

Soon after getting the news we would be staying, we settled in and I started working on getting this baby moving. The midwife decided to break my water so that contractions would increase and move the baby farther down the birth canal.  After doing this I was begging for meds! They gave me some Fentynl that held of the pain for about 20 min but it just was not enough.  I opted for the epidural about another hour after the fentynl.  once the epidural was in place and taking affect they checked me again and found I was 6cm and 100% effaced.  At this point i was proud of myself for making it this far and knew there was no slowing this labor down!  I was relieved of pain and ready to take a little nap while we waited for things to move along on their own.  

Now, 4 hours in the hospital contractions were frequent but not increasing in strength so the nurse and midwife determined it was time to add some extra Pitocin to the mix to really ramp things up.  Immediately we saw a major change in the strength and effectiveness of the contractions on the monitor and knew the time to push was coming close.

After another hour of waiting for the contractions to reach the peak of their effectiveness and the baby to move well into the birth canal, it was time for the main event.  Because of the great job done with the epidural, I had some feeling still in my legs which gave me the ability to really push well.  There was no pain and Justin was monitoring the screens to tell everyone when it was time to push.

He was in charge of my left leg, watching the monitor to call out contractions, as well as count through the contractions to keep me pushing effectively.  Everyone in the room worked as a team and the baby was out in only about 45 min of pushing!

This is about the time when things got a little haywire.  As soon as the baby came out, they immediately saw that she had a very short umbilical cord, but it was when they lifted her up so I could see her that the cord tore completely in half!   This is a rare and scary thing so see and medically very dangerous.  It was at this point they took the baby to the warming table, clamped he cord and tried to get a good cry out of her, which didn't come.  All they were able to get were a few agonized whimpers.  

Justin and I had planned long before we even got to this point that if anything was going wrong with the baby, that Justin stay with the baby.  This being the case he did exactly as we had agreed and rushed out of the room with the baby to the NICU.  

When they arrived at the NICU the baby was very pale and still not crying effectively.  After taking blood samples and starting an IV, they determined she had still come fluid in her lungs.  After suctioning as best they could she still wasn't improving. The neonatologist decided to do some x-rays.

The x-rays showed a pneumothorax (a collapsed lung) which was not allowing her to take full breaths.  He quickly decided to syringe the air out to allow her to breathe normally to see if that would get her vital signs to a more normal range.  He sucked the air out and Lydia immediately sighed, seemingly in relief.   Her breathing became steadier, and her oxygen saturation levels began to normalize.

We thought the worst behind us.  It wasn't until we got the results of the blood work back that they found an elevated white blood cell count, indicative of an infection of some kind.  They cultured the blood to see what they could find.  They immediately however started her on a round of broad spectrum antibiotics to hopefully start fighting whatever it was giving her this abnormal situation.

After 2 hard days we still found nothing.  The cultures were negative, but the suspicion is still something to do with possible sepsis.  It was a hard blow to take.  Here we are the birth of our baby girl and she is whisked away from me immediately, rushed to the NICU, and we don't even know what we are fighting.  It again didn't seem like it could get worse, but it was soon apparent that the doctor was not going to let us go home with the risk of an infection still so high.  He decided that she would continue the antibiotic treatment for a total of 7 days (5 more at this point)!  Seven days our baby was going to be in the NICU?  Seven days of being in a hospital room, hooked up to monitors with nurses constantly watching?  Feeding at the hospital and not bringing our little Lydia home was almost too much to handle. 

Lydia with Mommy

The worst part about it was that where to be discharged on Tuesday, and our baby would have to be here alone.  I would have to travel back and forth to the hospital all day to feed and spend time with my little girl. It was emotionally traumatic.  It wasn't until Tuesday morning that we got some good news. 

The doctor, and nurses worked to get us a boarding arrangement in the pediatric wing, only yards from the NICU.  Whether it’s because I am a nurse at Memorial or what, God definitely gave us this gift.  We could be near our baby, I could feed and visit at any time and attempt to keep things as 'normal' as we could.  So here we are, at the hospital still.  It’s been 2 days since I was discharged, and we are still in the room we were given.  But it’s getting so much better!  

Yesterday (Wednesday) the nurse wheeled Lydia in at 6:30am and told us that the doctor wrote and order that we could room in during the day and they would only take her at night and as needed to give her the antibiotics and do their checkups. This has allowed me to feed as I would normally throughout the day, change diapers, and make things even that more normal.  It’s been amazing spending time with our little lady.  

So what is the outlook?  Well, over the last few days her white blood cell count has slowly been trending downward, which is good news.  The track is still set for 7 days of antibiotics which would set us to go home Sunday or Monday as long as everything keeps going as well as it has been.  She is eating well, sleeping and breathing perfectly.  The pneumothorax has not come back so it seems that we are out of the woods as far as that speed bump is concerned.  When her cord ripped in half during delivery, she lost some blood and her hematocrit level is low so they are wanting to see that rise before she leaves.  But she is acting like a normal little newborn and we can't ask for much more.  

Tomorrow they will do another blood sample and see where she falls with the numbers.  As long as things keep moving toward normal all is going as planned.   Please keep Lydia and us in your prayers.  God has provided us with the most beautiful little angel, and has kept us close through this challenge.

Grandma and the little lady.

The 'Little Burrito' as Justin calls
her when she is swaddled.

Taking a little nap on Daddy.

Watermelon cap!

Getting Close

We are getting close!  The baby is growing and kicking like crazy now as her space gets smaller and smaller. 

Her room pictured above is pretty much done (click it to enlarge), with her name above her crib and everything.  The colors as you can see are pink, gray and white, and a little silver in there as well.  

We are getting very excited as the time comes closer... We are almost within the 30 day countdown! If she arrives exactly on time that is.