NICU Day 15

Today was a good day! Scott  and I were able to go to the hospital together today as Edie was here to stay with Kayla and Andrew. Dr. Liu was strongly encouraging us to take Olivia home tomorrow. She gained weight last night and if she is able to gain weight again tonight she will be ready to go home. Today we had to attend a CPR training which was super informative. It made me think I should probably know the CPR for all ages of my kiddos. Today we also were able to watch as Olivia had her newborn hearing test. Hearing sometimes can be a difficulty for kids with DS so we were a bit anxious about the test. Well she passed with flying colors! Newborns are given 3 minutes to have each ear pass and Livvy passed in 20 seconds and 15 seconds so we were super excited.

We had to set up a time to get trained with the O2 tanks as well before we are allowed to go home. We made an appointment for 5:00 this evening. By 530 Scott had to leave in order to get to practice and I was getting frustrated. I ended up calling the 02 guy around 6:00 pm to check in with him and after establishing that he wouldn't be there anytime soon, we rescheduled for tomorrow morning.

We are excited for tomrrow!!! And  hopeful that it will be the day that we say good-bye to the NICU!

Today was a good day! Scott  and I were able to go to the hospital together today as Edie was here to stay with Kayla and Andrew. Dr. Liu was strongly encouraging us to take Olivia home tomorrow. She gained weight last night and if she is able to gain weight again tonight she will be ready to go home. Today we had to attend a CPR training which was super informative. It made me think I should probably know the CPR for all ages of my kiddos. Today we also were able to watch as Olivia had her newborn hearing test. Hearing sometimes can be a difficulty for kids with DS so we were a bit anxious about the test. Well she passed with flying colors! Newborns are given 3 minutes to have each ear pass and Livvy passed in 20 seconds and 15 seconds so we were super excited.

We had to set up a time to get trained with the O2 tanks as well before we are allowed to go home. We made an appointment for 5:00 this evening. By 530 Scott had to leave in order to get to practice and I was getting frustrated. I ended up calling the 02 guy around 6:00 pm to check in with him and after establishing that he wouldn't be there anytime soon, we rescheduled for tomorrow morning.

We are excited for tomrrow!!! And  hopeful that it will be the day that we say good-bye to the NICU!

Progress Report: Livvy gained weight and continues to do well on the lower amount of O2.

Ultrasound(s)

On November 20th Scott and I met up at my doctors office for our "BIG" ultrasound. We were so excited and loved being able to see our little Squidget move around. The tech kept making comments about how squirmy the baby was... big surprise there :-) Squidget will fit in perfectly with our family. During the ultrasound the tech had a really hard time seeing the heart. So much so that she told us our doctor would most likely make us come back to get a better check of the heart. After our ultrasound we headed back to the office to meet and talk with my doctor.

We were a little surprised when the doctor brought up a couple small red flags they had seen during the ultrasound. First Squidget had a choroid plexus cyst, a small fluid filled sack in the choroid part of the brain. They also saw what might be an echogenic ventricular focus, small build up of calcium deposits on the heart. They were quite unsure about the echogenic focus since they hadn't gotten a good view of the heart. Apparently if baby had one or the other of these its literally no big deal. However, since they saw what potentially might be 2 there is an increased chance of there being something going on. It was hard to hear all this and surprising as we've jut never had anything remotely like this. When we left, Scott felt completely calm and was sure Squidget is would be fine. I was not feeling so sure. Moms just stress more about this type of thing.

Anyway, we fasted and have been praying like crazy that all would be well with our little baby.

Today we went in to have our follow up ultrasound. Squidget had changed position and so the tech was able to get a perfect view of the heart. She kept saying it looked great, which was reassuring. She also did a scan of the brain. As luck would have it my doctor was out of the office delivering a baby. So we met with the nurse who gave us the results of the ultrasound. She said that with the better view of the heart that there is in fact NO echogenic focus. YEA!!! As for the choroid plexus all the nurse knew was that the chart stated the all brain observations fell under "normal pregnancy parameters." We left feeling mostly good but I was still anxious to hear the final word from my doctor. She called late this afternoon and reported taht there is no echogenic focus and that the choroid plexus was completely gone! We are ecstatic!  and so grateful that baby is healthy! What a stressful month though....

Surprise!

Here is the story.... 

In August I started feeling like Scott and I should begin talking about baby #6. Both of us have felt like there was one more little one that needed to come join our family. As I thought about it and thought about it I decided that it would probably be best to get through baseball season (March-June)  with no baby coming. Baseball season tends to get pretty crazy for us so it seemed like it would be most convenient to not have a baby in the middle of it. So we talked about it and decided that was probably the best. 

Fast forward to late August, the same night that Kayla fell in the fire. As I sat riding backward in the van, helping her to keep ice on her burns, my stomach started churning. I chalked it up to a bad brat but that queasy feeling stayed for a couple days. I tried ignoring it, justifying it but after a week I finally decided it wasn't a bad brat. On September 6th, sometime around bedtime I said to Scott, "What if I was pregnant?" He looked at me with a look of total confusion and asked me why I said that. I then began explaining all I had been feeling the last couple of weeks. He asked if I wanted him to go get a test and I said firmly, "NO!" In 2 days, on September 8th, I would be running my first 1/2 marathon, one of the biggest things I've ever attempted and the last thing I wanted was to be thinking about being pregnant so we decided to put it off. 

Saturday, September 8th I ran a 1/2 marathon and felt mostly good. That night we had the legacy football tickets.  I was up at 4 am and went to an 8 pm football game so I didn't get to bed till 1 am. Sunday I woke up utterly exhausted and muttled my way through the day. 

Monday, September 10th, I woke up, got out of bed long enough to read my scriptures. At about 7:30 I crawled back into my bed and ended up staying there the rest of the day. I was exhausted and just felt like blah. I texted Scott and told him he aught to buy a test on the way home cuz if I wasn't pregnant then something else was wrong. 

Tuesday, September 11th I took the test. In 2 seconds flat it showed a "+" sign. I am shocked. This is totally unexpected. While we knew there was a number 6, the timing is so far off from what we were planning. I feel like when Scott and I had that talk in August, Heavenly Father was laughing at us. 

Fast forward to yesterday, October 9th. That was the soonest I could get in to see a doctor. I had to get a new doctor because of Scott's new job/insurance. So first off the doctor seems awesome. I like her a lot (Dr. Becheck). Because of all the unexpectedness we weren't even sure how far along I was. I didn't even really believe it all until my doctor pulled out that little sonogram machine and showed me little "Squidget." I just can't believe it. The baby is showing to be 13 weeks big giving me a due date of April 11th, right there during baseball season. 

All that aside we are thrilled. This news will definitely take some getting used to but we know it will all work out. 

So today, October 10th, we decided to tell the kids. As luck would have it Scott's parents were in town as well so they got to be in on the fun. We played a little game of telephone and passed around the message, "there's a baby in mommy's tummy." It was really fun to see everyone's reactions! Skylers was the best (see picture at bottom). Anyway it was fun to tell them and we are planning to just let the word spread from them which will be fun!