Crying it out

For those of you who have met her, you know that Kylee is a strong willed child. I always thought that I would have a cuddly baby, but I soon realized that she would only be cuddly until she was strong enough to fight it. Now she always wants to be sitting up and looking around. Which is great, I'm glad that she is actively curious. But sometimes I just wish I could snuggle with her like I did when she was tiny. I secretly look forward to the feedings in the early morning because it is dark and she is sleepy so I actually get to snuggle with her.

Kylee has been a typical baby in every way. The downside was that we didn't know what typical was :) She had been staying up late at night and going to sleep somewhere around 10:30. Well that was better than midnight, but it left no time for Jonathan and I to even have a conversation. So Monday night we started letting her cry it out. It was very painful and I cried too, but after 30 minutes she was asleep. And not only was she asleep, but she slept for 10 hours!! I woke up at 4:00 panicked b/c she hadn't gotten up all night.

We do go in after 15 minutes and if she isn't asleep one of us picks her up and tells her that we love her. She holds on so tightly that I have a hard time putting her down. My sister RA told me that tip to reassure her that we were still around. Last night was one of the hardest nights because after the second cycle of 15 minutes she was still not asleep. Jonathan went in the first time and I went in the second time. But after about 35 minutes she was out. It seems to only take her 10-15 during the day for her naps, but the night time is the hardest. I think that she knows it is time to sleep and she is afraid she will miss something.

Thanks to everyone's advice that has really helped me. I knew that I would eventually have to let her cry it out, but I just wasn't ready yet. I think we waited the right amount of time and I am going to write it in her baby book so I can remember for the next baby.

Update on Bryan

Thank you for all of your prayers we could really feel them on Friday. Jonathan and I decided to take Thursday off and spend a "fun day" with Bryan before we took him to Stephenville on Friday. We got up and had donuts for breakfast. Then we went to Killeen to go bowling and have lunch. We ended the day by playing at the arcade at the mall and watching "Nim's Island." We did have a lot of fun.

When we got home we spent most of the evening packing and we had lots of hugs and we explained to him again how much we love him. Friday morning we got up and packed a few more things and headed out to Stephenville. He seemed like he was in good spirits and when we got there he was very excited to show off his toys. We talked to the houseparents about some of the concerns that we had and they seemed to be very familiar with all of them. When it was time for us to go we wanted to take him on a walk and talk to him one more time, but he didn't want to. He wanted to say a quick good-bye and go back to playing the x-box. I'm glad that he wasn't sad, but Jonathan and I were very upset. I hid it until I got to the car so that he wouldn't see.

We both miss him a lot and the house it quiet without him. I can't wait to see him again. But I know that the home will a place where he can learn some of the social skills that he desperately needs. Please continue to keep all of us in your prayers.

Just for a Little While

January 30, 2006:
We have been blessed with a guest in our home. Our seven year old nephew is going to stay with us for a little while. We are excited about him coming. We have started our prepartions: new room decor that does not have pink flowers, new bathroom toiletries that won't burn the eyes, an evening schedule that might be more for us than him, but most of all prayer that this will be the best place for him even if it is just for a little while.

April 25, 2008:
Our prayers have been answered, Bryan has been a huge blessing in our household. He has brought us so much joy and taught us many lessons that only kids can teach. I am watching him play lego starwars right now and I am thinking back to the weekend when we first got him. Jonathan and I were sitting on our couch biting our nails, not sure what we were going to do with a seven year old. Would he like us, could we help him, were we too young, were we ready to be parents?

I know now that we did make the right decision. He has come a long way. He smiles and has learned how to give great big hugs. He says "I love you" for no reason and sometimes he just can't stop talking. He is very different from 2 years ago. I am crying now thinking about tomorrow. Bryan is going to Foster's Children's Home in Stephenville tomorrow. I have been dreading this day since the day that I decided that I couldn't handle it all anymore. I have to turn it over to God. We are only two people and we can't do everything.

Jonathan and I were willingly thrown into the world of parenting, but we had no idea what lay ahead of us. Bryan has some emotional problems that we were not prepared to deal with. We hope that in time we will get to an emotional place where we can give Bryan everything that he needs, but we are unable to at this time. Please pray for him as he is anxious about tomorrow and I am dreading 4:00 when we will have to leave him in the hands of other parents, knowing that no one will love him like we do.

First week back

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers on my first day back. I only had a two day week and Friday was a half day because Fort Hood had some sort of celebration. I made a dvd of Kylee for my kids to watch because I knew that they would all want to see her.Tthat made for a really easy way to get back into teaching.

My kids were all very excited to see me, I got lots of hugs. The principal acted like he didn't recognize me :)

It was very hard to leave Kylee :( But luckily Jonathan's sister came down to watch her, so I knew she was in good hands (Thanks Shara). The first morning she cried for 30 minutes when she realized that Shara wasn't me. When I got home she nursed pretty much all evening (I think it was a lot of just sucking). Today she wouldn't take her bottle, but gladly nursed when I got home. I don't want her to miserable, but it felt good that she missed me.

Next week is only a four day week. It was hard to leave her, but it was great to see her when I got home!

Work

I'm back at work and pumping. I already miss her. Pray that this day will go by quickly!

She does sleep....sometimes

Kylee likes to sleep when she wants to. I am really trying to get her on a schedule since I have to go to work next week, but she doesn't necessarily want to conform to my schedule. She is going about 2 1/2 hours between feedings so that is better! Please say a prayer for me next Thursday I know it will be one of the hardest days of my life. Luckily a girlfriend is keeping her that day and she lives right across the street so I will sneak over there during lunch to see her :)

I let her sleep on her belly during the day because she sleeps so much better. Don't worry, I
check on her a lot to make sure that she is still breathing. She still sleeps in the closet, its perfect: she is close, but I can turn down the monitor and only hear her cries. Please notice how she loves to put her face into the chair. Oh and she is up to 15 lbs, I can't believe it.

Kylee was very fussy on Sunday after church. She had eaten and wanted to go to sleep, but wouldn't give up. So I bounced her on my knees for about 5 minutes saying a rhyme and she fell asleep, isn't she cute?

Easter

I hope that everyone had a great Easter! Sorry I'm just now getting around to sharing about ours. We all ended up in Austin which of course thrilled the Grandmothers. Brittney was down from the home in Stephenville and everyone really enjoyed seeing her! We have quite a large family and we have basically outgrown everyone's houses so we ended up having our Easter lunch at the church building and then we hid the eggs in the auditorium. It turns out that there are lots of really great places to hide eggs in there, it took the kids about 20 minutes to find all of them-the longest egg hunt ever!

Here are some pictures from that day.

Here are all of the egg hunters, the tall one on the right did not get to participate on account of exhaustion

Emily was a great hunter, she even bent down and looked under all of the pews, good thinking!

Here is Marj dashing to find an egg.

Here is how Kylee feels about all of it!

Eating

Kylee is definitely eating better! I took her for her 2 month check-up and she is up to 11 pounds. She has a buda belly and thick legs, she is precious. She had to get her shots and taht was not fun to watch. She slept all day afterwards and cried in her sleep. I felt so bad for her.

She has been eating every 2 hours for the past couple of days. She is going 5 hours in the night so I think she is making up for it during the day. Right before she goes to bed she eats at 6, 7:30, 8:30 and sometimes even 9. Jonathan and I usually stay home at night, we haven't had much of a social life. It is just too hard when she eats so much. But we don't mind spending extra time with her when we can.

Bryan finished basketball and had a lot of fun. I would highly recommend Upward Basketball to anyone with kids. It is a Christian program, only practices one night and week, and all of the games are on Saturday.



She was about 6 weeks here.

It was stinky!

Breast feeding has proved very challenging. Kylee doesn't seem to eat efficiently. I think she is still kind of weak. I am going back to the lactation consultants tomorrow to weigh her and I will see if they can give me some advice. It has been taking her close to an hour to eat. Needless to say I have been exhausted. Sometimes I pump and feed her a bottle to give myself a break.

Well anyway back to the stinky. Last night I fed her at 11:30 and she didn't really finish until 1:00! She was very fussy. So when she wanted to eat again at 2:30 I decided to give her a bottle of formula. I felt incredibly guilty for doing it, but I was too tired to feed her again. I have been surprised how emotionally exhausting breast feeding can be. I feel like I don't have what she needs, etc. So when I changed her diaper this morning, it was so stinky. Now I remember one of the reasons that really like breast feeding.

To all of you moms out there: did your babies want to be held to fall asleep and then wake up an hour or two later and want to be held while he/she slept? I was watching Bringing Home Baby today and they just put their newborns in the bed and they fell alseep. How unfair! Of course I didn't have Kylee during her first week. Maybe when they are newborns they do sleep that much? Kylee was on drugs to keep her from pulling out her IV's and oxygen during the first couple of days so she was always sleeping.

Updates

• We went to the lactation office and Kylee is back up to her birth weight, yea! I no longer have to supplement, which means that I can just feed her and not have to pump at the same time! They think that she is lactose intolerant so I have to cut out all dairy products from my diet. It has been really hard since I couldn't have milk for so long and I have been enjoying it since I got pregnant. But hopefully that will clear up her stomach troubles (she has been throwing up :(
• Kylee can totally turn her head over, she is getting so big! She is also sleeping in her chair sometimes so she is not in Mom and Dad's bed every night. I think she is finally feeling more secure.
• Bryan is playing Upward Basketball. It is a great program based on Christian principles. They have a devo at every practice and game, they don't keep score, and the referees explain what the kids do wrong when they do it. What an awesome program. He seems to be enjoying it. Big plus: they have practice one night a week and games on Saturday mornings.
  
• Jonathan is still looking for another job, so please keep us in your prayers. He has filled out applications all over and the only offer has been from Alaska. We didn't take it!
• Karen and Scott are coming up to see Kylee (they haven't gotten to hold her yet). I hope she is in a good mood and sleeps well since they will be sleeping in our living room. I hope she doesn't keep them up.
• My mom has been coming up to help me a lot. It just feels good to have my mom around. I wish that she lived here! Thanks for all of your help mom.
• We hope that all of you are doing well!
  

A good scare

Kylee and I are still adjusting to each other. She doesn't really like to sleep anywhere except in our arms. It is sweet, but poses a problem when I want to get something done or get some sleep myself. So she doesn't really like to ride in the car unless we are going about 50 mph. I was reading some websites about babies sleeping and someone was talking about the swaddle and how they had used it in the car seat. So I tried it this morning when we went to see the lactation consultant. She was so quiet that I actually pulled over to check and make sure she was alright.

It turns out that my daughter has been starving. I had an appt. with the lactation consultants today to make sure that Kylee is gaining weight. Well she only gained 6oz. in a week and a half. She is still not back to her birth weight, and they were very concerned about the color of her stools. So I have to continue to feed her on one side for 25-30 minutes and then pump the other side and feed it to her in a bottle.

She is a different baby! She is not fussy after I feed her. She takes better naps, and they said this should help with the gas problem. Apparently the watery milk can cause gas. They said that she is probably weak and doesn't suck hard enough. We will go back next week and they will weigh her again. I'm so thankful for those wonderful ladies!

Entertainment

So i thought I should finally write about something other than the baby :) Jonathan and I watched all of the past seasons of Lost over the last year so that we would be ready for the newest season that just started. We watched the first episode, but I was a little disappointed. They sure are milking the information as much as they can. I guess I'm just ready for more answers, and this show is definitely not for the impatient.

Grandma Pam (or Nonny, we're not sure what she wants to be called) kept Kylee for us on Sunday afternoon and we took Bryan out for some one-on-one time with us. We went to see the new National Treasure movie. I really liked it, even better than the first one. I think it was because I was more invested in the characters this time. Bryan enjoyed the movie and the popcorn. I cried when it was time to feed Kylee while we were in the movie. It was weird, like my body was ready and my hormones let me know. As soon as I got back I had to hold her! I guess I'm still not quite ready to leave her.

Kylee

Well Kylee is almost 3 weeks old! I can't believe it has already been 3 weeks. Jonathan and I are still adjusting, but she seems to have made herself at home :) My mom has been here the last two nights and she takes the night shift and Jonathan and I have slept 5 hours in a row each night. Kylee seems to really like to be on a schedule. She actually sleeps better during the day though. We usually have to hold her at night. But hopefully eventually we can put her in her bed at night.

Daddy is holding her right now and singing to her. She is really fascinated by him. I love to watch them together. She looks just like him. Sometimes I can see her when I look at him now.

The doctors told me to not take her anywhere for the first month or so. It is RSV season and since she was so sick, they don't want to take any chances. So I haven't gotten to show her off yet! I can't wait to show her to people.

We went for her two week check-up on Tuesday and she has gained an oz. since she came home from the NICU. She started at 8.8 and now she is 7.12. The doctor didn't seem worried that she wasn't back at her birth weight, he was pleased that she was maintaining her weight. He said that she is very healthy. He did hear the heart murmur just a little bit, but said he was not concerned. We have an appt. with a cardiologist in March to make sure it is still okay as she grows.

Here are a few more pictures!

She's finally here!

Kylee Michelle was born on Saturday, January 12th at 2:48 PM. She weighed 8 lbs 8 oz and is 19 inches long. I ended up needing a cesarean because she was so big and I had an infection. It turns out that I had a uterus infection and that is what was causing those horrible pains in my right side. I stayed in the hospital for 3 days to recover, but Kylee had to stay for a total of 9 days. As soon as she was born they took her to the NICU to check her out.

The infection planted itself in Kylee's lungs and she had pneumonia. She was also having trouble breathing normally, had a bubble on the back of her head from being in the birthing canal too long, and had a low blood cell count. It was pretty scary to see her hooked up to all of those machines when she was so little. I was very thankful that she ended up being big so she had some to loose.

Jonathan and I had about 20 minutes with her before they discovered something was wrong and took her to the NICU for good. We each got to hold her for a few minutes and those minutes were very precious. We didn't get to hold her again for 4 days. I must say that was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do. I'm crying right now just thinking about it.

We have been flooded with prayers and love and to all of you, we want to say thank you. Our class at church has provided meals for us every night since we got home from the hospital. It is so nice to feel taken care of. My school gave me a shower the day before she was born. I wasn't able to go because I was at home with contractions. It was perfect, I got to come home to all of the presents and didn't have to be the center of attention. When we came home from the hospital without Kylee, it was nice to have a distraction to look at in her nursery.


She was released on Monday and I was so excited!! I went up there to feed her and stayed for a while just holding her. When the doctor came by to check on her she asked if I thought she was ready to go home. Of course I replied, "Yes!" The discharge process started and we got to bring her home that afternoon.

She is doing really well. She is breastfeeding nicely despite the fact that I had to pump for the first week and she was on the bottle. I am very thankful for that. Jonathan took off all of last week to take care of me and he is home this week to be with Kylee. I'm really going to miss him when he has to go back to work on Friday.



Bryan did not get to see her until we brought her home on Monday. He had the sniffles and he was not allowed in the NICU. He was so excited to finally get to meet her. He seems to be really fascinated by her. He doesn't even seem to mind her crying :) He is going to be a great big brother!

Getting ready

I started having sharp pains while I was at school yesterday. I made it through the day somehow and then I had to take Bryan to the doctor. It turns out that he has strep. He said that his throat was hurting, but he didn't have any fever over 99 and he was not acting sick at all. I know that strep knocks me down. But he does have it so we are at home today and I am trying not to let his germs get me.

So anyway, the pains. I could time them for a while and then they kind of subsided. About 10:30 last night I tried to lay down and go to sleep and they got really intense, so Jonathan took me to the hospital about 10:30. They checked me and said that I was only 1 cm, but my cervix was thinning nicely. Luckily my mom had come up so she was at home with Bryan. I decided to stay home today because I am still having some of the pains, they just aren't consistent.

When we went to the hospital last night, my mom told Bryan that he might have a sister in the morning, so this morning when he got up he noticed that Kylee's door was closed. He asked why it was closed and if she was asleep in there. He wanted to go and see her. How sweet.

Happy Birthday Karen!

Today is Karen's birthday! I hope you have a great birthday Karen, I wish I was there to celebrate with you :)

From our family to yours

(picture courtesy of Images of His)
Well its a little late, but we wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We had all of the family up to our house for Christmas. We ended up having three Christmases in all! Christmas Eve Jonathan's family came up and we had dinner and opened presents. Kylee got quite the lute and she's not even here yet. Jonathan's Grandmother got to come up too and it was really good to see her. We really enjoyed our time with them!

Christmas morning was just the three of us. We have never had Christmas morning at our house with just our nucleus so that was fun. We found Bryan sleeping by the Christmas tree. He said that he saw Santa and talked to him. I think he knows there is no Santa, but he still wants to believe. He found the special paper that I wrap Santa's presents in. He said, I guess Santa has the same paper as us :)

We all helped make breakfast: waffles, eggs and bacon and then got to open presents. Bryan got me some cards for playing nerts (I think he had a little help from dad). Jonathan got me a straightener for my hair, a birthing ball, a pedometer and lots of little goodies in my stocking. Bryan and Kylee got me a Crockpot. Jonathan was so sweet, he got a card from Kylee and wrote in it for me, isn't he thoughtful?

Jonathan got all of the Bourne series and a Star wars book, and money for ram and a graphics card. Bryan got him a hammer because he said he didn't have enough! Our big present to each other was our camcorder. We have enjoyed learning how to use it.

Then Christmas afternoon we had 20 people from my family here! I can't believe we all fit, but somehow we did and we all had a good time. Jonathan helped me get the house ready so now it is really clean. I'm hoping we can keep it that way until Kylee comes.

I hope all of you had a good holiday.

I need advice

So I have packed the bag, but I'm not sure if I have everything I will need for the hospital. My pregnancy journal says that I need to take diapers, wipes, cotton balls and diaper ointment. I always assumed they would provide that stuff. Any advice is welcome!!

34 weeks

I went to the doctor yesterday and he said that everything looks good. We discussed my anemia a little, but he said as long as I take my vitamins I should be okay. He said this is the waiting game part. If I do go into labor early they won't stop it and so it could happen anytime. He didn't give any guestimations, but he did say that I was having a braxton hicks contraction when he looked at my belly. I didn't know that I was. I thought they would hurt, but they are just tightening. I have been having them for a while now, but I just thought that Kylee was rolling up in a ball and putting pressure on my belly. I guess I should enjoy it while they don't hurt!

Tuesday was our anniversary. My mom came up and kept Bryan on Sunday so that we could go and celebrate. We went and saw "I am Legend" with Will Smith and then we went to eat at the Olive Garden. It was really good!! We enjoyed having some time to ourselves. Then when it was actually our anniversary I gave Bryan some pizza and put a movie on in his room so we could have a quiet dinner together. Jonathan got me a purple duffle bag to use for my hospital stay. For those of you who know how much I like purple, it is stapler purple!

When I showed Bryan my present, he asked if he could open one of his Christmas presents. We explained that it was our anniversary, but I don't think he really got it. Wow can you believe we have been married 7 years?

Feeling better!

I am feeling better. I have been falling asleep on the couch around 7:30 every night! I guess I am storing up rest for when the baby comes. Last night I actually made it through a one hour show after I got home.

Karen took our pictures over the Thanksgiving holidays. Didn't she do a great job? Here is my favorite belly shot. I think I was about 29 weeks here.


Here is a picture from the other day. I am 33 weeks, only 7 more to go!


On another note, it is concert week. Last night I played my flute with one of the MS choirs in Killeen. It was fun to actually get to play again. Our choir concert is in the morning for the school and Thursday night for the parents. I guess I better try and get some sleep. My alarm will go off in about 2 hours! Have a good night.