Check me out I’m two months old!

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The girls…

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Some news on the adoption front…

Adoption is still on our minds every day. We long to have all of our kids home. In the last week we have received some good news on adoption.

The first bit of news is that the first family that we know of to begin an adoption under the “new” Kenyan adoption laws just got a passport for their baby girl, Josie! This is huge as it means the adoption is almost done. They plan to be back in the U.S. with Josie sometime in November. We are so excited for the Nelsons!

The second bit of news is that the grant we were awarded to assist with our adoption has been able to be put on hold until we get some clarity and direction with how and when to proceed. We are so excited to not lose this generous grant. It is a matching grant of $2,500 (we give them $2,500 they give us $2,500 more). We are planning on evaluating our adoption timeline as best we can in January.

We pray every day for our Kenyan daughter, and we can’t wait until she will be home!

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Look left and eat, look left and eat, look left and eat…

Kailyn has two jobs to do–outside of breathing and not getting any infections–to eat and to look to the left. Eating covers the need to grow which will help with the breathing and ability to fight infections. Looking to the left will help develop some neck muscles that have been a bit neglected. She loves to look to the right, so we are trying to show her there is a whole world to the left of her that she has yet to explore. She was discharged from her physical therapist on Friday with this last bit of instruction; check out the left side of your world more. These things are what we are helping her with right now.

Overall Kaily is doing really well. She will have her eyes looked at again today, Monday, and we eagerly await the results of that exam. She, on the other hand, doesn’t look forward to it at all. She hates it, but if we had to be honest, she doesn’t remember the eye surgeon is coming by today. She sleeps in worry free bliss right now, and we pray that her eyes are developing as we should expect them to be.

Sara is feeling much better. Everything is back on track.

Melia is doing really well. She had her “Pumpkin Party” at school today. She went as a cat…not the costume we bought, but Sara improvised on a cat costume and all were happy. If you need a dog costume, let us know.

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Just another twist in our journey

Sorry it has been awhile since we have posted an update. Things have been a bit more crazy here than what has become “our norm.” We realize this may be a bit hard to believe, but it is true.

Kaily is doing well. Nothing in her world has really changed, which is great. She is finished with her antibiotics. We thankfully kiss the thoughts of meningitis goodbye, hopefully for good. Her head is IV free—Yeah! She really hasn’t gained any weight since the last time we posted, but the doctors aren’t too concerned about this. We talked to them about it yesterday, and they said that they obsess about weight gain, but Kaily will grow when it is her time.

One VERY exciting thing that has happened in the past few days is that Kaily has started trying out bottles for a tiny portion of her food intake. She isn’t quite sure what to think about this new way to ingest food. The nurses say that is takes quite awhile for babies who are only 36 gestational weeks to get the hang of it. She makes the funniest faces, spits up, burps, pushes the bottle out repeatedly, sucks a few times and really only gets tiny amounts of nutrition before she tires out. It’s fun, though, to try to coax her to drink this way. She’ll get the hang of it soon enough. In a couple of months we may actually miss the convenience of the feeding tube, especially in the middle of the night.

So the new twist in our journey has been Sara’s health. On Sunday at church she started feeling “not so well” and she continued to go down hill from there. After talking to some nurses in Kailyn’s unit and her doctor, it turns out she has an infection. On Wednesday she started to feel better in terms of fever and nausea, but there is still quite a bit of discomfort in the area where the milk comes from. How’s that for discrete? She didn’t come to the hospital all day Monday and Tuesday, but was able to come for a short while on Wednesday. The discomfort has continued to grow, and she is hoping that it doesn’t continue for much longer as she could end up in the hospital for a few days. What a fun ride we are on…

Pray for Sara, pray for Kaily…thanks!

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Gotta grow

That is the basically the deal right now for Kaily. She is up to about 3 pounds 6 ounces now, but she has been at that weight for a few weeks. The doctors are trying to find ways to get more calories in her food. She really can’t have more fluids, as it tends to end up in her lungs. They can add calories to the milk, though, and they are going to increase that to help her grow.

Thankfully, nothing continues to come from the meningitis. She has shown no signs of this, and the cultures that had started to grow haven’t grown anything more. She still is getting antibiotics and that will end in a couple of days. This course of antibiotics entered Kaily in a very exclusive club. The club is called the “IV in the head club.” It looks horrific, but she doesn’t seem to mind it too much. Hopefully they will be able to pull that IV once she is done with the antibiotics for the potential meningitis.

Kaily is doing really well. She can be held quite a bit now and seems to really enjoy being out of her box. She won’t miss that plastic home once she gets to go home.

Thanks so much for your interest in our world.

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Menin-what?

One of the cultures they took from Kailyn on Saturday came back today as positive for meningitis. Yikes! The way Kaily looks combined with how low the “result” was makes the doctors very confident that she doesn’t have meningitis, but they are treating her for it anyway. Like we have said before, they really don’t mess around with this stuff in the NICU, but the doctors feel that the culture probably got contaminated in some way. They aren’t really sure how this happens, but it does. They will treat her with the correct antibiotics anyway and keep a close eye on her for a few days. She was able to go back on the nasal canula today because she has more energy for breathing, which is good. If she tires again they will move her back to the CPAP for another “rest.”

Kaily had her eyes evaluated again yesterday. Preemies often have eye issues due to their early womb departure and the levels of oxygen they are on once they arrive into the world. Her first test said that her eyes weren’t done yet, which they expected to see. They didn’t see anything that was really wrong. The exam yesterday, which she hated, showed that her eyes are moving along as they should be. They don’t look like they are fully functional, but they aren’t supposed to be “done” for a few weeks yet. We were really encouraged with this news as we have been expecting her to need some sort of corrective surgery. They will check her again in two weeks on Monday, October 29th.

That’s enough excitement for today…

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Just a bit of a rest please…

Kailyn has been doing ok since our last update. On Saturday she began to show signs of a possible infection and/or the fact that she was tired of breathing on her own. Basically, she was having trouble breathing and had a slight fever. Doctors really don’t mess with things like this as they could be an early sign of an infection. They decided to do a complete septic work-up. It will take three days for the results to come back. She is on antibiotics again, and they put her back on the CPAP. By Sunday she was doing better on the CPAP and has continued that trend into Monday. They will continue to give her antibiotics for a full seven days. If she does have an infection we hope the cultures will come back positive so they can pinpoint the antibiotics at the “bug.”

Thanks for your concern.

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I tried to tell you!

For about week and a half the doctors have been wondering if a lot of Kaily’s desatting issues were just because she wasn’t comfortable with the ventilator tube in her throat. That was one of the reasons they decided to take her off the ventilator a day earlier than they originally planned. They took her off last Friday instead of Saturday or Sunday as they originally intended. Anyway, she acted pretty much the same on the CPAP as she did on the ventilator. Who could blame her–that thing looked crazy uncomfortable. Imagine headgear for braces with prongs that go up your nose; that is the CPAP. The doctors started talking about moving her to just the nasal canula. This is what adults wear when they have to be on oxygen. Yesterday they moved her to that, and she is LOVING it! She’s like, “I have been trying to tell you this for days now. Let me grow up…please.” She joins Melia in this cry for “grown up” treatment.

This afternoon Kaily gets to play with the physical therapist. She is looking forward to doing some calisthenics. She doesn’t realize she is actually going to have to work during this fun time, but if she hasn’t grasped the concept of life not always going the way you would like it to, then she will have her chance today. We are pretty sure she has gotten this idea on life, due to all the pokes, tubes in her throat, and people forcing her to breathe when she would rather take a break for a bit. Mom and Dad are looking forward to meeting with the PT to get an idea of where she is developmentally and to learn ways to help her move along in the future.

Kaily is really doing well now. We love good days. It has been great to have a bunch of really good days in a row. Keep praying for Kaily as she has a way to go, but as she puts more and more of these good days together, she has a chance to grow and get stronger. That, of course, will give her a chance to get on with her life outside of the hospital.

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Look at me now!

It has been a while since we posted an update, things have been exciting here…

On Friday, a whole 24 hours earlier than expected, Kaily was taken off of the ventilator. She was once again moved to the CPAP contraption that gives her airflow but still requires her to do the breathing. She has been on this twice so far in her NICU stay, and each time lasted for two days when she tired of breathing and was put back on the vent. It is now Monday, and she is still going strong here. She’s loving it! She has had a couple episodes of stopping breathing all together, but we think it’s because she just loves the lights and beeps that such an act brings on. They will continue to give her stimulants to keep her excited to breathe. Caffeine will be the drug of choice to accomplish this for now.

Kaily has worked her way up to “full feeds.” This is great, as this will really help her grow and get stronger. The stronger she gets, the better she will be at fighting infections that somehow find their way into the NICU. Being stronger will also help her in her breathing efforts. They are going to try and start feeding her in boluses today. This means she will get a certain amount all at once every three hours. Right now she gets food on a non-stop basis all day long . . .sounds nice don’t it? This is another milestone of the NICU that we are really excited to see Kaily cross.

She is getting closer and closer to her correct weight. She still has some fluid in her lungs, but she really looks like a preemie again. They think the weighs three pounds or so now…keep going Kaily!

She has also been able to get out of her isolette for holding time with mom AND dad. Graig had previously refused to participate in such activities due to the fact that it was such an ordeal getting her in and out of her bed and the fact that he is afraid of infants in general. Yesterday, he took the plunge Sara peeked in on him and said, “She looks like she’s doing great, and you look terrified.” Graig replied, “That is because I am!” It’s good to hold your child.

Thanks for checking in on us…we pray for another GREAT week for Kaily!

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