Kayla day 59

Happy 2nd baby shower day to me today my Aunt Mary and cousins put together a shower for Kayla with my extended family and friends. It was so sweet, all the guests created onesies for Kayla, we played the chocolate diaper game where you melt chocolate bars in diapers and have the guests try and figure out which diaper has which candy bar in it. It was so fun looking at peoples faces as they were guessing. I got some wonderful gifts and Kayla's room is getting pretty full, we love it. Mike and I then went back to the house to drop off all of our big gifts. One of them was the stroller we had registered for, which is so wonderful because that means we can take Kayla out on a stroller ride now. After home we went to see Kayla for 6p cares because Mike and I are planning to see a movie tonight. Mike tried a bottle with Kayla but she was really not interested, again so frustrating since it seems she is taking less and less in the amount in her feeds. :( After her feed Mike and I were able to make it to Chipotle to eat, yum! Then we went to see Inception, awesome movie by the way, we already want to see it again. We are hoping it will be the last movie date night we will have for a while? Crossing our fingers that this coming week might be Kayla's last in NICU???? Who knows now, it's completely up to Kayla and it seems we are going backwards on the feeds so I hope the coming week will go forwards again. But Kayla is doing very well at gaining weight she is at 5lbs 13oz now, so big she's the biggest one in the NICU right now!

Kayla day 58

Another crazy day for me I feel I'm getting to anxious. I am so over not having my daughter home with me. I'm frustrated because it again seems like we are going backwards instead of forwards. We have been doing so well on Kayla's bottle feeds those last couple of weeks but now she is just taking less and less. It's so hard because I always hear the nurses tell me it will happen. She will be home so soon, she'll get it, .... on and on. I'm just done with hearing the same thing over and over again. And I hate to think that because I don't want them to force bottles on Kayla I want her to be able to learn this on her own time but at the same time..come on!! PLEASE, I'm trying to get my mind off the whole situation by thinking about my second baby shower tomorrow. It will be at Aunt Mary's with a bunch of my family, which I know will be so much fun. So I'm trying they again have increased Kayla's breast milk to keep up with her weight. I went in at 3p again today to try and breast feed, but Kayla was not interested. I think I am going to talk to lactation on Monday and see if there is anything I need to do differently to try and help. I just watched Kayla sleep today in her little crib and just thought how beautiful she is. She looks like a newborn baby now, and is actually out growing her preemie clothes and fitting into newborn a lot better. She didn't take much of her bottle after trying breast and we went to tube. Mike and I came in later Kayla hasn't taken a full bottle for a couple of days now. :( But Mike was still able to give her a pretty good feed. She weighs 5lbs 12oz now she is going to 6lbs really soon.

Kayla day 57

Off day today. When I work up this morning I was just not interested in doing anything. It is one of those days that I just wished more than anything, Kayla was here. That I wouldn't have to go any where and could just hang out with her all day. But that of course is not the case, so I did just lay around for a while and decided to go in for Kayla's 6p cares instead of 9p. I went in at 6p tried to nurse Kayla again not interested. I am getting so nervous that she is just not going to catch on to this whole breast feeding thing. End with tube because I have to be out to the NICU by 7p for their meeting time. I decide to order dinner at the hospital and maybe just have Mike meet me later at 9p. So I pumped in the family room until I got a hold of Mike, we was going to come at 9 so I decided to go to the grocery store until he was there. I beat Mike to the hospital and started Kayla's 9p cares, Mike and Uncle Adam came in together to see Kayla. She was doing well and we weren't sure how she would do on her bottle but she seems to do better with the bottle with Mike gives it to her. She weighs 5lbs 10oz now.

Kayla day 56

Happy 8 weeks to Kayla today. She is doing so so good, I went in at 3p Kayla had already had 3 bottles that morning. Cynthia skipped her 12p feed because she knew I would be coming at 3p. I came in a 3p and Cynthia told me that they had just ordered Kayla's eye exam. That meant that I would be there when Kayla gets it done, nurses hate the eye exam and say many parents have to leave to room because of it. We didn't know when the Dr would come so we started bottle feed but didn't get very far before the eye Dr came. They put Kayla on a little bed table and the Dr has to open her eyes with what looks like a paper clip look in and poke around all while Kayla has a bright light in her eye. Well Kayla was not happy, she cried and cried, I had never heard Kayla cry before. She had only cried once when her ventilator was in so we weren't able to hear her. The Dr was done in less than five minutes, thankfully and Cynthia handed my crying daughter off to me to comfort her. I cried, I was so happy, sad that Kayla had to go through that, these preemies are so strong. But so happy that I got to one hear her cry and she has a good cry, nice a loud. But two I got to comfort her and when Cynthia handed her to me she stopped crying right then. I just held Kayla as we finished her feed with the tube, and couldn't stop the water works. I am so ready for her to come home I felt like a true mom today, I can't wait to feel this everyday. We are getting so close, but yet it still feels so far away. Oh and I forgot to mention her eyes looked fantastic, they again checked for ROP and there is none as well on checking on her retina to look for maturity. Answered prayer that her retinas are mature and Kayla will not need another eye exam until she is 9 months old, so good. Mike and I came in at 9p, mom came too she wanted to see Kayla and tell her how proud she was of her. Mike gave Kayla her bottle and big news!! Kayla finished her whole bottle for Mike tonight, she has just had an amazing day today, I hope and pray that these days will just continue and we can get her home sooner than we expected??? Kayla's weight is now 5lb 9oz so I'm sure that since we finally were able to finish a full bottle they will increase breast milk amount by two tomorrow. Let's see how well I know these doctors. :)

Kayla day 55

Great, great news to start off the day. Dr called and reported that Kayla's ultrasound results came back and they looked great!! Very, very happy news she mentioned that Kayla's little gray spot they had been noticing on her last ultrasounds was so small now that she wasn't going to need to order an MRI. They are now calling that little spot benign. I happily came in at 3p to find out even more great news, hearing that Kayla had finished two full bottles that night. She ate for me the 9p feed yesterday then look a full bottle at 3a and 6a for the night nurse. :) What an exciting day, it was so fun talking to the Dr about all of Kayla's going home tests. Like what Kayla needs before we get home, the nurses are telling us we need to get as much sleep as we can now. That Mike and I need to go out on a date because it will be our last for a while. Making sure we had a car seat, furniture, etc. I could talk about that all day. All we have left for Kayla is her eye exam as for tests, which I think will be tomorrow since the last two she got were on Wednesdays. After she is done with that she again just needs to master the bottle feeds and pass room air test then she comes home. Mike and I are thinking middle of next week, CRAZY!! Mike came in at 9p for cares got Kayla to eat 38cc's of her bottle and she did gain grams but is still at 5lbs 7oz.

Kayla day 54 (36 weeks)

Another busy day for Mike and I today. Mike's grandma Knauff is in town for this next week and he wanted to spend as much time as he could with her. So with him having Monday off, we went up to Ft. Collins with our nephews to hang out with Uncle Randy and Grandma Knauff. We decided to take the boys to a fun park near Uncle Randy's house, it had a splash park and two different sections for different ages. Very, very cool park, although it was sprinkling a lot though out the afternoon we still enjoyed our visit. Mike and I planned to go see Kayla at 6p, we found out this morning that Kayla will be getting almost all her tests today. They had her head, kidney and skeletal all ordered for the day. So I wanted to call day nurse to let her know I wouldn't be in for Kayla's 3p cares today. I had asked if she had received her tests yet and she had gotten them all done already. We haven't received the results yet but Naydene, Kayla's day nurse said it all went really well. They even had to take Kayla downstairs for her skeletal x-ray, but Kayla did very well with her travels. Kayla had also had two bottles that morning as well so it has been a very busy day for her. Mike and I left at 4:15p to make it down for Kayla's 6p cares, the highway was great and we got off the highway at 5:06p thinking we would make great time. But getting off the highway to dropping off the boys took us an hour and a half. We later found out about the Dakota ridge fire up by C-470 and Morrison. (That's very close to my parents house.) But because of this we were not able to make it in to see Kayla for her 6p cares either. I called yet again and talked to Naydene she had tube feed Kayla at 3p thinking we would be in for the 6p feed. So she said she would let Kayla wait for us for the 9p, Mike had a double header for softball at 8:15p and 9:15p. So I went in for Kayla's 9p feed, Mom was there as well. Kayla tried breast feeding but Kayla was pretty tired and didn't stay latched for very long. She did take a bottle after and had about 20cc's, but she had had a pretty big day so I didn't ask to much from her. While we were waiting for Mike to come, Rose one of Kayla's nurse practitioner showed us Kayla's ultrasound and xray pictures. We have results for the xray and they had the same results as before, Kayla has less ribs than most, with 10 on one side and 11 on the other. She has a clustered spine, what they saw in her first xrays. Then they also talked about the neck vertibre being shorter and longer than the average. News that we already know but the xray was needed to make sure the bones had not gotten worse in those areas. Then they wanted to look and see if her leg, arm, etc bones were growing correctly and I am happy to report that they are. So we have a healthy growing girl with some issues that will not effect her growth it just may limit her in the sporting world. We will follow up and get more detailed results as she grows and starts to get mobile. But at this point this is great results, we won't hear about the ultrasound results until tomorrow morning. Mike finally came to get his Kayla time for the day, she is 5lbs 7oz now and just doing wonderfully.

Kayla day 53

Great great day for Kayla today! Dr called, this is Kayla's big week of tests, so we need lots of prayers. They have decided to get a better look at Kayla's brain and do an MRI instead of just a head ultrasound. Just so they can get a better look at the little gray spot they have been watching. She then said because of Kayla's great weight gain they have increased feedings to 48cc's from 46cc's. Mike and I started the day with going over to Bob's because Mike's grandma is in town. Grandma Knauff, she came with some friends and because Kayla is here she of course had to go see Kayla. So we did lunch with the Fye family, but before Grandma Knauff's Kayla visit we had Kayla's pictures scheduled today. So at 1:15 we came to see Kayla trying not to bug her to much so she might be awake for some of the pictures. A friend for mine Alayna went to high school with me and now does photography now. I have fallen in love with her pictures and was going to have her do pregnancy pictures of me. But as we all know Kayla had a different plan and so we had her take pics of Kayla instead. Well she did amazing all you following Kayla's blog are just going to love these pictures. Totally Anne Geddes style and just so so sweet, I will diffidently share them when we get them in about two weeks, (so hard to wait.)By the way Kayla never did wake up, but just did amazing for us. We then had Uncle Randy and Grandma Knauff come to our house and show them Kayla's room. Then Grandma got to see her first great grand-DAUGHTER, she has been waiting for this day for a long time. She is 94 years old and has two great grand-son's but no girls. We all lost Margie (Mike's mom) to cancer in 2002, so Grandma Knauff is the proudest of Kayla having Lane as her middle name as that was Margie's middle name. She was just so proud, we then surprised in by letting her hold Kayla during Kayla's feed. Grandma Knauff talked to Kayla the whole time, she of course got a tons of pictures and just told us over and over how pretty Kayla was. SO PROUD. So after that long day Mike and I met up with my parents and Adam at Frontroom pizza, so yummy!!! We called the nurse after dinner Kayla is another ounce bigger, 5lbs 6oz now. She has had such an amazing day because today she took 33cc's of her 9a bottle, 38cc's for Mike and I for her 3p bottle, and again 38cc's from her 9p bottle. GO KAYLA, this is the last step she has to accomplish and she is getting it, she is really getting it. Maybe Kayla will be home, dare I say next week???? Knock on wood. Fingers crossed.