Original DUE DATE!!

I laughed this morning when my calendar on my phone "reminded" me that it was my "DUE DATE!!!" So very thankful for the past 8wks to get to see and hold our Kyndall a little earlier than we "planned'!

Praising God today for healing my body and protecting hers. His love is AMAZING! ;)

We found some pictures of Lily when she was 8wks old and tried to remake the same pics with Kyndall to compare both girls at the same age!

Lily's feet in Julie's hands (8wks old)

Kyndall's feet in Julie's hands (8wks old)

Lily's hand in Julie's hand (8wks old)

Kyndall's hand in Julie's hand (8wks old)

Lily at 8wks old

Kyndall at 8wks old

In this picture of Kyndall above...she is wearing her first ever skirt!! I was SO excited to find Preemie skirts at Wal-mart! Go Wally World! ;)

Fun facts about Kyndall the day of her original due date!

Diapers: she is in Preemie diapers, but will soon be in NB

Clothes: she is wearing mostly Preemie clothes, and a few NB depending if the brand runs small

Sleep: she sleeps great during the day and not so great at night! We're working on that! 

Eating: she is fed a bottle or breastfed every 3hrs, she is a good eater, but spits up quite often! We never had that with Lily, so it is a new experience for us! A messy one! ;)

Development: When she hears our voices she makes eye contact and is so alert! She has been lifting her head and turning it side to side when she's on her tummy or laying on our chest. She is a "grunter", they tell us that is normal with a preemie! It's crazy how many noises our little sweetie can make!! ha

Big sister Lily is doing great! She loves her baby sister and always asks for her. The first thing she asks to do when she wakes up in the morning is to see "baby"! We take her to see Kyndall and she says "hi baby!"...she smiles and is ready to go play! It is so cute! She won't touch her, I've tried to get her to kiss her, but she giggles and backs away! I guess that is probably good for a while! I can't wait to see how they interact with each other as they grow! Lily's name for her baby sister is "key-ko"! She called her "k-dog" one time with the guidance of her daddy...but "key-ko" for some reason has stuck and we hope she'll like her nickname, we think it's cute!

Father's Day & Carter's Birthday!

Carter's birthday actually landed on Father's Day this year! 

We had a great time celebrating with his family in town from TN!

Lily kissing her daddy

Proud to be a daddy!

O'Daddy & Big Mama (O'Mommy to Lily!) holding Kyndall for the 1st time!

Kyndall & her daddy!

Getting out of the house!

Kyndall visited Papa & Grandma's house! 

So far, she has only been to the hospital and the pediatrician's office...so it was fun to take her to see where Papa & Grandma live, just about 10 minutes away! ;)

Julie's Aunt was in town celebrating her 60th birthday, so the whole family got together for dinner. 

She was asleep most of the time, but she had a lot of new faces admiring her for the first time!

Her cousins Keely, Laney & Rex...her Uncle Mike, and Great Aunt's Cindy & Debbi had only seen pictures of her! 

First trip to Grandma & Papa's house (6 wks old)

Proud daddy with his girls! (Lily: 19mo old, Kyndall: 6wks old)

It's wild to me to think that just 2wks ago today we were finally bringing Kyndall home from the NICU. I am still in awe and I hope I always will be of the miracles that God worked in our lives through this. To Him be all the glory!

Kyndall is 5wks old!

We're not going to be able to call Kyndall "tiny" much longer!! This baby girl is growing so much! Praise the Lord! What an answer to our prayers! 

 

We headed back to the pediatrician's office again today for a 5wk check-up. She got a great report card!

Weight: 5 lbs, 9 oz (75%)

Height: 18.5 (25-50%)

Head: 13.3 (50-75%)

*percentages are from a preemie chart

Physical Exam: Awesome weight gain! A+

Development: Alert! A+

No immunizations until our next visit, which will be at 2months

Kyndall getting a bath at home! She has the coolest "tiny tub" that the NICU sent home with us!

Chillin' in her special "car bed" on the way to the doctor's office!

Big sister Lily and baby Kyndall in their frog jammies!

Kyndall is 4wks old!

Kyndall had her first trip to the Pediatrician today!

She is 4wks old! (36wks gestational)

She was not happy about taking her warm clothes off!

Her bilirubin level was 3.9, which is great!

She weighs 4 lbs, 14 oz! Way to go Kyndall! She'll be a 5 pounder before we know it! Her height is 17.8"! She got a great report today, but we still need to keep her to ourselves for a while because she does not have a strong immunity to fight off germs. We promise to post pics of her on this blog until we get the green light for visitors!

We saw her first tears today... :(

She was tuckered out after her doctor visit!

Lily adores her baby sister!

While Grandma feeds Kyndall her milk, Lily shows her how she drinks her milk! So funny!

Lily feeding her milk to her baby doll!

NICU - Day 25

Home Sweet Home!
Today was interesting to say the least! Just when I thought we were getting off this roller coaster, we were re-directed to a mini detour before we could get on the long awaited road home! I was not emotionally prepared for the way this day would play out...but like every other day, through many prayers and trusting our Lord, we were able to bring Kyndall home safe and sound! Praise the Lord!
We woke up so ready to get to the hospital, take our CPR class, and load up Miss Kyndall and head home! Before we could leave the house, a nurse from NICU called and said Kyndall failed the car seat study again last night so they would need to do it again. They check her oxygen levels during this test and hers kept dropping while she was sitting in the seat...I'm so thankful they check this...I had no idea what this 90 minute test was for. So needless to say we would not be going home in the morning like we thought. After her next feeding it was time to try the test again...once again...we failed! ;(
Best explanation...our tiny Kyndall is just to small for this seat...even though it is the best car seat available (made for 4lbs and up) she is still to small for it and can't support herself enough so basically she hunches into a little ball while sitting in the seat and it interrupts her breathing and causes her stress. We were given three options. (1) We leave her in the NICU a few more days and try the test again to see if she gets bigger/stronger and passes. (2) We buy what is called a "car bed" which is used in this case where a preemie baby is to small for a car seat. Carter thinks it looks like a bread basket! Ha! (3) We borrow a "car bed" from the hospital to get home and have to wait until she is big enough to fit into our car seat which could be a couple weeks to a month?
Because there were no health reasons why Kyndall needed to stay in NICU, we did not consider option 1...we wanted to get her home, but needed to figure out the safest way possible. After Carter made some phone calls, we learned that no one keeps these "car beds" in stock so we would have to order one. They are not cheap and could take a few days to get here. So we opted to borrow the hospital car bed and we will order our own in case she needs it for a month or so.
So poor sweet Kyndall had to do her fourth car seat study...only this time in the "car bed"...she did great! At about 7:00pm, we finally loaded her up and went to the waiting room where Lily would finally meet her baby sister and we could go home as a family! We were all exhausted from being up there all day Friday and Saturday...but all that mattered was we were healthy and going home. The End! The nurses were sweet as can be, some even cried as we left...they became our family these past 25 days! We could never thank them enough for all the love and care they showed Kyndall and our family...absolute angels.

Kyndall had a big weight gain today! She weighs 4 lbs, 9.7 oz!

Holding Daddy's finger

4th car seat study in the hospital "car bed", another 90 minutes of torture for us! ;)

Daddy carrying Kyndall in her "car bed" (aka "bread basket") leaving our NICU pod!

Lily's first glimpse of her baby sister! She did SO great! We were thrilled she didn't run the other way!

Big sister just plopped down on the floor right beside her baby sister to get a better look! She loves watching her and always asks to see "baby"! She hasn't even tried to touch her...she just gets real close and stares at her! Melts our hearts!

Lily waving "bye" to the fish in the fish tanks!

We're out of here!!!

Mommy sitting next to Kyndall, ready to go home!

Kyndalls' first feeding at home!

So happy to all be home together!

Thank you to our precious friends and family for taking care of us during this crazy unexpected ride...for lifting us faithfully in your prayers, for the stories of your kids that have been praying for "Lily's baby", for feeding us, for helping us get to and from the hospital every day, taking care of Lily, sending us sweet notes and gifts, visiting us at the hospital, stopping by the hospital just to pray for Kyndall, keeping up with our story, encouraging us, and for loving us with a God size love! We love you so much!

NICU - Day 24

It is finally here! The day before we bring our baby girl home! It felt like it would take forever to get here, and now I can't believe it's happening so fast! God's timing is SO much better than ours!

This morning the photographer at the hospital came by to snap a few pictures of her!

Sweet baby looking at mama saying "if everyone is finished taking my picture, can I please eat now!"

All preemies have to go through a "car seat study" before they are discharged, and unfortunately we did not pass the first time so they will try again tonight. They monitor her to see how she does and she was setting off alarms pretty much the whole time, so I don't think we had her situated quite right. Hopefully the nurse on duty tonight will get better results. She is SO tiny in this big seat!

Kyndall is looking at the nurse thinking..."you want me to sit here how long!?!?" (looks like her hand is on her hip!!!  ha ha) The car seat study is for 90 minutes! Yikes! I would fail the test too! ha ha

She weighs 4 lbs, 6.9 oz today!

I cannot believe we are bringing her home tomorrow, and I can't wait for her big sister Lily to meet her for the first time! Is this really happening!? Someone please pinch me! ;)

NICU - Day 23

Whoa! What an exciting day it has been!

Kyndall and Mommy are pooped! We have had a full day of tests and new experiences getting us prepared to take our baby girl home this weekend! YES...I said THIS WEEKEND!!!

It is so crazy to me how two days ago, we were talking about her coming home in a couple of weeks and all of the sudden when I called in to check on her as I was driving to the hospital this morning...Kyndall's sweet nurse blurted out "she's going home on Saturday or Sunday, can you believe it!!!"

So that is how our day started and it has been a joyful BLUR from that point on!! lol

Miss Kyndall being weighed before and after a feeding to check how much milk she is getting! Notice...no more feeding tube! Hooray! She weighs 4 lbs, 6 oz today!

Here she is sporting her cool new ear muffs for her hearing test...which she passed!

Mommy's first time to give Kyndall a bath! Look at those tiny fingers in my hand! This is her bath tub "tiny tub" they will send home with us! It is just like a Rubbermaid tub! Ha! It's the perfect size for her!

I love this picture! It looks like she's holding her nose!

Daddy is so good at feeding her a bottle! She was so tired though after eating all day without a feeding tube and getting a bath! It took a little while to wake her up and convince her it was time to eat!

Papa & Grandma (Julie's parents) loving on Kyndall! This is Grandma's first time to hold Kyndall! No one has held her other than Mommy & Daddy and the nurses!

Very excited Mommy & Daddy!

Baby love without any more tubes or tape on her face!

Tomorrow is another full day! The hospital will take Kyndall's picture, we will have the car seat test and see how she does again with a full day of bottle feeding and nursing. Hope she rests up for her big weekend! Mommy better get off the computer and rest up too! ;) xoxo