Love these girls!

Sweet smiles at breakfast time!

Fun stroll around the block! Lily is playing "peek-a-boo" with Kyndall!

Happy New Year!!!

One of my many goals for 2012 is to be a better blogger!!! 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year...more updates coming soon! xoxo

Papa's Birthday!

We celebrated Papa's (Julie's Dad) birthday at Chili's! 

Lily loves corn on the cob...or "corn corn" as she calls it! That's how excited she is when she sees it, she has to say it twice!!

They announced Papa's birthday and sang to him!

Kyndall celebrated Papa's birthday in her cupcake onesie!

What goes DOWN, must come UP??? Really!?!?

Well...our little sweeties reflux doesn't seem to be getting better unfortunately for her and for us. I guess we were thinking after being on Zantac a few days we would be spit-up free forever! Maybe a teeny bit over optimistic!!

I guess I'm eating my words now, because I remember very recently telling someone how we never used bibs or many burp cloths with Lily because she wasn't a spit-up baby. I remember 3 times that she ever spit-up! ha ha Well...now my heart goes out to all the parents that deal with reflux, no matter how severe. It's not fun...whether your little one spits up once a day or at every feeding. I do a load of laundry every night of just Kyndall's clothes, my clothes and all the burp cloths and bibs that get drenched! Did I mention it is projectile!? Yuck!

Lately we have an episode of "what goes down, must come up" at least once a day, sometimes twice a day and each time it is projectile. The other day Lily witnessed it and said "ok baby?" with the most concerned look on her face! Precious! 

We have questioned everything...is it my milk? is it gas? was it something I ate? what is making her so uncomfortable? 

After talking to our doctor, it is a combination of acid reflux and gas, and prematurity can also be playing a role. He does not believe it is the milk, or it would be happening more frequently, but in the future if he decides we need to switch to a formula to see if that helps, we are willing to do whatever we can to get her tummy feeling better. Right now, we will continue to give her Zantac every 12hrs and follow some of the other recommendations they gave us like holding her more upright while feeding her and burping her more often. 

Still gonna stay optimistic! 

Kyndall is 2 months old!

Kyndall had her 2 month check-up today!

Daddy & Lily in the waiting room

Now that we've had her home for 5 weeks, we had a lot of questions for our pediatrician at this visit! It's amazing how this baby girl is so different than our first! We're trying to learn as much as we can so we can take the best care of her. Recently she has started squirming around and seeming really uncomfortable after eating and we can't seem to figure out how to calm her down. Our pediatrician told us it is not uncommon that a baby that is premature would have some irritability with their digestive system and she could also have acid reflux. We are hoping the prescription Zantac will help ease her pain until her body grows out of this. Poor thing!

YES this is Kyndall, and YES this is her weight! We still can't believe it either! Wow, our God is a GREAT God! We are still laughing at ourselves and how we have so underestimated our little "rock star"!! We were telling people she was probably 6lbs or so now...never in our wildest dreams thinking she was over 8lbs already! Woo Hoo! Since birth, she has been given a calorie booster by Similac, called Neosure. It is for preemie babies and you add a tiny bit to their milk to help them fatten up! Well, obviously she doesn't need any more assistance in that department, so we are happy we get to stop adding that to the milk. We do still have a multi-vitamin with iron that we give her once a day and we'll continue that for her 1st yr. We were excited to learn that she is off the preemie growth charts now and is 3% as far as the average weight of her age on the normal full-term baby growth chart!

Poor Lily, she knew we were at the doctor office today and when Dr. G left the room, she knew it was time for the nurse to come in and give shots! We tried to explain to her that sister was getting shots, not her! She was relieved to leave the room and not be pricked with a needle!

Proud mommy of her growing baby girl!

We are still getting only 2-3 hrs of sleep each night (4 if we're lucky!), so any prayers for Miss Kyndall to get her days and nights figured out would be much appreciated! ha ha 

We are told it may take her a little longer to adjust...we just hope it's soon! She likes to snooze during the day and party all night! Wish we could party with her, but we're pooped!

4th of July

We spent the 4th of July weekend with Julie's parents and friends!

Lily looking mighty patriotic!

Kyndall in her "I'm made in America" preemie onesie!

Lily with some of her friends by the pool!

Lily found her friends purse full of sunglasses and tiaras! Oh my!

Daddy keeping Kyndall out of the heat

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!