I cant believe it.
I can still smell the hospital...
I can still recall the sounds of the NICU
The temperature of the NICU...
The long walk in to the hospital to be with my baby while she was still there...
It seems like only yesterday.
Today, she is getting ready to be in her 1st ballet and tap class.
She is in Kindergarten and doing GREAT...
She is eager and energetic.
She has aspirations
Her imagination is incredible.
She is a big sister... and a little sister.
She fights with her siblings.
She loves on her siblings.
She can't keep a secret to save her life.
She tells incredible tall tales.
She lies. Little white lies.
She love to color.
She has played soccer.
She will play TBall in the spring.
She can't get enough candy. She LOVES it.
Her best friend in class is a little adorable guy named Gavin.
LAST year in Pre-K her little adorable boyfriend was Elijah.
Her hair is wispy.
She has been to Disney World for her birthday celebration.
She thinks she wants to be an adult.
Everywhere she goes, she runs. She doesnt walk.
She made a grand appearance in to this world and has certainly filled our lives with great joy!
She is our baby girl and today she is 5.
Happy Birthday Kiley Claire!
Here is a write up of my birth story with her. I had posted it years ago on Myspace and I am copying it here to preserve it... because being a mom of 4... my mind is definitely a puddle of mud most days!
TMI possibly....
Well, where do i start with the story of the birth of our little princess? I guess it starts when i started to have some back pain in the end of November. So, the night before Thanksgiving they decide to put me in Labor and Delivery for observation and i was contracting. Then they send me home cause nice bags of fluid make the contractions stop. So, then, the following Monday i start to have some brown spotting. Now, when you have placenta previa which is complete, you can't dilate, contract, go in to labor, cough, sneeze or push when you have to go #2. So, here i was being what they called symptomatic. I went in to Labor and Delivery on that Monday and they send me home. The next day, Tuesday, i had some more brown spotting, only this time it is a lot more. I go in to Labor and Delivery and they send me home again. So, Wednesday i did not spot but on Thursday and Friday i did. knowing i had my OB appointment on the Friday (34 weeks) i decided that i did not need to drive the hour to be sent home again. So, when i go to my appointment, my doctor told me that I would need to be admitted then instead of the following monday. Now, talk about ruining a whole bunch of plans! I was going to go out to Mexican food, who do they think they are admitting me due to being symptomatic for over a week! i Wanted my last weekend at home! I had soooo many things i needed to do! Well, there i was on December 3rd in the hospital just waiting for something to happen or for December 17th to get there for the Amnio to check my little girls lung maturity. Well, nothing happened while in the hospital. not a single episode of spotting. Although one night i did have contractions every 3 minutes and all they could tell me was that i was not supposed to contract. Well, DUH! let me just will them away!
I made it to December 17th with much support from my family. I also ended up getting a wonderful roommate who is still in the hospital right now. She is pregnant with twin boys who have twin to twin transfusion and they do not think the larger twin will make it. but, we made the most of our situation and formed a wonderful friendship. She will be 29 weeks tomorrow (1/8)
please think of her and her little boys.
On December 17th i had my amnio which was not bad at all. I did not have any anesthetic to dull any pain and it did not hurt in the least. I had been all worked up about it but at the time my roomate had had 11 amnios and she was rooting for me! I laid there for about 2 hours waiting for the results and unfortunatly they were no good.... she was not mature by 1 point. she wasnt in the mid-range or the mature so i was pretty bummed out. Now, i would start my doses of Steroids to mature my little Kiley's lungs, but first they needed to stop the contractions that i had been having all night! so, i get more IV fluids and start taking procardia and the irritable uterus of mine calms down. Now, i am scheduled to have my Cesarean on December 19th as long as there is plenty of staff available due to the placenta previa. and there was....
so, now it is December 19th and they wheel me on down to get prepped for the C section. I am amazingly calm unlike with the amnio. the scariest part was when they were matching the blood for transfusions right on my lap! That really scared me... then i am wheeled on down to the C section room. I get on the table and the anesthetist comes in and puts in my spinal. They have counted all the tools and all the docs are scrubbed up and ready to get things prepared. As i am getting ready to lay down due to the spinal being in, the big surgical light blows out. so, they get a new lightbulb and find out that it is not the lightbulb that is out but the fuse and they cant fix that... now, time is ticking cause you have about 3 hours for the spinal. They wheel me out of that OR and bring me in to the next one. Thank god it wasnt being used! now they need to re count all the tools. Imagine if the light had blown 10 minutes later! i would have been all opened up and then what would they have done?! not like they could have wheeled me out and in to the next OR all opened up! I was kind of our of it the whole thing. I knew what was going on but i felt numb. Then, i heard them say at 11:15 am "skin" and then 11:21 "uterus" and then at 11:23 am on December 19, 2004 i heard the most beautiful cry.......... my little girl had been born. I tell you, after having that amnio show her lungs to be immature and then hearing her beautiful cry, i felt like the world stopped for a moment! Her apgars were 9 and 9. Then, there were lots of strange feelings when they were putting me back together. and i did not need the transfusion blood. Thankfully. Then at 12:09pm i was getting wheeled out to go in to recovery.
It did not seem like it was that fast when i was in there... but it didnt even take an hour! well, Kiley was doing some "whining" and the pediatrician had to come in to take a look at her. At first they said she was fine, but then she started to not maintain her body temperature. Then, she had a feeding of formula and vomited it up with a whole bunch of mucus. Those were all signs that she needed to be taken in to the NICU for observation and to figure out what was going on. Now, i was an emotional wreck. i had just had a c section, i was drugged up and my baby was being taken away from me to the NICU. i tried to get up before the 12 hours had passed and i could not do it. so disappointed, i had to continue to wait to be able to go down and see my baby. I also had problems after the C section with maintaining my oxygen levels and i would start to fall asleep and the alarms would go off and my oxygen level would be below an 80. I had the anesthetists coming back in to check on the situation. I was then put on oxygen.... it helped me a bit and the alarm finally stopped going off every time i started to fall asleep. Now, as for Kiley, she had what they were calling bowel loops. (septic illeus?) they tossed around the idea of hirschsprungs disease. they talked about possible surgery depending on the problem. She was not allowed to eat due to the concern of introducing bacteria in to her system. She had IV fluids.... then a little more than a week later, after she had the barium enema test which showed normal lower bowels, and she pooped out the rest of the meconium, she was allowed to eat! and then she started pooping! and mommy continued to pump breast milk for her. She was not allowed to take the breast due to them measuring her food. now, she does not like to take it! She came home finally on January 6th 2004 weighing in at 6lbs 9 oz.
at birth she was 6lbs 1 oz and 19 1/2 inches.
Now, to learn my baby and my baby to learn me...................
thank you for reading... i know, lots of boring drama!
AND here is one of my little updates i had typed out....
Hello all... my mom bought a new laptop today and DH's comp has a modem problem so i have not been able to get on... sorry on what i missed!
anyways, here is my little update on my little peach Kiley.
She now weighs in at a whopping 6lbs 15 oz. ALMOST 7 lbs~!
She is now on 43cc of breastmilk every 3 hours. it is a little more than an ounce. still not able to go on the breast due to all the bowel issues she has been having. She had a barium enema the other day which showed her colon to be free from any abnormalities (it cant rule out all problems though)
so, anyways, she is still a bit jaundice but since the food intake has been increasing her bilirubin levels have been going down although she is still a bit yellow. now that she is eating more and taking in less of the IV fluids (gatorade and twinkies) she is opening her eyes a bit more! so nice to see her blue eyes! tonite they took her off the IV! they have to keep checking her blood sugar levels though before each feed now... poor baby, getting stuck in the foot all the time! so, she is almost a cordless child! AND she POOPED on her own 2 times tonite without the suppository. She has been getting a suppository every 24 hours due to not pooping on her own and now that the poopie isnt meconium anymore (starting today) she is pooping on her own. so, basically they still dont know what is "wrong" with her but it is very reassuring that she has pooped on her own now... she had a suppository at noon and pooped at 3ish today. then had two more poops so those count as pooping on her own! little steps but great ones! so, i really dont know when she will be home yet but boy i cant wait! some docs say a week and some say her due date... thats ok ... so, everyone please keep your fingers crossed that Kiley continues to eat, grow and POOP on her own! and hopefully we will be able to try the breastfeeding soon.... her suck is quite slow and "weak" right now due to being on IV fluids for nearly 2 weeks! COME ON KILEY!
ok, also, i am PARANOID that she has been getting the breastmilk from another mom. They would have to tell me if they did that right?! i am PARANOID!
