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Friday February 17th we got to bring sweet Hannah home! We had to wait until the afternoon for the doctor to do rounds and discharge us. We got to spend lots of time snuggling.
Grandma and Grandpa Gall got this outfit for her. She JUST missed wearing clothes for Valentine's day, so I decided to put it on her instead of her original "going home" outfit.
The nurses were all so proud that Hannah upgraded to a "big girl" bed the night that we nested.
All ready to go!
Daddy had LOTS of "help" carrying Hannah out to the car. Notice Mckenna's outfit... she is really into dressing herself right now, ha!
Love these chubby helping hands. The wanted to do EVERYTHING to help her! Andrew kept saying "Hold it! Hold it!"

Mckenna's first time holding Hannah. We are in the goofy smile stage. We better work on that :-)
Andrew holding "it". He loved looking at her hands and feet.
A video of Andrew holding Hannah

Adventures in the NICU

Hannah spent a week and one day in the neonatal intensive care unit. We are BEYOND grateful for modern medicine, the great doctor and fantastic nurses in the NICU.

Taken Feb 10th in the morning

When they first took her out of my room I was sure that she would only be gone an hour or two...8 days later we got to bring her home.

Feb. 9th- Hannah was breathing too fast (they wanted her to be around 40 per minute and she was around 120-130) and her oxygen saturation kept dropping into the low 80's (they wanted her above 90). The fast breathing makes it dangerous for babies to eat because it is easier for them to aspirate on the milk, so they started an IV to give her fluids and sugar. She had a slight fever. They started her on two antibiotics to fight her infection.

Feb. 10th- When we visited Hannah in the morning they let us hold her! She only tolerated being held for about 20 minutes. She had good spells where her breathing rate dropped quite a bit. She also looked a little less swollen!After I got my IV out and was able to get in the shower I headed back to be with Hannah.
I was able to hold her a lot longer this time. It felt good to actually hold her and cuddle her (as much as you can when she was connected to three different machines!!)

That night Mckenna and Andrew came to visit mommy in the hospital. They weren't able to see Hannah (because of flu and RSV season) and Mckenna was devastated. We had to explain to her lots of times that she would see her soon.
That night Hannah had a very rough night. The night nurse said she cried for hours and didn't calm down until 3:30am.

Feb. 11th- After her rough night they asked us to let her sleep as much as possible, so again I wasn't able to hold her :-( . I knew I would be discharged that evening and my emotions were going crazy. I cried a lot!
At about 4pm the neonatalogist, Dr Z., came to talk to us. Each day they re-did the white blood cell test. Her numbers went up on the 10th and then down on the 11th. He said that definitely indicated that there was an infection. The first blood culture didn't grow anything, but he said that is common since I had been on two different antibiotics before giving birth. He told us the chest x-ray did not show any pneumonia or infection in her lungs- hooray. But, he was worried that it could have become meningitis (group b strep can become meningitis). We decided that she should have a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to determine if that was the case. No matter what she would need to stay to finish a 7 day course of antibiotics and if it happened to be meningitis it would be at least 21 days. We were praying hard for just 7 days!!! He also informed us that she pulled her oxygen off on her own, but that she was doing really well so they let her stay off of it. They also told us that her breathing was slowing enough that they would let her eat and see if that would help calm her down. It was great news!

Wearing her first bow!!! Nurse Ashley found this one that would work with the IV in her head!

My first time feeding her

That night I was discharged to go home. The hospital was not very busy, so the nurses let me stay in my room one more night so that I would be close Hannah. I got up for every feeding in the night. I wanted to do as much for her as I could while I was close.

Feb 12th- Hannah did really well all night. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, which was her lowest weight. The next morning Jeff and the kids came to see Hannah through the nursery window. I forgot the camera :-( Jeff took a few pictures with his phone. After that I headed home to be with the other two kids for a little. Then I started what would be my life for the next 6 days---splitting my time between home and the hospital.

Hannah's NICU bed

That night Hannah's head IV went bad and they had to move it to her foot. That day they started feeding her 30 mLs and then she was supposed to increase each feeding by 5 mLs until she reached her goal of 70 mLs. As she ate more they would decrease the amount of TPN (IV nutrition) that she was receiving. She did really well the first day because her expectations were low.

Feb 13th- We began our battle with hunger :-) Hannah was receiving all of her nutrition and water through the IV. Her tummy still felt hungry, but as soon as that feeling was gone she wouldn't finish eating. She just ate enough to satisfy the empty stomach feeling. I spent most of my time at the hospital feeding her and then holding her in a good position to keep her from spitting up everything she ate (she did that a couple of times before...) Now that she was feeling better I was determined to get this girl eating and home as soon as she ended her antibiotics.
The IV was out of her head, so I was able to put a cute bow on her!
She also got to meet Grandma Gall in the morning while Kenna was at dance class.
And that night daddy came to hold her!
Feb 14th- HAPPY VALENTINES DAY. I had the worst morning. I was feeling so many emotions about having Hannah in the hospital. I headed to the hospital to meet Jeff. On the way I decided I need some one on one time with him to compose myself :-)...we went to Denny's for breakfast together!
Her IV got moved back into her head :-( The lumbar puncture culture did not grow any thing. WOOHOO! No meningitis! Hannah continued to eat between 25-50 mLs per feeding- they wanted her eating 70 mLs. I went to the hospital for the morning feeding after shift change (around 8am), headed home after naptime to spend time with Mckenna and Andrew, ate dinner (provided by many wonderful women from church- THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!), got the kids into bed and then headed back to the hospital. I am tired just thinking about it!!!

Feb 15th- Her IV got moved again, this time to her hand, poor girl! The nurses glued a bow in her hair after they washed it. It was ADORABLE!!
She started looking so much more alert and happy!!!
I started to get very frustrated with this whole NICU system. Most of the NICU is set up for premie babies who need to meet a check list of things before they can go home. We had a full term baby who just had an infection, but she was being treated like the premies. According to her birth weight she should have been eating 70 mLs every 3 hours. I did bottles with my other two kids, occasionally, in the first week of life and neither of them every ate that much!! Most full term babies are going home nursing and their mom's milk hasn't even come in... I finally talked-and cried- through all of my frustrations with the night time nurse. I was so afraid that not eating enough was going to delay her coming home even longer. The next morning Barb, the night time nurse, talked to the nurse practitioner for us. They all agreed that getting her off the IV fluid would be key to getting her to eat more.

Feb 16th- I showed up to do the first feeding and Margaret, the nurse practitioner, came to see me. She asked if I would be able to stay all day long that day to basically pretend that Hannah was home and feed her the way I would at home. Then she would have me sleep in a nesting room that night to do the same thing through the night. I was ECSTATIC!!!!! I had just come to terms with the fact that it would still be days before we would be able to bring her home.

Hannah finished her last dose of antibiotics early Thursday morning, so in the late morning she got unhooked from the IV (they kept the actually tube in her hand until they knew for sure she wouldn't be put back on the IV nutrition). She got a bath and then we got moved into a nesting room. All clean after her bath

She did so fantastic. She was quite the night owl, but I didn't care if I only slept two hours because she was coming home!!!!!!!!!!

Hannah had three blood cultures and a spinal fluid culture done to find out what type of infection she had. None of them grew any bacteria. It is very common for this type of blood culture not to grow anything because she received penicillin through me before birth and after birth she was on antibiotics of her own. The doctors assume is was a strep b infection since that is the most likely scenario. We are glad she is healthy now :-)

Miss Hannah

Hannah Eve Jones

February 9th 2012
8 pounds 9 ounces
20.5 inches
Taken the night before I had Hannah

We had to most eventful 4 hour labor/delivery with our sweet Hannah!! The weekend before she was born I started having regular contractions that were coming really close together (1-2 minutes apart). Following doctor's orders I decided we should probably go into the hospital. I was dilated to a 4.5, but my contractions weren't hard enough to make any further changes. SO, I was sent home. The contractions stopped being so regular and I spent the next 6 days obsessing over "When will I go into labor? A person can't walk around dilated to a 4.5 for TOO long, right?" I tried to stay active and get as many last minute things done as I could. On Thursday the 9th I was having some pretty regular contractions, but they weren't very strong. So, I picked Mckenna up from preschool and strapped the kids into the stroller and went on a LONG walk. We fed the horses in the neighborhood next to ours, watched the cows eat and then walked all the way to the duck pond in the neighborhood two away from ours. By the time we were walking home I was having some good contractions- woohoo! I fed the kids lunch and put them down for a nap. We had been working on our garden all week long and had just bought some marigolds to plant the night before. During nap time I decided I would plant the marigolds and get the rest of the bubblers/soaker lines put in. I worked for about an hour and was just cleaning up to head inside when my water broke. Full on gush, soak me to my feet broke. I was so surprised!
2:50pm- I called Jeff and told him he needed to come home. He left work right away and made all the necessary phone calls to get the kids taken care of for the night (a HUGE thank you to Marty, Heidi and Grandma Horne!!!!!) I was able to shower, finish packing my bag and get a few things ready for Mckenna and Andrew. Thankfully Andrew was still asleep.
4:15pm-Marty got here to watch the kids. Jeff and I headed off to the hospital.
4:30pm-I got checked in and hooked up to the monitors. I was dilated to a 5 and about 80% effaced. I am group b strep positive, so I got hooked up to the IVs quickly and started my first dose of penicillin. After being on the monitors for 20 minutes the nurse started noticing that the babies heart wasn't reacting normally to labor. They had me lay on my side and wear an oxygen mask. Laying down during contractions should qualify as torture. It was terrible. (During all of this, the person comes to draw my blood. She walks in and I see that it is a girl that I know from church and high school. OH MY GOODNESS---who wants to see anyone they know during labor? NOT ME!)
5:30pm-They wheeled me into the delivery room (side note- Chandler Regionals rooms are HUGE and you stay in the same room for labor, delivery, recovery AND postpartum. It is fantastic!!!) and at that point I was miserable. My original plan was to labor as long as I could without an epidural so that I could stand up and move around. BUT, I was being told that with the babies heart rate that I would need to stay on my side for awhile. I wanted to cry and then asked for my epidural.
6:15pm- My epidural had kicked in just in time for the doctor to come in and check me. I still hadn't dilated beyond a 5 and they were getting more concerned about the baby. My temperature was higher than they would like (100.1) and the babies heart rate was showing signs of distress. The doctor wanted to move things along faster in hopes of avoiding a c-section. My water broke up high, so I still had the membrane down around my cervix. The doctor broke the fore bag and hoped that it would help the baby move into position a little better. They also started me on pitocin to speed things up. THEN, the doctor talked to us for like 20 minutes about the babies heart rate patterns, my elevated temperature and possible c-section. I LOVED this doctor he was fantastic and I would highly recommend him to anyone (Dr. Guzman with Goodman and Patridge). I signed all of the c-section consent forms JUST IN CASE anything made a turn for the worse with the baby.
7:30pm- The doctor came in to check me again. I was still a five and the baby was doing worse. I had to really fight back tears as the doctor told us that he really thought we needed to do the c-section soon. He went over all of the information with us and then left to get ready. We spent the next 30 minutes getting prepped for a c-section. Jeff even got to wear the awesome daddy scrubs!8:00pm- My original epidural medication was starting to pool on my right side (the side they had me laying on) and I started feeling the contractions on the left. The anesthesiologist came in to give me the medication to numb me for surgery. He gave me one syringe of medicine and then 3/4 of the second when I started to feel a TON of pressure. He stopped giving me the medicine and asked the nurse to check me. No one could believe it but I was complete and ready to push!!! The nurse called the doctor and everyone frantically started re-prepping our room for delivery.
8:20pm- The doctor came in and gave Jeff a high five (haha). He was SO shocked. He kept saying to me "You're a rockstar! I can't believe you did that!"
8:31pm- Hannah Eve Jones was born!!!! The doctor called her a drama queen :-)

They took her away quickly because she wasn't breathing. After about two minutes the nurses called the level one nursery team. Of course I was panicked because we didn't really know what was going on. At about 3.5 minutes, after birth, the level one team got to our room JUST as Hannah started breathing. We decided that miss Hannah definitely likes to do things her way and she seems to love grand entrances!

Wow, how come no one told me my hair was SO crazy :-)

We got her hold her for about 45 minutes before the nurses came to check on her again. She was still breathing very fast and not very well. Her blood sugar had also dropped. It was very obvious that she did not feel well. The nurses took her to the nursery and I didn't hear anything else for another hour.

At 11pm the NICU nurse practitioner came in to talk to me. She told us that they had placed an IV in Hannah's head and that she was on oxygen. She said all signs point to her having an infection, so they sent a culture to the lab to be grown for two days. They also did another blood test that showed that Hannah's immature white blood cell count was high (and that is a great indicator in infants that they are fighting and infection).

Because I had been given almost a complete dose of the numbing meds for a c-section I was numb for a long time! As soon as the medicine wore off Jeff was able to take me to the nursery to see Hannah. It is heart breaking to see your baby sick and uncomfortable. She had a fever and looked miserable. We weren't able to hold her that night.

This recovery has been the easiest for me. I think it was all the walking to and from the nursery in the first 3 days :-) We are glad that Hannah is home and healthy now!!!

THANK YOU to everyone who brought us meals and presents. We appreciate all of the love and support people showed us!!!!

A VERY huge thank you to my mom who played "mom" to our two kids for a whole week! I don't think we would have survived without her!!!!!

Math

Our family is a never ending math problem...

2006.... 1+1=2
2008... 2+1=3
2010... 3+1=4

2012... 4+1=5

Baby #3 is headed our way! I am due February 20th. We are excited for this big change!

Funny Story and Some Fun Projects!

Since I am on a blogging roll I decided I needed to get this story "written" down before we forget :-)


A week ago Andrew got a really bad blister/diaper rash on his bum. You know, if you have had kids, that diaper rashes can be a big deal. You have to remember the cream every time you change them AND you have to change them more often AND as parents you talk about it (you know...something like "How is his rash today?" you get the idea). SO, I think Mckenna felt a little left out. She kept asking if she had diaper rash, BUT she doesn't wear diapers anymore (well that isn't completely true, she does wear them while she sleeps, but never long enough to get diaper rash).

So the other night Jeff and I were cleaning up dinner and she ran into the bathroom. She came out with no panties on and said "Mommy, I have PANTY RASH!!!!!!!"

HAHAHAhahahahHAhahahahaHaaa.........

We lost it. It was hilarious! She was pretty convinced that she had a rash on her bottom from her panties. What a silly girl!



On to the fun projects :-)

Cute stuffed owl I made for one of the kids little friend's 1st birthday. It is so snuggly. Mckenna keeps asking me to make her one!

Alpha Bags! I made these for my nephew. They are 31 bean bags with letters on them (26 with the capital and lower case letter on different sides and then 5 more with common lower case letters) It is all in a fun bag that matches- see below- and it has a little spelling game with the it. It is made to grow with your kids from learning letters all the way through basic spelling. My kids LOVE beans bags!!!

Baby shower gift for a friend who doesn't know if baby is a boy or girl. I can't wait for a few more weeks to find out :-) (burp clothes, boppy cover, and wet bag)

Another boppy cover for Jeff's cousin who just had a little boy. I LOVE this one! I think when we have another little one that I will make a boppy cover with the cute applique trees!

And finally, I know this picture is terrible (it was taken with my phone, inside, while I was packing to move to AZ) but I made this FHE board for my sister-in-law as a thank you for helping us SO much during our final weeks before moving to AZ. SHE IS THE BEST!! She had been wanting an FHE board for awhile, and it was my first big project with vinyl and my cricut!

Anyway, I have been making lots and lots lately. I love doing it. I wish there was a great way to sell it. Maybe someday I will be brave enough to try selling homemade things again :-) (You know the whole "fear of rejection" stuff totally gets me, haha, I thought that was just a teenager thing!) Until then my family and friends will just keep getting homemade stuff because I LOVE it and that's how I get my crafty FIX :-)

BLOG SPREE...

I figured I better get back into blogging since my biggest blog reader ( Kathy, my MIL) will be going on a mission again soon.... So, keep scrolling down because there are plenty more new posts :-)


Andrew found his new favorite hiding spot. Who also knew it would be a great spot to eat the sucker he stole from his big sister? Forgive the no pants picture. I am usually SO good at making sure he gets his pants back on after a diaper change, but this was Mother's Day and we were ALL sick :-( boo! Colds in May? That is just mean!


Also on Mother's Day, Mckenna wore the dress I made her! I started it WAY back in March when I took my little trip to Utah. My grandma help me decode the pattern (I can sew pretty well, but I am pretty much pattern illiterate). I finally put the finishing touches on the dress (including taking off like 26 inches from the skirt and 2 inches from the bodice- patterns are horrible the sizing is terribly incorrect!) Anyway, it turned out beautiful! I am so pleased with it. Now if I could just find a dress like this that I can make in my size :-) Also enjoy all of Mckenna's attempts at smiling "normal" the second picture is probably the CLOSEST...haha!








Please note that Jeff did her hair. Impressive, huh?

Irrigation

At my in-laws house their back lawn in water by flood irrigation. In the warmer months they get irrigation two times a month. Lately, they have been getting the water in the late mornings on Saturdays. It has been so fun for Mckenna to play in it. It is basically her swimming pool :-)


Here is a video of her playing around!