Kaitlyn is 10 weeks old

12/14/05

I took this picture today, Look at my little bunny-girl. She is soo beautiful. She is starting to "fill-out" her preemie diapers finally!

Today Kaitlyn is 37 weeks Gestational Age. That means that I would be 37 weeks pregnant. (Remember when I used to count down every Wednesday?) I delivered the girls when I was one day shy of 27 weeks pregnant, and I PROMed (my water broke) when I was 17 weeks pregnant.

Well, Kaitlyn had a follow-up eye exam on Monday, but all the Eye Doc said was, “Well, her ROP hasn’t gotten worse….” Basically, it’s too soon to tell whether the surgery was effective or not. He will examine them again on Friday. The surgery is to stop her retinas from detaching from her eyes (which causes blindness). Either way, she’ll have a 60% chance of wearing eye glasses.

Here is a great article on ROP which mentions Kaitlyn’s eye Doctor, Dr. Good. We’ve been told that Dr. Good is one of the, if not the top researcher for ROP in the country.

Her recovery post surgery unfortunately seems to have stepped her backwards a bit. Finally yesterday she was taken off the high-flow nasal cannula again (she was off it and doing well before the surgery). She has been doing well on the regular cannula, but not great…meaning she is still having A’s (forgetting to breathe) and B’s (drop in heart rate).

Additionally, she is still very tired. She is not waking up to feed, nor showing a whole lot of interest in “nippling.” That means either with the bottle or with mom. Her first attempt at breast-feeding (on Monday) was actually fairly good, where she did latch on take some milk, but since then she has been too tired and not interested. If she isn’t able to nipple her feeds (rather than the milk be placed into her stomach via a feeding tube) she can’t come home. She has to be able to drink her own milk.

This was Kaitlyn's first attempt at breast-feeding. I think she's a bit confused (and tired) as to what she's supposed to do with mom's breast. It does NOT go in her ear! The next time she tried, she had a little better luck.

Today she is 37 weeks Gestational Age (that means I would be 37 weeks pregnant), her Official Due date is 3 weeks away – when she would be “zero”. Newborns naturally can suck, swallow and breathe all on their own, so it’s hoped that Kaitlyn is going to show more interest in being able to nipple. She was doing fairly well with it before the surgery, but now seems to be starting over. She also is having A’s and B’s while she’s feeding. In order for her to come home she also has to go a full 7 days without any A’s and B’s.

Recap of our fantastic shower

Our fabulous friends (Keri and Lucy) and family (Whitney & Derek and Ashley & Mark) threw us an amazing party last Sunday. It was at our house, so we had to get the house and nursery ready…We still had boxes from our July move, as I’d been on bed-rest during the move to our new house. And our nursery was being used as a storage room for the remaining boxes and items. So in just a short 2 week time-frame (with the help of Brian’s mom and dad) we finished the nursery and got the house ready to entertain. It was exhausting; I needed days just to recover from all the festivities.

Our nursery is painted light green, we added a chair rail, so it is white below the chair rail. It's a bit of a mess right now, with all the great new gifts we received at the shower!

If you can believe it, I purchaed all of this furniture used from Craig's List. All from different places in the Bay Area.

The party was so much fun. It was great to see so many of our great friends who had never seen our new house nor seen us since July when everything went bad with my pregnancy. Because it was more of a party than a shower, and because we had a lot of fireman in attendance, we of course had to have a pony keg of beer. The men hung out outside (it was chilly) and drank beer and helped with the BBQ, while the girls were inside opening presents. We received so many wonderful gifts for Kaitlyn. Everyone had so many nice things to say about what we’ve been through and that they can’t wait for Kaitlyn to come home so they can meet her. What a lucky daughter we have, for we are blessed with some amazing friends and family.

I have to give a special thanks to my best friend Keri, who did so much food prep and help with the shower, I just can’t thank her enough for all the love she has shown me since we met in college in Santa Barbara.

Thank you everyone for making the day so much fun and for all of your thoughtful and generous gifts for our beautiful daughter.

Liz at the party

Liz, Brian and Brian's cousin's Reid and Whitney

The firemen outside by the keg while the presents were being opened.

Brian during the party