Spring Fever!!

The weather here today was WONDERFUL! Low 70s most of the day!  Ava-Marie and I shared a wonderful lunch with our friend Allison, and baby Thomas, and then enjoyed some outdoor shopping!! It was nice to soak in some MUCH needed vitamin D!

It is safe to say that we officially have SPRING FEVER!

Major Update!

Krystal here- I am going to give this a go since Todd stays so busy! Time is really flying by---Ava-Marie is already THREE MONTHS OLD! Before I know it she will be going off to college- (okay so I admit that is being a little dramatic, but seriously time is really flying by!) She loves to flash her little toothless smile at our youngest dog Lily. At times Ava-Marie will share the adorable smile with Mommy and Daddy- but she really seems to like the dog more! I have a feeling that Ava-Marie and Lily will be thick a thieves as Ava-Marie continues to grow!!

Ava-Marie continues to get a clean bill of health and is developing on track, despite her prematurity. She is such an awesome blessing!! God is so good!!!!

The holidays (yes it has been that long since we updated) were WONDERFUL! It was so amazing to have our sweet little girl here for Thanksgiving (even though she was not supposed to make her debut until December.) Todd's sister and cousins cooked and AMAZING dinner for everyone. Todd's parents, grandparents and my dad came up for the holiday.

Our little family of 3 made the 3.5 hour trip home to Mobile,AL for Christmas. The trip was not as long as any of us would have liked, but Todd had to get back to work. Here are a few pictures:

Christmas Day

Four Generations

Noel (and Abigail), Tiffany (and Tucker), Myself (and remaining baby weight..)

My aunt's dog, Duke, on Christmas Eve. I thought this was too cute not to share

Noel and me with the kids

Frank (my brother), Todd and the kids

Proud Papa ( my dad with his grand babies!)

My cousin Rachel and Ava-Marie

Me and my brother with our little ones

Proud Nana with her grand babies

It snowed in Birmingham Christmas Day. This is what was left when we got home. 

We recently had professional pictures done with Ava-Marie. Ashley Warren @ Ashley Warren Studios is AMAZING!!! (www.ashleywarrenstudios.com) Ashley has already posted a sneak peak of the shoot on facebook and it has me on pins and needles waiting for the rest of the photos to show up on her website. I am trying to be patient, but those of you who know me well know I am not very good at that :)

I am LOVING being a stay at home mommy :) and Ava-Marie and I love spending time with our other Mommy and baby friends. Tuesday has become my favorite day of the week because that is usually when we all get together! Our group welcomed a new addition on February 8!! Baby Davis Michael came into the world (3 weeks early to keep his mommy on her toes) weighing 5lbs 7oz and 19inches long! Tiny compared to Miss Ava-Marie, who came FIVE weeks early weighing 7lbs 6oz!!

On January 30, 2011 Ava-Marie, with lots of family and friends present, was baptized at Prince of Peace. It was such a joyous celebration!!! After her baptism our family and friends came back to our house and we all shared a wonderful lunch! It was great to see so many family and friends together! Her loving Godparents are my brother, Frank and Todd's sister, Theresa. Ava-Marie is so blessed to have such loving family members and friends!

PROUD MOMMY!!!

Proud Grandparents

Proud Grandparents

Ava-Marie and her Godparents

I have been busy taking care of our sweet Ava bug, taking care of the house,and sewing. I made (please allow me to brag) a BEAUTIFUL diaper cake for my sister-in-law Noel for my soon to be here niece, Abigail. The 'cake' was made of monogrammed and appliqued burp cloths, bibs, onsies and was topped off with handmade knitted booties.  My sewing days will not be ending any time soon as we will soon be welcoming McBaby ( Todd's sister's little one due in May--we will find out at delivery if McBaby is a boy or a girl), and Tucker ( my cousin's baby boy due in April). I am LOVING all the new babies!!!!


I think that is about all for now, plus Ava-Marie is waking up! As you can tell, Todd and I have VERY VERY different styles of writing. Todd is more disciplined (all proper with his use of grammar and punctuation) and I.... well... I'm just more fun than he is... but don't tell him I said that :)

~Krystal

Ava-Marie's Homecoming

Ava got discharged from the NICU yesterday. St. Vincent's has an interesting set-up in their NICU. They have two family rooms that essentially amount to hotels rooms: a bed, a couch, a tv, and a bathroom. The night before you take your baby home, you spend the night with him/her doing everything yourself. A nurse comes in to check on you every few hours, but otherwise, you're on your own. So that's what we did Wednesday night. Ava was a good little sleeper, waking up not much longer than the amount of time it took her to eat, then going right back to sleep.

Thursday morning, she got her last dose of antibiotics, got all dressed up in a lavender gown and bonnet that her Oma made for her, and left the hospital about noon. Her bilirubin is still a little high, so back to the doctor today for her first follow-up appointment.

It's been pretty uneventful, thankfully. She's starting to wake up a little more surrounding her eating times, but still sleeping very well. She got her first video chat session in, talking to Oma and Pop last night, it was so stimulating, she slept right through it.

More pictures to come soon, and maybe a video or two once she starts doing something other than eating, sleeping, and pooping.

NICU Day 6

Ava's continuing to get better, she's up to drinking a little short of 2 ounces every 3 hours. She has stopped losing weight and should start gaining weight soon. This is about the goal amount of intake before a baby is able to go home from the NICU.

One of the other rules of the NICU is that she has to be moved from the warmer isolette to a regular crib, doing all her own work to keep herself warm. After two days in a regular crib, she's OK, from that standpoint, for discharge.

This morning's labs finally saw a significant drop in Ava's white blood cell count. Hopefully this continues and reaches normal in the next couple days.

All in all, she's shown a lot of improvement over the past couple days. There's still work to do, but it feels like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The goal has been home this coming weekend, here's hoping that comes true.

Ava-Marie's Birthday

A few pictures, I finally got around to uploading the good camera pictures to the computer.

Todd cutting the umbilical cord.

Proud Daddy

Proud Mommy

Ava-Marie's stats

Ava-Marie's a hefty little chunk!

Ava's still hanging out in the NICU. Continued prayers are always appreciated.

NICU Day 3 - Nothing ever comes easy

Also known as, when it rains it pours.

Ava-Marie's breathing continues to slowly get better. However in the midst of all that, Ava's white blood cell count has been rising. Initally 32k with a normal differential, it's now up to 43k with 55% bands. Essentially, signs are pointing to a bacterial infection. She's continued to be without fevers and everything else is looking better. However, in this setting in such a young infant, the doctor is obligated to do a lumbar puncture to check for meningitis.

Ava's already bought herself a good 7-10 days of antibiotics, signs of meningitis would push this up to 2-3 weeks. They did the procedure earlier today, and the nurse told us the fluid did not look cloudy or bloody. A good sign, though we're still waiting to hear back about the labs they sent. They also sent a culture but that will take a few days to come back.

All that being said, the doctor continued to say she looked good and he isn't worried about her progress. She handled to OG feeds yesterday very well, 10cc every 3 hours. Today they are advancing that to 15cc per feed for 3 times then up to 20cc if that goes well. She also got to take the formula via a bottle for the second 15cc feeding. And as a bonus, Krystal got to hold her for about an hour. Definitely some much needed love and affection passed between mom and baby.

Several times I've told my patients that have prolonged hospitalizations that not every day can be guaranteed to be a good day. That's certainly proving true for us.

Thanks for the continued prayers, we're ready for her to be home, but of course not until she's healthy and ready.

Ava-Marie makes her debut

Yesterday Krystal began having strong and more frequent contractions. They weren't too painful initially, but given that she was already 4cm dilated, she decided to go ahead and call the doctor. A short trip to the office to sit on the monitor quickly became a trip to Labor and Delivery. Unlike the two previous trips, there was no event that preceded the increasing contractions. She was just breaking through the medication at this point. Given that we had achieved 35 weeks, it was felt to be best to take the terbutaline pump off and see if Krystal's body would calm down on her own or proceed into labor.

It took several hours of contractions, but her cervix eventually changed from 4 to 5cm. Similar to last year, Krystal labored in her back, and the pain was approaching unbearable, so they proceeded with an epidural. Once the epidural was in place she was begun on oxytocin to augment the labor, and her water was broken. Things progressed fairly quickly from there. Within 3 hours Ava-Marie had arrived. It just took a little over an hour of pushing from Krystal.

We soon found out why. Despite being just 35 weeks and 2 days, Ava checked in at a solid 7 pounds 6 ounces and 20 inches long. Everything looked good, she was crying up a storm and pinking up quite well. Since she was only 35 weeks, they had the NICU nurse come over for the delivery. Due to her gestational age, Krystal having a fever at the time of delivery, and little Ava breathing 70-80 times per minute, they felt it best to take her over to the NICU at the very least for a 4 hour observation period.

At the end of the 4 hours, Ava's temperature had come down to the normal range and everything was looking good, but she was still breathing in the 70s per minute. Due to this and an elevated white blood cell count, she has ended up having to stay in the NICU. She's been getting IV antibiotics and IV dextrose as she's not able to feed yet breathing that fast. She has improved during the course of the day. At our last trip to the NICU, her last two counts had been in the 50s and 40s breaths per minute.

Temperatures and everything else are looking good. We're hopeful we may get to hold her either later tonight or tomorrow. Still not sure just how long she's going to stay, our primary pediatrician saw her in the NICU this morning and is anticipating 3 days to a week long stay.

Everything is looking good at this point. Prayers have carried us this far, and we thank you for continued prayers to bring her home with us soon. Pictures will follow within a couple days, just have to get home and be able to use a different computer.