Our Christmas

Christmas day was VERY relaxed. The girls played, fought, cried over and over. Bruce and I helped move Collin's bedroom upstairs and decorate it with his new Halo fatheads. He was ecstatic! I then ended up cleaning and organizing the playroom, living, office and kitchen. Only leaving my bedroom and the girl's bedroom left to clean. Coltrin's invited us over for Christmas dinner. We put the girls to bed at 8pm. Then Bruce and I called it a night shortly after 9pm.
I think that the last 6 weeks is finally catching up to me. I'm feeling more and more exhausted each day. Hopefully with Bruce off this week I can get some added rest.

Getting ready to open our first presents

Collin's jump rope from G&G Baird

Jordon's still trying to pose instead of opening presents. Sienna jumped right in.

Ahh the excitement!

New cowboy boots!

Rapunzel barbies

Disney Princess learning books from CJ

Collin's gifts

Santa's gifts to the girls

Jordon's gifts

Sienna's gifts

Collin's Santa gift

Our Christmas

The girls playing with their DS's

Daddy & Alexa

Life at home

Alexa has done really well adjusting to our crazy life here at home. She slept quite a bit on Sunday and then into Monday. Monday and Tuesday she had a bit a of hard time adjusting to the chaos and change of atmosphere. She was on edge and had a few crying fits. Each day she would adjust a little bit better and wouldn't be quite as fussy. I was a little concerned that she wouldn't be able to handle Christmas Eve at my Dad's very well with all the cousins over. She did fantastic. Maybe it was because all the Aunt's and Uncles wanted to hold her but she didn't fuss once. She really is a great baby. She loves to be held and I have to admit I'm okay with that since I wasn't really able to hold her much the first 6 weeks.

Grandpa Kynaston was so thrilled to hold her

Jordon and Daddy enjoying Alexa's first day home

Rooming In

On Saturday the Doctors started talking about trying to get Alexa discharged either Sunday or Monday. Part of that process is 'rooming in'. This is where you stay the night in a room at the NICU with the baby. Learning how to give the meds and when. Also learning to use the pump machine for her continuous feeds at night. It was great finally being able to spend time with Alexa and seeing what her night schedule was like. She did wonderful. Unfortunately, with the nurses coming in and preparing the meds and milk for the continuous feeds I didn't get any sleep. By 10am Sunday morning they were getting all the paperwork done to discharge Alexa. We finally left the hospital with our sweet little baby shortly after 1pm. The adjustment for Alexa was a little hard. The noise and stimulation was more than she could handle. She was very upset and it took me a while to get her calmed down enough to give her her scheduled morphine. She pretty much slept from about 5pm till 7am this morning with a few awake ups at night to nurse.
This morning was also a little rough for her. I'm hoping that she will adjust soon. She is finally asleep after a clean diaper change, nursing and her meds. We just love having her home. What a blessing she is in our lives.

Worst labor EVER

Okay I was going through my pictures and found a pic I didn't know my husband took. This picture in itself tells it all. This is from Alexa's labor.

In between pushes after puking

Once there was a snowman

Bruce and the girls built a very big snowman last week. They were very creative on 'dressing' the snowman. I must say I was quite impressed.

A light at the end of the tunnel

So I do believe there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel.  Alexa is recovering really well from the stomach surgery. She had a rough 2 days afterwards but is finally acting more like herself. They have her back on formula again and are talking about switching to breast milk on Monday. Hooray!! The occupational therapist and I are going to work on bottle feeding Monday morning. I'm praying that goes well. We will be using breast milk so I don't know how it won't. I feel like we are finally on the home stretch. Once we can get her eating she can come home. Today they weighed her and she is 9lbs 10oz. She loves to try and talk to Mom. She gives me big smiles when I talk to her.I'm so in love with this little girl. I just can't wait to bring her home.

Grandma Baird & Daddy the day after surgery

Proud Papa

Today we went to the hospital and brought the girls. Jordon hasn't seen Alexa in a few weeks. After about 30 mins the girls started fighting (weird) so Bruce took them home so that I could enjoy her. Tomorrow we will leave the girls so that Bruce and I can enjoy her together.

Daddy and his beautiful girls

Changing Alexa's diaper

Isn't she sweet??!!

We just love her

Mommy and her precious baby

On the mend

Today Alexa had her surgery to fix the acid reflux. When we got to her room a 'cuddler' was holding her because she had been fussy. I love that the hospital does that. I think it's such a great idea to have volunteers help out with holding the babies and letting them know that they are loved. She handed Alexa on over to me. So we then cuddled for about an hour. Her IV on her head started to come a little loose so we laid her back down so the nurse could fix it. I then sat Alexa up so that she could be a 'big girl' and look out the window. She loved this.

Around 1:30pm they took her down to the O.R. I must say it was a LOT easier to watch them wheel her away this time. No tears, not near as many fears and more of a smile on my face. This surgery to me is a surgery to help get her home sooner. Once we get the reflux fixed then she will be happier and we can work on the feeding which is the last thing we are working on to get out of the hospital. The morphine weaning is almost complete and hopefully after the next 48-72 we can start the lower doses again. After they wheeled her back we went to the cafeteria to eat. We ran into another couple from our ward (Conely's) who are adopting a baby boy. It was nice to chat with them on the excitement of their new addition. We then headed to patient financial services on applying for secondary insurance through SSI. It may or may not work but worth a try. By 3pm we headed to the surgery waiting area. After only 30 mins in there she was done and Dr. Reynold's came out to tell us that the surgery went really well. She didn't have any blood clotting issues since she has been on blood thinners. They didn't need to use any blood, platelets, etc. In fact the surgery was right on schedule that she didn't need any extra IV fluid either. So hopefully she won't be very puffy. We went up to her room to see her. The Dr. did a cute little snowman picture on her dressing. We are super happy that everything went so well and are anxious to see how she is doing tomorrow. Thank you SO much to everyone for your added prayers.

Here we go again

Well poor Alexa can't cut a break. She has been doing really good with the weaning of the morphine. They lower the dosage every other day and so far she hasn't had a problem with it. Her chest fluid output has finally come to a halt and hasn't produced any since the 2nd chest tube fell out. Thank goodness!! They are trying to slowly switch her over to a fattier formula then the fat free formula she is on. So far so good. They took an x-ray this morning to make sure the fats aren't being sluffed into her chest cavity. It came back clear. woot woot!! Once they can get her fully on this new formula for a few days with no problems then we can work over to breast milk.
On the other hand ....

Yesterday they did a GI tract x-ray to see how bad her acid reflux is. They put barium in her stomach and then watched her acid reflux. Apparently hers it really bad. I'm not at all surprised by this after watching her constantly gag and be in discomfort from the reflux. This is common with patients that have had open heart surgery and to top it off acid reflux runs in the family. Now the doctors want to do a stomach surgery where they take part of the stomach and wrap it around her esophagus to keep anything from coming up. My Dad has had this surgery done as well. They also want to put a Gtube in her stomach with a port that opens up on the side of her belly. This is like a back up if she is having problems eating, burping, or puking. If we don't use it after a month then they just pull it out and close up the small hole. Having another surgery means more morphine ... sheesh. So hopefully she will be having the surgery this Monday so we can get this over and done with so we can bring her home. The recovery is only a couple of days so we are really hoping to have her home before Christmas. Gosh, that would be nice. We still have to meet with the surgeon sometime today or tomorrow to get all the details.
Last night the nurse had me give Alexa her blood thinning shot. I was so nervous to do it. I'm not afraid of needles or blood. I'm nervous about the feeling of the shot going into the skin. My palms were sweating and my hand were a little shaky but I did it. It really wasn't that bad just sucks having to do it.

 So tomorrow Alexa turns 1 month old. At times I can't believe she is already a month and other times it feels like she should be like 2 months old. This last month feels like a crazy nightmarish dream.