My Preemie Girl

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day and I thought it would be a good day for me to share with you our expereince with prematurity and the March of Dimes.

When I was pregnant with Cassie I was loving every new change and so excited to have my baby here that the morning my water broke as I called the doctor and was told to come right in it never dawned on me that I wouldn't go up have the baby and be home with her in two days. The problem was I was only 33 weeks pregnant at the time. So off we headed to the hospital calling everyone on our list that it was time, baby was coming. When we arrived at the hospital it began to sink in that this wasn't the happy occasion I was picturing in my mind. There were words like, Premature, Development, Lungs, Medication, BedRest, Infection, and NICU rolling around between the staff and instead of my sweet baby I got a few shots, some IV medication and a sentence for 6 weeks in the hospital bed! But the saving grace was the knowledge that my body would continue to recreate water for my baby and I was dialated at all!

Over the course of the next two days I experienced contractions, took drugs to stop them and filled up on steroids for my baby's lungs. On Sunday June 19th I was having SUPER Painful contractions that weren't registering on the monitor well so no one really believed they were strong. I was on the phone with my mom who was at the airport on her way to see me, and I had to stop and breath to get through the contractions. At that point I called my husband to get on up here. I was figuring I was looking at 6 more weeks of this pain of the "NOT REAL" contractions the nurses told me I was having.

My dr stopped in for a visit, listened to what I was saying, talked to the nurse for their opinion and decided to do an exam. To this day I will never forget, or fail to well up with tears when I recall his HUGE eyes and the whisper to the nurse to call NICU STAT we were @ 9 almost 10. From there mass hysteria ensued. Things were thrown on my bed as I was being moved down the hall to a room I could deliver in. My husband was making calls left and right and I was asking when I got an epideral( o late) Within 3 hours I got to spend 1 minute holding the sweetest 5 lbs, 6 week early baby I had ever seen before she was wisked off to her NICU home.

Cassie spent 6 days in that home being cared for by some of the best professionals I have ever seen. She didn't need alot of medical intervention and was by far the biggest baby in the NICU. But I spent every moment I could in there, I saw the tiniest baby I had ever seen come in via helicopter, I saw quads who snoozed together in one room, I saw parents and loved ones in tears and smiles. I knew that things in some rooms were far worse then in ours but I also knew there was alot that could be done thanks to medical intervention and things like the March of Dimes. and we feel blessed daily to have this little angel in our lives!

As you think about prematurity today, I don't care if you are the mom of a preemie, pregnant for the first time or a good friend to someone who has been in that situation, consider what you can do to assist! Each year we walk in the March of Dimes, March for Babies.   You can also help out by supporting Friends of Maddie one of the greatest new causes I know of http://friendsofmaddie.org/index.php/about/family-support-packs/

or you can learn more about Prematurity and the fight for every baby to be born healthy here: marchofdimes.com/fightforpreemies

Falling

We have spent the better part of the Fall running here and there and everywhere and enjoying the nice weather. I hope you will enjoy some shots of us doing all of the above!
Here we are at the Chariton Homecoming

We played at a few parks!

and of course celebrated Halloween with a cute little lady bug and a fiesty Iowa Hawkeye Cheerleader!

9-0

That's right the IOWA Hawkeyes are 9-0 and we cheered them on today!

We took Cassie for her first football game and had seats in the 2nd row right on the endzone!

Cassie fullfilled her lifelong dream of getting to meet Herky and was super excited about that!

She wore her cheerleader halloween costume, waved her pom-poms relentlesly, and conned her mom into a giant foam Hawk Talon. She calls it the claw and as soon as we got it IOWA started scoring lilke mad! Cassie's response was "the claw is working, it is doing it". So everyone around us deemed her the good luck charm. I guess that was  $8.00 well spent!

Overdue

Overdue seems to be the story of my life for 2009. It all started with Camryn being 6days late, I think those were the most miserable days ever! I was swollen beyond belief, my hips popped out every time I tried to get in or out of bed, and I was crabby as all get out! But in the end we got the sweetest little baby who I love beyond belief, so it all worked out!

Since my blog updates are now long over due and you may be enduring your own form of crabby if your waiting to hear from us... all I can say is trust me it is going to be worth the wait!

The call you never want to recieve

So yeah I am a bit behind on blogging and I promise a good catch-up post soon but I have to talk about yesterday's events first.

To get everyone up to speed in the past I have been concerned to find Camryn at times with blue feet, hand, arms, legs. At times when it didn't seem she should be cold. I had spoken with our great pediatrician about this and as long as Camryn's tongue and gums were not turning blue/purple, we felt pretty confident that she was ok.

Friday afternoon I was working from home when I got a call from our awesome daycare provider Lisa, sounding rattled and letting me know that Camryn had quit breathing after getting her nose suctioned out. She was breathing again at that point but had given everyone quite a scare with multiple rounds of stopping breathing. She had the full on blue lips and had not breathed for at least a minute the first time.

I ran right over there and called the doc on our way, they wanted me to call then back when I was with Camryn. The pediatrician decided we needed to head right to the Pediatric Emergency Room. A baby with issues breathing get to bypass all the waits and we were in a room in a flash! After checking her over the nice doctors determined she had Infant Breath Holding Spells... What that means for our future I am not sure, we'll follow up with our pediatrician and see. But basically she got mad and held her breath. She did this multiple times and I can only imagine how scary it was for Lisa to stare at her Blue lips and try to get her to breath again! Thankfully we are blessed with having someone watch the girls who is calm, competent, and very intune to my kids!

Let's hope that first time was the last for this fun childhood experience!

Quick update

I have a lot to say and not alot of time, so instead I'll slap up a picture taken yesterday in our backyard as we played in the babypool!

More to come from us soon!

Too Fast

These babies they just grow to fast!

Camryn is 11 weeks old and still a champion baby.
She loves to eat and fusses any time you take away her food for even a second! But aside from that you rarely hear her cry, now what you do hear around here is a LOT of talking man can that girl babble, I guess she has figured out already that if she wants to get a word in around here she has to be quick and loud! She crashes out on us for a power nap every night about 8:00, here she is asleep on the couch!(notice the little tiny thumb that has just fallen out of her mouth)

She is sleeping through the night and basically has to be woken up to eat each morning before daycare. This past weekend Cassie was up before her each day ( no surprise there Cassie hates to sleep) She is also asleep most of the time when i pick her up at daycare, I love to gently wake her up and see her sweet smile when she realizes who is waking her up!!!