Three Weeks

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  Alyvia has continued to do well.  Her breathing is excellent.  She does occasionally have a little bit of mild apnea that she resolves on  her own, which is totally normal for where she is developmentally and will improve when she gets closer to her due date.
Our biggest challenge at the moment is her feeds.  She still recieves all of her food by a tube.  What she doesn't get that way she recieves through her IV.  We were going strong and had her eating almost a half ounce every three hours which is almost a full feed for her, but then her stomach bloated up and they were worried about her bowels, so we had to stop. 
It has been an on again, off again process over the past two weeks.  They put a tube down her stomach both times we had to stop which really made her mad.  The first time they put in the tube, she had a royal fit for almost and hour and a half.  She finally calmed down and slept the rest of the day.  She pulled the tube out later that night.  The second time she wasn't as mad about the tube because they taped it to her mouth on the side, but she was without oral feedings for four days.  She was ok with it the first day or so, but by the end she was pretty hungry and was practically attacking her binkie.  We restarted feeds again two days ago, and they are very slowly increasing the amount and watching her very closely.  Everything looks good so far, but she has a ways to go.
One of the things that has kept us so positive is her feisty personality.  She is so strong and skinny that she can push herself all over her bed.  She also smiles a lot.  I know some people say it is gas, but I don't buy that.  She smiles when we are holding her, when we sing or hum to her, or when I give her little kisses on her tiny little cheeks.  She loves to be held and is super cuddly.  We hold her skin to skin because it helps to keep her warm.  Only Kevin and I are allowed to hold her, and Sarah is not so happy about that.  Talking to her and touching her was ok for a day or two, but she eventually got bored with that. 
We had a meeting with the doctor last Friday.  They were very happy with her progress and say that she is very rigorous which is a very good sign.  They also told us that because she has needed so little breathing support, that her chances of having some of the complications of prematurity are significantly reduced.  She will have a few tests in about a week that will check for some of those potential problems, but the doctor was very optimistic that she will most likely not have those problems. 
In order to come home she needs to be able to eat on her own and maintain her own body temperature while still gaining weight.  Right now she weighs about 2 lbs 3 oz.  Her weight has sort of bounced up and down with the changes in feeding.  That should change once she is tolerating her feeds better and she is not relying on the IV so much. 

Here are some pictures of the past week or so.

Two weeks old.  She can be swaddled now and LOVES it!!!

Aly with the tube she hated.  She mostly hated the bar on her face that was supposed to keep her from pulling it out.

A moment tube free after she had pulled out the stomach tube.

She was pretty happy with herself because the doctor said she could have a normal tube back.

Loving her snuggle time.

She sleeps like her daddy.

More smiles

Give me food or I'll.........

Three weeks old.

Trying out a big girl binkie.  She isn't a fan yet.

I have to put it sideways when I hold her because it is wider than her face.

Another brief moment without tubes.

Me and Ally after I nice nap in the recliner.

Kevin and Aly napping....She is like a sedative.

Alyvia looking up at daddy in awe.

Our New Addition

Well I started this blog about forever ago, and neglected it about as soon as it started. I decided I would give blogging another try as a way of journaling this little adventure of ours, and to give a little more detail to those who are interested.

I found out I was pregnant back in January. We were a little surprised, but super excited. I had an ultrasound in February that gave me a due date of September 7th. My pregnancy with Alyvia was pretty normal. I was nauseated a lot of the time, and definitely felt the strain on my muscles and tendons more than I did with Sarah, but otherwise didn't have a lot of complaints. I lost a decent amount of weight in the beginning since sweets were completely unappealing, but I was eating healthier and started gaining weight slowly after week 20.
I had another ultrasound at about 21 weeks. Everything looked good at that ultrasound, and they were pretty certain she was a girl, but she was measuring almost 2 weeks smaller than she should have been. We were told by the doctors that she was still within the margin of error, but that they wanted to recheck her at 28 weeks to be safe. We sort of thought that Sarah had measured a little small at her ultrasound also, so we weren't even remotely concerned.
I had my 28 week ultrasound on June 18th. They again confirmed she was a girl and did all the normal measurements. The doctor came in and told us he was concerned. She was measuring a little over three weeks smaller than she should have been, there was low amniotic fluid and they were not showing good blood flow through the umbilical cord. He said that if I was further along he would take me next door and deliver immediately, but because I was only 28 weeks, he wanted specialists in Boise to take a better look.
We drove straight to Boise, not sure what to expect. They did another ultrasound that lasted almost two hours. They looked really closely at everything. Their measurements were not as scary. They only showed her being about a week and a half behind and they were able to pick up better blood flow and fluid levels, although they did still say that it was abnormal. They wanted to just follow us really closely. They told me I could try to eat more protein and drink more water, but that if it was the placenta, there wasn't anything we could do.
I went in for a non-stress test on the following Tuesday in Twin Falls. They also did another ultrasound. They said it looked better than the last ultrasound, but were still not happy with what they saw.
That Friday, June 25th, we went for another ultrasound in Boise. The doctor came in and told us that the blood flow through the umbilical cord was not good and that typically if left alone, the baby would die in utero in about a week. That scared us pretty good, needless to say. The doctor told us that he wanted to admit me to the hospital and give me steroid shots and deliver in two days. A few minutes later, the doctor who was on call for the weekend came in. He was not quite as concerned but definitely wanted to watch things closely.
I was admitted to St. Luke's in Boise and they did non-stress tests three times a day to check on the baby and gave me steroid shots to mature that baby's lungs. Kevin stayed with me and we were bored out of our minds as all we could do was sit and wait. The non-stress tests started out as just ok, but got a little more concerning as time went on. She wasn't being very active, and would occasionally have brief heart rate decelerations.
We had been hoping that I would be released on Sunday to continue close monitoring in Twin Falls. Sunday morning the doctor came in and did and ultrasound. He again showed that things were ok, but not what they wanted to see. He was not comfortable discharging me, so I was stuck indefinitely. The doctor suggested that the baby could potentially be reacting to a virus (I had been a sick for the past week or so) and that she might bounce back on her own. He increased the frequency of how often they did the non-stress tests. Kevin and I decided that it would be best for him to go back to Twin Falls to work and to be with Sarah since this was stressful to her as well.
I had a non-stress test at 10pm that night that was not encouraging. The nurse told me that they would do the next non-stress test at 1am and if the were still concerned they would take me over to labor and delivery for continuous monitoring. Within the first 10 minutes of the 1am non-stress test she had a deceleration. The moved me over the labor and delivery. There they picked up a small contraction. They figured that I had been having mild contractions that were causing the baby stress. They gave me a shot to stop the contractions, and were watching to see if that worked. The baby stopped having decelerations but her heart rate had gone up over the past day, which concerned the doctor.
Finally around 4 am the doctor decided that it was time for him to come in. While the doctor was on his way, that baby's heart rate suddenly jumped to 220 and then dipped down to around 80. The nurse at this point started to prepare me for a c-section because she was fairly certain that the doctor would not be happy with the past few hours of monitoring. The doctor came in and said that he was concerned and that he felt it was time to take her.
By this point there was no way that Kevin would have been there on time. I was definitely a bit scared, but the nurse was really good at walking me through everything and making the situation as calm as possible. I think it was that nurses sense of humor that kept me from having a complete meltdown at that point.
Alyvia June was born on Monday, June 28th at 5:32 am by c-section, weighing 1 lb 14.3 oz and 14.25 inches long. For being almost 30 weeks, she should have been closer to 3 lbs. She was in a transverse/breech sort of position and the doctor had a hard time getting her out. Her arm and back got pretty bruised up in the process. They were going to do a pathology on the placenta to see if they could figure out exactly what was going on, but her difficult delivery tore it up to the point that we will probably never find out exactly what was happening.
We were prepared for Alyvia to be a lot sicker upon her arrival than she was. They started to put her on a ventilator right after she was born but she started to cough and gag and the tube slipped. She was starting to pink up so they were able to skip the ventilator and go to a CPAP machine that provided continuous air pressure to keep her lungs inflated. Over the first few hours they were able to reduce the amount of oxygen and pressure they were giving her to the point she was breathing regular room air without additional oxygen. From there, they moved to a nasal canella that gave her regular room air. By the beginning of day three, they had weaned her from that was well and she was breathing entirely on her own. She has continued to do extremely well with her breathing. She gets caffeine every day as a respiratory stimulant, IV fluids and nutrients and enemas to help her intestines work. She is otherwise medication free at this point. Because of the bruising she got when she was born, she has struggled quite a bit with jaundice and has been in and out of phototherapy. Otherwise, Alyvia is doing very well. Our biggest challenge right now is her feeding. She is fed by a tube through her nose since she is too young to eat by mouth. Her digestive system is very immature at this point, and so feeding has been an on again off again thing. She was doing very well with the feeds at first, but as the amount of milk she gets increases, she has had increasing trouble with reflux and her intestines. Today we had to discontinue feeds until morning because she was struggling with the amount. We were told that this would be a start again, stop again process for the next little while.
Alyvia already has quite the little personality. She is a feisty one, and throws little temper tantrums when she isn’t happy about something. She is also pretty strong for being so small. She can lift up her head a little, and when she is put on her stomach against her will she will put her head and toes on the bed and push up the entire rest of her body so her bottom is straight up in the air. She is fairly alert when she wakes up, and likes to look around. She smiles a whole lot, and I swear she has even giggled a few times. We feel very blessed that she is doing so well and that she is a part of our family. We were told to expect her to be in the hospital until at least her due date, September 7th, and maybe a little longer because she was so small. We can hardly wait to get her home!

In the delivery room

Shortly after birth

Showing off her little attitude early

Having her temperature taken

Aly next to my pinkie....she is so tiny

Aly on her glowing blanket...I thought it looked cool

My new and improved uterus

Snuggle time

More snuggles

Taking a break from the lights

My happy little girl posing at bath time

She smiles a lot

Most of the babies in NICU don't like bath time....She happens to love it!

She knows how freaking cute she is

Aly at 2 pounds, 1 ounce

Cuddling her doll from Grandma T

Aly's really proud big sister!!!

An Introduction

Welcome to our new blog. We decided that it would be nice to start a blog about our lives.
Kevin and I started dating in December of 2001. We worked together and had gotten to know each other a little bit. One evening, a Wednesday, there was a callout, and I was asked to stay and work the graveyard shift. I agreed, and was pleased to see that it was Kevin working. We got to talking....trying to stay awake, and realized that we had met once before. I had gone to Twin Falls with my friend Rachel to "check out CSI" my Senior year over Halloween. We stayed with a girl she knew who had moved there....also named Rachel. While we were there they had a Halloween party, and Kevin and his twin brother Dennis were there. We didn't really talk much then....I thought he was way to green of his mission.
Anyways we both thought that it was sort of ironic. We continued to talk and hit it off pretty well. When I got home that morning, I stayed up to tell my roommate about the night and how I thought we had hit it off. We both worked the next two evenings, and talked quite a bit. My roommate told me that I should ask him out that Saturday for when he got off work, which I knew was 10:30. I told her I didn't dare; I was too shy. So anyways, that Saturday evening, at about 10:35, he called to see if I wanted to do something. He came over and we rented a movie.
The rest is history. We were engaged in March of 2002, and married on June 1st, 2002. We were both intending on continuing school that fall after the break we had taken that spring. Instead we managed to come up with excuses as to why we would prolong school a little longer. Sarah was born April 16th, 2003. She was very obedient in utero, and waited until the day after tax season ended (vital in the Hatch family) to be born. Since then, I am not sure I can say the same. Sarah will turn five this April. I can still hardly believe it. She is extremely outgoing, and got a double dose of stuborness from her parents. Her bubbly, espressive personality makes her easy to love and spoil. She has learned how to use her cuteness to her advantage, and lately has even told me "but I'm cute" when she is trying to get her way. She especially has her daddy wrapped around her little finger.