Great Follow up Check up

So, as you may well know we have been home now for two days following our little stay at St. Francis Children's Resort just up the street. Oliver's bili counts were down to levels that were acceptable to letting us go home; he was feeding well, and the doctor expected it to only get better from then. She was right. We went to see our regular pediatrician this morning for a follow up appointment. Dr said he looked great! Just a bit yellow still around the eyes but NOT bad at all. Apparently when we are jaundiced it happens from head to toes. When it clears, it clears from toes to head. So, his feet, legs and abdomen have all pinked up very nicely. He's eating like a champ and taking about his big brother Joshua. We did a quick weight check on him only to find out we have absolutely NOTHING to worry about. He weighed 6lbs 12ozs at birth. Last Thursday he weighed 6lbs 3ozs. Today he weighed in at a whopping 6lbs 14ozs! He gained 11ozs in 5 days!!! He's past his birth weight in less than a week!! :) The Lord is awesome! Thank you for all of your prayers and support to our family! We are enjoying being home, and being a family of 5. My mom is here for the week, which is great as she helps immensely with the older two kiddos. Katherine continues to thrive on telling people she has a new little brother, and is eager to show him to everyone. She has finally come to terms with the fact that God sent her a little brother and not a little sister. She'll say something about it every once in a while, but more importantly and frequently she says "mommy, I love this baby!" How awesome is that??? Joshua on the other hand, is/has had a little bit of an adjustment to make. He's had a harder time with having little brother home, and outside of mommy's belly taking away some of his attention. I try hard to spend time with him, and make him feel special and loved. The last thing I want is for my middle child to feel unloved--he is dear and special to me, and his tender heart just melts mine away!

That's it for now. Pics later.

Bye Bye bili

Oliver has cleared most of the bili and we are off the photo therapy. He didn't seem to enjory the tanning booth all that much, even though he looked pretty cool in his blackout shades. IV is out and we're just waiting for the discharge paperwork to be completed so we can take little man home, again.

Thanks for the prayers and support.

St. Francis Hospital Resort.

And so we find ourselves vacationing at our favorite hospital resort this weekend. However, we are not here with Katherine. Nope, we are actually here with little Oliver. The little man is only 6 days old tonight, and has spent most of his nights in the hospital rather that at home in his own pak n play. Turns out he was jaundiced, and his bilirubin levels kept elevating. He seemed to be eating normal, but was not having normal output, which worried me. We took him in to get his bilirubin checked the day after we got home from delivery, and it was a bit high. The doctor instructed us to get him in the sun, and to make sure he was feeding well. So, that day we visited with our favorite lactation consultant. She is amazing. She got him on the breast quick, and he was eating well even though my milk had not really come in yet. However, his suckle was different, and my milk was in by the following day. Next day, Oliver looked a bit more "orangey" skin to me. We had to follow up again with the lab for another bilirubin level check, and then once again visited with the lactation consultant. His feeding was a success, he took almost a full ounce which was a great improvement from his mere 4mls the previous day. Our older two spent the morning at a friends house playing, and daddy and I ran some errands. After lunch we picked the kids up and headed home for naps. Only we didn't make it all the way into the driveway when we got the call from the pediatrician's office that the test result was higher, and that we needed to go to the outpatient clinic to have him retested. Depending on the result he would be admitted for fluids, and the phototherapy lights. Well, you can guess the result. We're on day 2 of this place and tired of it. Oliver does not like being in the isolette. He is jittery, and wakeful. He doesn't like wearing the eye goggles he's supposed to wear while he's in the isolette. Nights are the worst. We've been up two nights in a row now...but we take turns during the day taking little snoozes here and there. As far as his feeding, he was doing perfectly well until we decided to try a pacifier to soothe him while in the isolette. He's off the pacifier, but it's taking some work to get him to feed well now.

Please pray for us. Pray for stamina, strength, and patience as we await being sent home. Please pray that he can excrete all of that bilirubin and that we can go home soon. The good news is that the bilirubin level is trending down now, just not quick enough.

Thanks.

We are home!

After a LONG day waiting, we are finally home together as a family of 5! So exciting!! The kids we super excited that mommy and daddy were home with little Oliver. Katherine wanted to hold him, and watched intently as I breastfed the baby. She asked many many questions, and then helped me change Oliver's diaper and put him to bed. So sweet! Joshua was concerned every time Oliver cried out, and would yell at me from the other room, "my baby crying, come mom!" It was too cute!

Should have had you guess....

Here are all three kids, about the same age...do they resemble each other?

Oliver Daniel

Baby Boy

We have a bouncing baby boy. 6 lbs 12 oz, 19" long. He's got quite a set of lungs, and looks a lot like his big brother. Born 9:59PM Mom and son are doing very well. Thanks for all of the prayer support.
-- Proud Father

Starting things today

We arrived at the hospital at 2:00. The plan is to augment labor with pitocin, later today. Everything is going fine, Marleny had IV started and we're just waiting patiently at this point. Please pray for Marleny to have a quick, safe, uneventful labor.
Thanks,
Dan.

Prayer Request

Please pray that my labor starts and goes all on it's VERY own, without the need to induce or augment. Please pray that baby comes quickly, and delivery is safe. Please pray...

The Heat is back on...

We are so glad that the part was available and the tech was able to get out here and fix our heater unit this afternoon. We are back to being at a comfy temperature in our downstairs. Thanks for your prayers!

It's cold and there is NO heat

At least in our downstairs. Turns out the timing is just OFF for our downstairs furnace unit to go out. But it did. Yesterday, the blower gave out and the temp dropped rather fast in our house as the sun was going down. It's been between 6 to 8degs in the mornings, and highs somewhere in the teens', I think...so you can imagine how quickly it got cold. The return in the entryway started making some weird sounds the night before last, and we thought maybe the furnace filter needed to cleaned out. By yesterday afternoon, a bit before daddy got home it started to smell like melted crayons (if you've ever smelled that, you know what I'm talking about...if you haven't, I'm sure you've smelled melted plastic) We figured the smell was coming from the return, and it continued to make some weird sounds. SO we called to get someone out to take a look. His guess??? the blower is out. We will need a new one, and they probably won't have any in stock. So it may be til Monday. For now, we have the upstairs to retreat to, I suppose. ALthough for some reason we all ended up in our bed this morning, regardless of it being 58degs in the house. Guess we kept each other warm, but the kids were complaining this morning that it was a tad chilly.

So, pray that our heater gets fixed soon. Daddy just left to get some space heaters. Hopefully he'll have better luck finding those over the outside faucet covers he went looking for with no luck two nights ago. :)

Anyday now...

we will be meeting this little bundle of person inside me. I'm now 36weeks, 3 days along....and the countdown really begins! I've been down to weekly OB appointments now for 3 weeks, and have been monitored for contractions twice. Last week's monitor results showed a bit of irritability, but there was nothing going on. Dr. checked me, and I was still at a 0cm dialation. Today's monitor results showed more contractions, which I have to say I was totally oblivious to until I saw the readings. So, doc checked again and I'm almost 2cm dialated...thus the countdown. She doesn't think that I'll go all the way to the due date, but at least another week in the womb would be preferable. Please continue praying for us. Pray for baby, for safe and quick delivery, for healthy baby girl or boy, for our two oldest, for daddy as he coaches me to birth our third baby, and for me to have the stamina and strength needed for this delivery, as well as for the doctor and nurses who will be tending to us at the hospital.

Thanks to Kateli our wedding video is getting much viewing...

Yep, she LOVES...absolutely LOVES to watch the video from our wedding. The other night we were going through and organizing all the kid movies, and we happened upon the wedding video. She saw mommy and daddy on the cover, and said "Can I watch when you and daddy got married, mommy?" What was I to say?? Of course. Dan and I had not seen the video in years, I think we only watched for our one year anniversary. So, we all sat down, even Joshua, and watched it once together. After it was done, guess what Kateli said?? "Can I watch it again, mommy?...I want to watch the church part again!" So, she did. Since then, she's watched that video at least twice a day...she would watch it more if I let her sit in front of the TV all day. It is so much fun to see her, to listen to her questions, and to just watch her big smiles as she watches the wedding unfold. She constantly asks, "mommy, why did you marry daddy?" and she asks Daddy the same question!! Her funniest comment though, or lament is that SHE didn't get to eat cake at the wedding. It's fun to try and explain to her that she was still only in God's plan, to which she replies "was I in your belly, mommy?"...nope she was not, but she did arrive a short four months after our first anniversary! She questions when is she going to get married, to which we answer that when she's much older, but that we need to start praying already for her future husband! I don't believe it's ever too early! In fact I start praying for their spouses as soon as they are born....:)

HAPPY NEW YEAR

We wish everyone a happy and blessed 2010!