Kaelyn

Okay I guess I need to clarify a little more on how to pronounce Kaelyn. Its like Caitlin, but without the T. The biggest thing is there is not a pause between the Kae and the lyn. The emphasis is on the A not the Y. Hope that helps :)

Whats in a name?

I've been tagged by a couple friends to do this post, so I better get it done. It was to write about how you came up with your children's names. So here's a little background. I've been coming up with names for my daughters since elementary school. I had a little yellow piece of paper in my desk where I would write them. At the top of my list was ALEKSEIA. I came up with it when I was 12 years old. I was watching the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and my favorite male gymnast, Aleksei Namovth (SP) was competing. He was Russian. So I decided I wanted to name my daughter Alekseia, after him. Of course the first time I hung out at Wayne's house I saw a picture of his niece and nephews, and his niece's name was Alexia. I remember thinking, "Dang it, if I marry this guy I won't get to use my favorite name". Don't worry, I have another use for my favorite name, it will just have to wait. It was a price I had to pay to marry THE MOST AMAZING GUY in the WORLD! Well worth it.

So now to Kaelyn. For the longest time I couldn't remember where I came up with it. It has been our number one name for a few years. Then it came to me after I was tagged for this post. When I was in College I was a nanny for a 15 year old girl and a 12 year old boy. It was the best job ever! We just hung out every day and I trucked them to all their soccer practices and games. One of the girls good friends at the time was Caitlin. Also at the same time I was coaching club volleyball and there was a girl that played for our club named Kayla. I love that name, I still think about using it for a daughter but then I have to remind myself that its way to close to Kaelyn. So one day I was sitting in a college class doodling my future children's names (does anyone else do that?) and I combined the two names. Kaelyn - Pronounced Kaelyn, NOT Kae-Lyn. I figure if we wanted people to say it right we should have spelled it with an I, but I just thought a Y was more feminine.

Kaelyn's middle name is Ruth, after my Grandma Ruth. She is the most amazing person I know. A little story about how we decided to use her name. March 11 we went in for our 20 week ultrasound. That is when we found out that Kaelyn had a heart defect, fluid on her brain, was measuring small for her age and most likely had something genetic going on like Trisomy 21, 18 or 13. That whole experience completely caught us off guard and was one of the hardest days...up to that point...we had ever experienced. I could barely talk on the phone to tell my mom what we found out, my heart was broken. I had seen Grandma Ruth a few days before and told her that I would be calling her to let her know if we were having a boy or girl. Of course after all that I didn't feel like talking to anyone. I found out later that while my Grandma was working in the temple, at the very moment we were in the hospital, she had a strong impression that something was wrong and put our names on the prayer role. After a few days and me never calling her she started to get really worried. My dad came over to visit her and she told him that she knew something was wrong and that she wanted to know what it was. It was just so comforting to know that Heavenly Father was watching out for us and got the prayers rolling right off by letting Grandma know we needed help. After I heard that story and had talked to my Grandma, I knew we needed to use Ruth as Kaelyn's middle name.

Then a few weeks after Kaelyn was born I looked up the meaning of her name. It is "Pure Friendship". I thought that was just perfect for our little girl. Already at 4 months old her life has brought more friends to us than we could have ever imagined. Thank you all for your support and love. We are forever changed by your kindness.

We're still here :)

We are still loving life. Wayne went back to work this week so its just been me and the little lady during the day. I even got really brave today and gave the her a bath all by myself! She wasn't as pleasant as she was when we tag team it, but it worked. We went back to the cardiologist Monday and they said her heart is looking just fine. She's also been putting on the pounds....or ounces I should say. She now weighs 6 lbs 10.5 oz! We even weighed her twice at the doc today to make sure. She sleeps A LOT...from about 12 am - 11 am...I wake her up to feed her a couple times. She's definitely a night owl like her Dad. Now for the pictures.

Little missy scrumptiously clean after mom's solo bath.

This is our little buddy Jaxon and his mom. He was Kaelyn's first roommate at Primary Childrens. They brought Kaelyn the SWEET deluxe swing below. She loves it!

Cousin Mckinley had never seen a baby girl swing before so we just had to show her.

She likes to squirm on daddy's chest, proof on the next picture.

Check out her cute cupcake bow, Max's mom Kristen made it for her.

Now THIS is the life

We have just been enjoying every single minute with Kaelyn home. She is such a sweetie, only feisty when she needs to be, like when mom changes the stickers on her face that hold the oxygen in her nose. She is just so chill. She would be sleeping through the night, but she is on fluid restriction because of her heart so we have to wake her up and feed her every 3 hours. She loves to snuggle, snooze and just take in this whole new life at home. One of her favorite places is Daddy's chest and he loves it too. We went to her first pediatrician check up Saturday so they have a baseline to go on. We go back tomorrow to meet with our actual pediatrician. He was Wayne's doc as a kid and does a lot of work with children with special needs. He actually isn't accepting any patients right now, but after hearing Kaelyns situation he was more than happy to take her. He will definitely be a great resource/advocate to have for our little girl.

We also took her our for a quick jaunt around the neighborhood. She was loving it at first, but then got sick of the stroller, so we hurried right home. This little girl definitely has us both wrapped around her little finger.

Ahh...this is nice

This is what I woke up to Friday Morning

After bath time

Living it up in my super cute bouncer

Game day gear...GO UTES!

They better not play like they did last week!

My game day blanket with all my stats.

Out and about

Faster Daddy, Faster!

All dressed up and ready for the doctor

We're Home!!!!

Kind of a surprise, but we are home!!!  We had set a tentative discharge date for Saturday earlier this week but were trying to keep it cool so that we didn't jinx ourselves.  Then on the way in to work this morning we called to check in on Kaelyn and they told us that we were going home this afternoon.  SWEET!!!!  The craziest thing is, if you would have told us two weeks ago that we would be going home today, there is no way that we would have believed you.  But, after 104 days in the NICU, we are home and it is one of the happiest days of our lives.  For those of you that have gone through a NICU experience you know exactly what I am talking about, for you others, it's just an incredible feeling of joy and awesomeness.

Waiting for Daddy to bring the car around with our FAVORITE nurse Jane

Walking to the car with all our loot, you accumulate lots of stuff over 3 months!

Chilling on the ride home.

"We're home, get me out of this thing!"

First family photo at home.

Daddy and me just hanging out.

Mom's been waiting to put this flower on my head for months!

Our BEAUTIFUL little Kaelyn!

100 Days and Counting

Yesterday was Kaelyn's 100th day in the hospital.  It's pretty crazy to think that it has really been that long. Kaelyn is still doing really well and progressing everyday.  We are hopeful to get her home very soon, but we don't want to say too much cause we don't want to jinx ourselves.  She is taking almost all of her food through a bottle, is on a whiff of oxygen, and slowly but steadily gaining weight.  We would just like her to be gaining weight quicker.

Stay tuned for the good stuff.......we hope.

She wasn't quite sure how she felt about the stretch pants until...

she saw how stinkin cute she was in them

Kaelyn praying that she will be home soon

9-15-09

Kaelyn has had an AWESOME week. All the IVs are out, her oxygen needs are still down, she's in a crib, she got her first REAL bath, she's back on full feeds and has started drinking part of them from a bottle! Today she drank 3 FULL BOTTLES! That is huge for a little girl that hasn't had anything to do with drinking a bottle in the first 3 months of her life. She is such a champ. They compare drinking an ounce of milk for these little ones to us trying to down a gallon of milk.

And last but not least...we have finally heard the "H" word, Home! Its the first time in our venture here in the NICU that it's been thrown out there! At this point the only thing that is keeping her at the hospital is eating. Due to her heart and also down syndrome, eating from a bottle is A LOT of work. (We'll show you some proof) We talked to the doctor yesterday about doing a G-Tube ( tube that they put through her tummy) so we can take her home sooner. That way we could continue working with her on bottle feeding, but still be able to supplement her with what she doesn't finish, because our biggest goal is to get her to about 12 pounds so she can have her heart surgery. Wayne and I really liked that idea, any thing to get our little girl home sooner than later. She would most likely need to come home on oxygen too, so they have changed her over to the type of oxygen that she would come home on and she's doing well with that.

We still don't know when the day will come that we can bring her home, but at least the ball is rolling in that direction. Now for your viewing pleasure, pictures and video clips of Kaelyn doing all her new tricks!

Make sure to get behind my ears

Ahh, now this is nice, I've been waiting for this moment my whole life

Come on in, the waters great!

Look at my tidy bed, you should have seen it a week ago.

Boy this eating stuff is a lot harder than it looks

Sleeping in my Big Girl Bed

Watch closely, I tried to slip right out of mom's hands

This is the second time mom tried to feed me, after about a minute of sucking I was out cold