Home - Where Our Heart Is.

Our Little Emma

Homeward Bound.

I just got the call, from Connie, who is at the hospital getting Emma's discharge process started. I will be heading over there in a little bit to help and to get things going. :) WOW! What an answer to our prayers. Our little girl is coming home! We cannot thank you all enough for your prayers up until this point, but now the "REAL" work begins for mom and dad. :) We could use your prayers now more than ever. We are first-time parents that are now going to have her under our personal care 24/7. :) It sounds daunting when I put it like that, but knowing that billions of parents before us have done the same, somehow that makes me feel like we will be ok! ;) God is our rock, and our strength, and we can rely on him during all events in our life. With Him for us, who can be against us?

I'm getting geared up to head over to the hospital now, so I must sign-off, but we promise to post more later! ;)

Emma has moved!

We spent quite a bit of time with little Miss Emma yesterday, and it was nice! We headed up to Stockton in the morning and spent 2 feedings with her. 1 was not so good, the other - GREAT! drank the full 46 mls from the bottle. Our path forward at this point will be to focus on bottle feeding, since that's easier for her, so that she can just get home.

She lost her umbilical cord! Yay her ;)

As you know, the Dr had called in the orders for her to be transferred to Modesto Kaiser on Friday evening. Blah, blah, blah...at 2 pm we learned Kaiser hadn't done anything to prepare for her to go, so they STARTED working on it at that point...she was scheduled to be picked up at 4:45 by Kaiser...got a call at about 5:45 that she was still in Stockton because Kaiser did not have something that they needed in order to transport her (not sure what they were missing but they were unprepared nonetheless) so Dameron prepared their transport team and brought her on down...got a call about 7:32 that she had arrived safely in Modesto...so we went to go greet her...we arrived at the hospital about 8...and she was admitted and all set by about 9. What a day!

Yesterday we had a wedding that we attended, which just had us torn. We wanted to be there but we also wanted to be with Emma during transport and once she arrived. I started to get emotional on the way to the wedding because of feeling so torn, and once we arrived and everyone started asking how we were, I had a hard time speaking. I actually started to stay away from everyone a bit and letting Tyler take the questions because I was just trying to keep from crying. It was also hard for the both of us to realize how many babies were there. It was tough to see everyone get to have their babies with them while ours could not be there with us. It was odd, but once the hospital called about the 'issue' with the transport (in the middle of the ceremony - sorry that my getting up and back will have to be edited out of the wedding video!), I did feel a little better :)

Once we saw her in her new palace, we were even better. Seriously. The new facility compared to the one we've been in is a HUGE upgrade. We have tons of space and I think there are only like 4 babies here, where in the other there were about 20 at the most over the past week and a half. Not that where we were was bad. She had GREAT care at Dameron and we met some wonderful nurses there. Kaiser is just a new hospital is all :)

ANYHOW...on to the pics!!

dad doing the first step in getting started in the 'feeding process' - we check her temp to make sure she's all good!

after her feeding from the tube, we let her lay a little so she doesn't throw up :(...so here she is tucked in a dad not wanting to let her sleep :)

Connie got Aeva and Sammy the cutest dresses for the wedding yesterday, and they came with matching doll dresses...and we thought they might just fit Emma - AND THEY DID!

and here's her matching buddy for this dress, Aeva

...Emma in the second dress...

...and her matching partner, Sammie

...back to our day - here we are working on getting Emma to stay awake and drink her whole bottle with Nurse Angela. She was also the one that ended up transporting Emma to Modesto - THANK YOU!!

Here's Emma and daddy in her new (temporary) home. It's a nice little upgrade, let me tell you!

Today is another day, and we're praying for her bottle feedings!! The next step is to allow her to take from the bottle 2 times in a row, then rest (feed from tube) once in between. Of course we'll keep you posted.

Have a great Sunday!

Meeting Grandma and Grandpa!

What a nice long visit I had with Emma on Friday. We started off the day by learning her potassium had gone down to 5 - huge drop! and 5.1 was the 'high end normal', so we're officially in the clear. Since her levels have dropped for 3 days consecutively, the Dr called in orders last night to have her transferred to Modesto!!! Sometime today she'll be moving closer to home. Super exciting.

Not too good of a feeding report from yesterday. They're feeding her from the the little tube every other feeding, so we only get to try to feed her every other one. Both feedings we were there for yesterday resulted in her passing out in our arms :) SO...again, she's just young and it will happen eventually! And until then, she'll be in the care of nurses to get her to that point.

here's a cute little raise the eyebrows (that you cant see because they're blond!) look she does while she's sleeping

Here's Emma meeting Grandma for the first time

...and grandpa...
she also got to meet auntie a'briel yesterday!

...and after visitors, she decided to wake up during diaper changing time ;) some pics are little blurry because we're not supposed to use flash in the NICU

...and then we wrapped her up and put her to bed...

Mom and dad had great visits with Emma yesterday and were both beat by the end of the night. We're headed up there this morning to visit with her before Shanelle's wedding :) And we'll just wait and see when she'll be moving!