Such a strong little girl!

Here is today's update from my friend:

Olivia has had another great night and a great day so far! She is off oxygen and now her face is free of all tapes and tubes! Her middle chest tube came out this morning as well. She's moving right along and amazing everyone. Her pacer wires also came out this morning. Today will probably mark the day we leave ICU and go right down the hall to the heart unit.
I stepped out of her room briefly to eat lunch and figured I'd update her carepage. Going back in there now. Will update later.

Olivia - update

Olivia was extubated around 5pm. It was really rough for a while. She was still so sedated that she wasn't breathing on her own. We had to keep yelling her name and stimulating her to get her to breath. It was really scary. The Intensivist came in to monitor the situation and said that even though she wasn't breathing on her own, when she hit a certain oxygen saturation (like in the low 80's) her brain finally kicked in and told her body to take a breath. That happened for him one time and then she has been breathing fine ever since.
She's had her dressing changed and was given an antibacterial bath to try to help prevent blood infections. She has pacer wires connected to her heart since surgery and those might come out tomorrow. Those are in place in case she has any heart arythmia's or anything that requires a pace maker.

Her blood work came back and showed that the bleeding that was found in her foley cathetar was not from her kidneys. It was trauma related from when they inserted the tube so that was good news.

Her chest tubes are draining a fair amount. It's decreasing but not as much as I earlier thought.

Please pray that she has an uneventful night and continues to breathe well on her own

Go Olivia Go!!!

Trying it again...

Posted 37 minutes ago

They are trying to ween Olivia from the vent again today. Hopefully she does well this time around! She is now breathing around the vent tube so that's a great sign that her swelling went down. She is super, super hard to sedate and they are giving her almost the max amounts of sedation meds and that is still only keeping her calm for 20 minutes then she's thrashing around again. Poor thing.

When her surgeon rounded this morning he said her heart/lung pressures are "phenomenal"! I LOVE hearing that...especially from her surgeon! Her chest tube drainage has been so minimal that they might be able to pull her chest tubes out over the next couple of days. That's the one thing that they said could keep us here a long time and she's doing going great in that regard. It would be amazing if we were out of here closer to the 10 day to two week time frame!

They are preparing her for extubation now so we have to leave her room. I'll update again later.

Olivia - update

More detailed explanation

Posted 5 hours ago

So here's more details as to whats happened yesterday and today. Yesterday all was well. Her blood gases looked great, she had been breathing above the vent since she was in PICU, heart rate and oxygen saturations were awesome, so they felt it was ok to extubate. They did this around 10pm or so and after she was extubated it was clear she had swelling in her airway. Because of the swelling, she couldn't breathe off the correct amount of carbon dioxide. Her ph levels dropped and her co2 levels were quite elevated which meant she became acidotic. The last time she was acidotic she had her two codes so they took this as an emergency, which it was.
The whole night she was thrashing around and in a lot of pain. There were certain pain meds she could not be given because they effect her ability to breathe on her own. They tried several breathing treatments and something called a high flow nasal cannula (oxgen tube in nose) but when nothing was helping her breathe they had to reintubate this morning.
She is being given steroids for 24 hours prior to them trying to extubate again. She has to stay calm and still in order for the swelling to go down so they have kept her under sedation and paralyzed all day. They will try to ween her tomorrow from the vent as long as everything goes well.
She had a wire that was reading pressures in her heart and lungs and they removed that today. It was stitched so they removed the stitches then pulled the wire. They had to keep her under close obervation for one hour becaause problems can arise where they need to take her back to the OR but she was fine.
They started feeding her pediasure via NG tube so I'm sure her tummy is happy about that :) Thanks again for your kind messages on her carepage. I read every single one and they keep me going so thank you.

Olivia - update #4

Surgery almost done

Posted 41 minutes ago

Olivia's surgeon just came out and said that he was done with his portion of surgery and that they are just finishing up in the OR!!! He said surgery went perfect and that her oxygen saturation level is at 100%!!!!! I cannot express how wonderful that news is since she has had a level of 70-80's since birth. Now all of her organs and the rest of her body is getting the right amount of oxygenated blood to funtion at their fullest. I have such relief that I feel like I could cry for a solid hour, tears of joy and relief that the surgery part is almost over. We made it through 4 surgeries and now finally that part is over.
We are going by the elevators to see her before she goes up to the room shortly and then it will take 1 or 1 1/2 hours for them to get her situated before we can see her.
Thank you again for all of your kind thoughts and prayers today. I'll update again later.
Love you,
Rox
p.s.
We did get a room at the McDonald House. Ironically, it's one we've stayed in twice before :)

Olivia - update #3

OFF BYPASS!!!!!!!

Posted 3 minutes ago

The nurse just came out and said Olivia is off of bypass!!!!! Music to my ears! I could finally let out a big sigh of relief. Now they are doing another echo via scope down the mouth to make sure the surgery was a success then she'll be closed up and brought up to ICU. They anticipate surgery will last another hour or so but that's good news to me because that means it's ending about 45 minutes sooner than I anticipated.
As if that wasn't enough good news, I think we just got a room at the McDonald House!!! my sister just went over there so hopefully she heard the lady right on the phone!
Thank you for all of you loving thoughts and prayers. Can't wait to see our little angel and I'll be updating again after surgery is over.

Olivia - update #2

Just got a text message that Olivia is now on bypass. Please send extra prayers her way. She should be on bypass for 1 - 2 hours.

Olivia - update #1

Surgery Underway

Posted 51 minutes ago

This morning went pretty smooth. I surprised myself and was a lot more calm then I anticipated. I woke Livi up right before we left the house and surpringly, she didn't ask for anything to eat or drink the entire morning! That was good news for me since she couldn't eat anything.
We met with her surgeon again this morning and surgery is now underway. The next update we'll have is when she is on bypass. She should be on bypass for 1-2 hours. I'll post another update then.

Y3W

My Y3W is a little early this week. My best friend's daughter was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome (HRHS) when she was 24 weeks pregnant with her.  Tomorrow is her 4th and hopefully last open heart surgery. She just celebrated her 2nd birthday! Please pray that tomorrow's surgery is a success and she can celebrate MANY MANY MANY more birthdays!!!

If you would like to stay updated on her progress, check in tomorrow. I will be getting text messages from her mom and my friend will be posting updates on her Carepages site. I will make sure to post updates here tomorrow.

Thanks in advance for your prayers.

Your Three Words

About Y3W: I borrowed this idea from Jenni at Jenni From the Blog.  Jenni asked her readers to play along so she could get to know us! So from now on, every Friday I'll try to sum up my week in just three short words.

So here is my week in 3 words:

(Photo courtesy of One More Moore)

Last year, a co-worker of mine gave me my first starter kit of Amish Friendship bread. We ate sooooo much of it, that I really needed to take a break from it. After making a few loaves you kind of run out of people to give it to! So I decided to freeze 2 starter kits for future use... well the time has come! I took one kit out of the freezer earlier this week to see if it works out! So wish me luck!!!

My Beaba Babycook broke...

I have no clue what happened to my Beaba Babycook! I just used it over the weekend to make Lillian some baby food.  I have to dig out my manual and find out if I can send it in for repairs. I was having so much fun making baby food again :-( All day today I was looking forward to making some zucchini for her. Once I had it all loaded up, I plugged it in and it wouldn't turn on! Thinking that maybe the outlet was bad, I plugged it into a new outlet and nothing!!! Grrrr.... I'm hoping the Beaba Babycook people can help when I call them. I'm so bummed.

Going green.... AGAIN!

So for about the last 7 or 8 months, I have been using disposable diapers on both kids... I have been feeling so guilty about it... especially when I had to empty out the diaper genie.  I'm also getting sick of the $$ I'm spending on diapers for two! So this morning, I decided to split my stash and put both kids in cloth diapers! I only have 17 cloth diapers, which will be enough for now, but I'll have to wash them every night instead of every other day. Its alright though, I could really use the savings right now :-)

I'm hoping Brock doesn't start getting a rash again. I feel like he always had a diaper rash when he was wearing cloth diapers... we'll see. Gonna give it a try. Maybe we'll have to switch brands or something.

So... here's to going green again!

Kindermusik @ Biggby Coffee!

What a FUN morning! I have been wanting to take the kids to a Kindermusik session forever! They have them at our local Biggby on the 1st Friday of each month. I've never taken them because it starts right at Brock's nap time... Well I decided to just go for it today and I am so glad I did. Brock had so much fun! Lilly loved all the music and sat in her seat and watched all the kids dancing around her :-)

Before we get to the fun from this morning, let's take a minute to wish Miss Lilly a VERY HAPPY 1/2 BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!!

My Review of Chicco Cortina Together Double Stroller - Cubes

Originally submitted at Toys R Us

The Chicco Cortina Together Double Stroller in Cubes is the first two-passenger stroller to accept 2 of the #1 Rated KeyFit and/or KeyFit 30 infant car seats (sold separately). With the same easy click-in attachment as the Cortina, the Chicco Cortina Together Double Stroller in Cubes takes a car se...

Chicco Cortina Together Double Stroller - Cubes

Best of its kind, esp for 2 under 2!!

By Larissa from MI on 8/5/2010

4out of 5

Pros: Durable, Easy to Set Up, Easy To Maneuver, Smooth Ride, Easily Stowed
Best Uses: Toddlers, Infants, Newborn
Describe Yourself: Parent of Two or More Children

I had the original 1 seater Chicco travel system when I had my son. My kids are 16 months apart and I could not wait to get this new double stroller! I love love love it!! I love how easy it is to open and shut, especially when I am alone with the kids. It is so fast and convenient to open and close! The only thing I don't like is that the front seat doesn't have the best recline. Best of its kind IMO! Its also way easier to maneuver than I thought! Has a nice smooth ride to it too!

(legalese)

***EDIT***

I wasn't able to add this to my original review on Babies R Us, so I figured I would just throw it up here. One of the other things I dislike about the stroller is that I have to remove either the front cup holders or the front bar to make it fit in the trunk. That can be annoying, but not anything that would make me hate this stroller. I still love it!! We have a Ford Focus Station Wagon.

Video Roll

Here are some cute videos. I have to upload some more tomorrow from the video camera

Brock dancing:

Spike pulling the meanest prank on me:

Brock tickling Lillian:

The Music Man

I think Brock totally gets his love of music from his mommy :-) It makes me so proud! Brock is so into music right now. Every morning, he serenades Lilly and I on his little piano/xylophone.  Every time we're in the car, he plays air-guitar and makes me strum along in the front seat! I love it! So cute.

Brock is will be 22 months this month :-( I cannot believe he's almost 2. He is such a sweet boy. He adores his baby sister. He makes her laugh so hard all the time on purpose. It is so cute! He always holds her hand and says "awww" when he does it.

He's starting to say a lot of words! I love it and cannot wait until he starts carrying a conversation. My new favorite word is "yummy." Its not the word, per se, its the way he uses it to tell me that he is hungry and not that his food is necessarily yummy!

Here are a few pictures of Brock. I have to find a video of him playing the air guitar. I think I have one on my cell phone...

Such a boy! So anxious to hold his very first frog! Not even a hint of fear :-)

Oh Miss Lilly!

I feel like the worst mother :-( I haven't had nearly as much free time as I had hoped to blog about Lillian. I look back and see posts about Brock and I'm ashamed that I haven't been as on-top of it as I wanted to. I have to make a promise to myself to post more. It is so fun looking back at old pictures and videos!!

Before I get to the pictures, here are some fun facts about Lilly:

- She's a major rollie pollie. She rolls to her belly faster than I can stand up after putting her on her back!
- Her babbling is more conversational! She loooooves to talk :-)
- She absolutely adores her big brother! Gets the biggest smile on her face just hearing his voice from another room.
- Wakes up every single day with a beautiful smile!
- Sleeps all the way through the night, on the same schedule as her big brother from 6pm - 6am every day :-)
- She rarely falls asleep in your arms. Only way this princess sleeps is in her own bed with her blanket (that she pulls over her face)!
- She LOVES to sleep. After 1 hour of awake time, she's ready for a nap!
- She has the cutest laugh in the world! Melts mamma's heart every time.
- She's starting to love bath time now. Not so much in recent months!

This weekend we get to start solids!! I'm so excited to start making baby food again! Going to have to dust off the Beaba Babycook!

So to my beautiful Lilly girl, here is a look back at you in your first 5 months of life (don't worry, you'll get a 1/2 birthday post over the weekend!!!). 

One Month:

Two Months:

Three Months:

Four Months:

Five Months:

You are looking more and more like your beautiful Aunt Dawn every day!