Feeding

Good news! We are so happy that little Layla is taking her feedings. She did have a feeding tube put in for her noon feeding today in case she got tired and stopped feeding they could finish it in the tube. However, Layla did not like it! The nurse then took it out and Layla finished her bottle on her own. We are so proud of her!

Here are some pics of her feeding time:

Doing Good

Just want to give another update about our sweetie. She is doing really well. She has continued to breath on her own, and is learning to feed from a bottle. She enjoys sucking on her pacifier and also being held by us.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support! We pray she keeps making such great progress.

Layla's First Visits

Layla loved seeing all of her new friends today! Following our some of our pics:

Layla Belle

GUESS WHAT!!!!!

Our little girl decided to arrive two months early. We are now the proud parents of Layla Belle who weighed 3Lbs and 12oz and was 16" long. She is adorable and doing well for being born at 31 weeks.

Yesterday Meredith was not feeling good at all. She had a really bad headache and was extremely uncomfortable. So we both decided to go to bed early and were sleeping by 10pm. Meredith awoke suddenly at 11:30pm due to her water breaking. After speaking with our physician we raced off to Spectrum Health (prenatal care) to find the Emergency Room. It was here we told them we were 31 weeks and in LABOR!

They moved us over to the deliver floor and monitored Mere for a few minutes until the Dr. came. She was super nice and immediatly checked Mere to see how she was doing. Her response was "Wow ... I see the hair, and it is time to move to a delivery room". By the way it is around 1:15am. So we immediatly were taken to a delivery room where the Dr. asked if the NeoNatoligist and team could be present.

By now it is 1:26am and the contractions are going steady. There was no time for an epidural (due to high blood pressure which explains here sever headache ... even if she didnt have high blood pressure there still wouldnt have been enough time) because Layla was on a mission. So Meredith hunkered down and began pushing during the contractions (all the while 10 staff members waited for little Layla).

Then at 1:57am she came into this world. Joe got to cut the cord and watch the neonatal team clean and monitor her. When that was finished she got go to go back to mommy to be held for a bit. Then it was off to the nursery for her, and we had to wait.

All in all, it was a fantastic birth. We are proud parents of a healthy girl who is in good hands. Most likely she will have to be hear for awhile, but we dont know how long for sure.

We will keep updating as more information comes available. For now enjoy these few pictures.

First Family Photo

Layla - 2 minutes old

Layla Belle - 3 hrs old

Farmer Joe

I should actually have called this Gardner Joe, but it just didn't have the same ring to it. During my bedrest Joe has still been keeping busy. Along with keeping up with the house chores he even had time to start a garden this weekend. We had started an indoor garden a bit ago, but those died once we took them outside. Elvis was a big help planting the indoor plants:).
Elvis also helped this weekend plant the regular garden. He then helped by walking in it and trying to pull out Joe's stick markers right after Joe had just watered it. Joe didn't appreciate him walking on the garden and I didn't appreciate his muddy paws:).

All that work tired Elvis right out...(for those that ask if I'm obeying my bedrest, YES, I was laying while taking this picture:) O, and no Joe normally doesn't wear socks with this sandals:).

Since I'm posting planting pics, here are a couple more I had taken. A few weeks ago we planted a tiny pine tree in our yard. Joe's family likes to make fun of our small shed and they now were bugging us that with our new tree you can hardly see our shed because the tree is so big (even though they are the ones that gave us the itty bitty tree) :).

To Bed I Go!

We've had a somewhat interesting past week. Last week I started having some mild contractions which I didn't think much of--Braxton Hicks contractions are normal, right? Then I read online that if you have 5 or more in an hour you should call your doctor. So with my sister's prompting (since she had Gavin at 31 weeks and I was at 28 weeks), I decided to call on Thursday just to be sure that was normal. Well, they told me to come in on Friday instead of the next Tuesday like I had planned. The doctor then checked me and had me head right up to the birthing floor in the hospital to get monitored. I think at that point I still thought I was going home that night (even though he mentioned in the office that I was done with work:( ). Silly me. My contractions were 2-4 minutes apart for the next couple of hours, so they hooked me up to magnesium sulfate and told me I'd be there at least until tomorrow (Saturday). Well, then on Saturday when they took me off the Mag Sulfate, my contractions started being closer together again, so back on Mag Sulfate I went. By Saturday night they had slowed again, so they put me on a pill instead and when my doctor came on Sunday to check me again, the contractions had been pretty mild all night and I wasn't any more dilated than I was on Friday so I was able to go home!! Now I'm on strict bedrest (only getting up to go to the bathroom/shower/ect) which has been a bit boring, but if it helps Baby stay in longer, it'll be worth it! All our friends, family, and church family have been so helpful which we really appreciate! We already have had meals delivered, Em came and did lots of laundry for me yesterday, and we've had lots of calls/emails checking in on us. Thanks to all for the help! We are doing well. Just keep praying that Baby stays in me for awhile yet.
Also, a prayer of thanks for my mom. She had a PET scan on Saturday to see if her cancer had returned anywhere and the results showed no cancer!! She still doesn't feel well and has a hard time gaining weight, but at least it's not cancer!

Friday At Last!

Tonight we were planning on going to the Tulip Time fireworks, but they were canceled due to rain (even though it hasn't rained tonight yet--but it is very windy!). It actaully ended up working out okay because Joe and I were both very tired from having a long week and from staying up late last night watching t.v. (ok, late for us anyway--anything after 11 is late for us!). Now we can be fully rested up for our birthing class tomorrow. The class starts at 8:30, but we're meeting Curt and Jamie for breakfast at 7:30 (yes, we are taking the class together!) so we barely get to sleep in:(. I'm excited for the class though, it makes me feel like we're closer to my due date. I'm sure it's not going to be as exciting as I think:).

Our crib came in (earlier than expected) so that is set up now, we're just waiting for the changing table. I feel like time has been going quickly now--I'm almost in the 3rd trimester! At the moment I'm happy to have 3 months left because I still have stuff that needs to be done before we have Baby, however, I'm sure that as we get closer to the date, time will start to go VERY slowly (that's what people tell me anyway). I think it's a good thing that God made pregnancy take 9 months, that way by the time you're at the end you are SO ready to have the baby that you aren't nervous/scared of the delivery.

On another note, we came home tonight to Elvis greeting us at the door. He had been "locked" in his crate like normal, but apparently I didn't secure the door correctly because he somehow go out! Our rug by our door was torn to shreds, he peed in the basement and our pillows on our couch were tossed all about. Thankfully that was it! He just doesn't know what to do out of his crate if we're not home because we've never given him that option. Plus it stormed today which always gives him anxiety, so the combination of the two things wasn't good! He was very tired when we got home, but we still went for a walk to the creek down the road to drop off a turtle we found in our backyard (not sure how he got there--cute little guy:) ). Needless to say we are all very ready to go to sleep soon:).

And on a final note--congrats to Darrell and Lindsey on the birth of Jonathan Alan yesterday!!! She is the first in our group of friends to have her baby, so it's very exciting. Jonathan is adorable and they are all doing very well:). Here are a few pics.