Bath Time!

He started to like that ugly binky thing when he was in the hospital nursery and he will only take that kind, I think it looks silly :)
Crew minding his own business playing in the big bath, it will be fun when we can get them in together!
Hurry up, I am cold!! Stop taking pictures mom and get me dressed.

BBQ!

On Wednesday night Aaron and Shannon Claeys came over to visit and have a BBQ. We had the monkey pool set up for the girls (Finnley, Hayden, and Emry) and Crew. They had a blast!
Crew and Emry are only a couple months apart and they all get a long great, they kept giving each other hugs...
And KISSES :) We will have to save this to play at their wedding some day!
Chris got caught in the action with Hayden and Finnley kissing him a big smack on the cheek!
Crew didn't like dad getting all of that attention from the girls so he jumped up on the couch and tackled Chris.

Brotherly Love...

Crew asked to hold Brody, it was so cute. Everyone else was getting to hold him so he wanted his own turn.
He did pretty well and then Brody started to slip down :)


Crew getting ready to go to the park with dad!

Some of our visitors :)

Uncle Cole and Auntie Tanis :)

Since we didn't have any visitors in the hospital because of Brody's condition, we have been having visitors all week. It is so nice to finally have everyone see him.

Uncle Jeff and Auntie Rae Rae, Crew wanted in on the picture too!
Court, she looks like she is ready for one of her own!! Hint Hint.
Great Grandma Viv, also brought us dinner which was very nice, thanks Grandma!!

Thank you to all of our other visitors too, it has been great to see everyone now that Brody is home!!

Visit Brody on the hospital website

Click on this link.
http://www.newbabynews.net/hospitals/stj5/public/stj5birthannouncement.pl?babyID=h5-10632

Welcome Home Brody!!

We got discharged from the hospital on Sunday afternoon at 2:00. The nurses and doctors were so surprised on how fast he recovered in the last 36 hours. They think he is very strong and vigorous, and we agree. We couldn't be more happy to be able to take him home. Thank you for your prayers in making this happen.

Here is Brody still at the hospital, you can see on his right cheek where they had his feeding tube taped to his face, it was rough day getting that tape off, he screamed, but we were so happy to get rid of that!
Big boy clothes! No more cords, IVs, monitors, and tubes, time to start treating you like a real 38 week year old.
So peaceful at home, we love him so much!
Crew taking a closer look at his new brother, we have to keep our eye on Crew. If we weren't right there he would have jumped into the craddle with him!
He has his punching fist ready to go to defend himself from Crew. Brody has the LONGEST arms, it is crazy, he looks like a monkey with his long arms and dark spikey hair. I call him my monkey man :)

Grandparents Meet Brody

Here is a very proud Nana, Grandpa was home with Cruiser. The only visitors we had during our stay were our parents because of everything else going on. During the c-section Chuck and Leslie and my Mom waited and were able to see and hold Brody for couple minutes before they brought me back in the room.

Papa Charlie and Memi got a quick look before heading off to work, I think Brody is very loved already.
Nana and Grandpa visited me in the Nursery on Saturday night because they weren't going to be home for a couple of days.

Family of 4

On Saturday Chris and Crew came to visit us in the nursery. Crew still hadn't met his little brother and we were anxious to introduce them.
As you can see in the pictures Crew is not very interested in smiling, I think he knows the attention just isn't on him anymore.
Nice baby! Be gentle. Suprisingly Crew was very gentle and nice to the baby while covering the baby's face with his hand. I am sure that will all change soon!
Just a little mad, enough of this baby stuff already!!!
Mama and Brody :)

Friday Night and Saturday...

I headed back into the hospital last night and didn't think they were going to let me try feeding until some point today. Well the nurse, Stephanie, who has been just awesome, let me try and he took to it right away with no problems!! So that was a huge surprise. So all night I was up feeding and holding him, definitley making up for lost time. It feels great to be busy with a newborn, it was awful having to sit in my hospital room all week and just wait for news.

So for today so many more improvements!! Your prayers are working :) He is in a normal bed, he got his IV taken off his foot, no more feeding tube, and is just feeding off of me! Wow, what a difference 24 hours can bring. He seems and looks like he is normal newborn, they are just measuring his oxygen and breaths to make sure they stay in a good zone which they have. So if all goes well today with feeding and his numbers stay down it looks like we might be able to take our little guy home tomorrow!

Chris and Crew came to visit this morning and we got some pictures of our new family of four, I have the camera cord at home so I will have to update the blog with pictures later tomorrow or the next day. Today has been wonderful thank you to everyone who has been praying for us, hopefully tomorrow we can take Brody home!

Friday

Today was another good day, I got up early and held him for a really long time and he didn't require any additional oxygen while I was holding him. So about 8:15 this morning, they turned off the oxygen and removed the oxygen tent from his bed!!

Everything is looking good, we just are waiting for his breathing to slow down still. We were not able to breastfeed today, but he has increased his feeding through the tube. So once his breathing slows down to 50 breaths a minute consistently, we can try that. Hopefully tomorrow or later tonight, so that is our goal right now.

I got discharged at 1:00 this afternoon, and so I went home this afternoon to spend some time with Crew. I am heading back to the hospital soon, and will be spending the night in a "camping" room (room with a bed only) so I can get up and pump and be there to hold him more frequently. Now that he is doing better he wants to be held a lot, I don't blame him!

So we are still patiently waiting for his breathing to slow but his oxygen levels are excellent and all other tests are awesome, so pray for slower breathing and successful feeds and then we can take little Brody Jeffrey home with us! It was pretty hard coming home today without him, but we are VERY thankful that he is doing better and continuing to improve all the time.

Daddy's Turn

Chris got his turn to hold Brody tonight. His numbers stayed really good and the nurses were really impressed. They also increased his feeding amounts again. We will see how his numbers do tonight, and try to let him feed from me tomorrow.
Sweet little boy... His head was too big for the nursery hat so we have his Jordan hat on from Crew.

Thursday Afternoon

What a wonderful afternoon!! I got to go in and hold Brody for almost 2 hours!! It was so needed for me and him. While I was holding him his levels were the best they have been, I guess this was something the doctor ordered for both of us :)

His feeding is still going well, if his levels continue to drop I will be able to try feeding him tomorrow. He is so darn cute, and I just love the little guy so much. I am going to be discharged tomorrow but will be able to sleep here and be around him in the nursery. We still are not quite sure how long he will be here 3 days, 5 days, they are not sure, but he is definitley doing WAY better and we are so thankful!

Thanks for your continued prayers and support!

Thursday Morning

Things are definitely going well this morning so far! Brody has the feeding tube in and is getting some colostrum and is responding well. His oxygen level has also gone down and his breathing rate has dropped a little too. Which are all good things.

Early this afternoon they are going to let me hold him and we will see how that affects his breathing. So far today has been heading the right direction, continue to keep us in your prayers.

Evening Update

Things have been stable with Brody again all day. He seems to be more content and even opening his eyes and looking around. They dropped is oxygen level a little bit as well. The doctor is wanting to try inserting a tube down his throat tomorrow morning and try giving him some of my colostrum and see how he responds. This could be a pretty big test because he definitely needs to start eating after 3 days. So if that works it will be a good sign and hopefully help his lungs come along faster so I can eventually feed and hold him.

I just came from the nursery and he seems to look better, but he is still breathing hard. We will see what tomorrow brings, pray that the feeding tube is successful and that we can start feeds on our own soon.

Wednesday morning update

The last 48 hours have been long, but stable for Brody. He is still in the nursery and probably will be for a little while, they are not giving us a length of time. Since he has been in there he hasn't gotten worse, but has only made really small spurts of progress.

Originally he was breathing around 120 breaths per minute, now he is the 80's. It is hard to watch his little tummy work so hard to breathe. All other test are coming back normal and good, so we are just patiently waiting for him to slow down his breathing. Since they are not able to feed him, just give him some nutrients through IV, we are hoping he turns the corner soon so we could prevent the trip to Seattle for that purpose.

We really appreciate your continued thoughts and prayers. We will continue to post updates as we know more, but for now we are just waiting.

Brody Jeffrey Price

Brody Jeffrey Price was born on May 19 at 8:11 am. He weighs 7 lbs 10 oz and is 21 inches long. Pretty good stats for being two weeks early. He came out screaming!
During the c-section this time I was much more "awake" and not so disorientated, which was nice. It was the best feeling in the world to finally see my baby!! It was so overwhelming, loving another child so much the instant it was born.
Dad, Mom and baby Brody
He seems like such a little peanut to me, he has some of the same facial expressions as Crew. But he is different too. He has a big head just like Crew (14 1/4 inches), and I think his same mouth, not sure about everything else yet.... He is perfect to us :)
He is gearing up to keep up with his big brother, got a set of lungs to match, that is forsure.

The morning went really well yesterday, however about 10:00 the nurse noticed he was having to breathe really hard. So they took him back to the nursery to monitor him. They did some chest x-rays and found that his lungs were still a little underdeveloped and he had some fluid still. So the sad news is he has to be in nursery for the next couple of days depending. He can breathe fine on his own just needs some extra oxygen.

So it has been a pretty rough 24 hours not having our baby with us, but he is stable so we can be thankful for that. Please continue to keep baby Brody in your prayers we don't know how long it will take him to recover, and we would like to be able to stay in Bellingham and not have to have him down in Seattle. Pray Pray Pray. :)

C-section Date Set...

So after a long week and a lot of thought the doctor has moved my c-section up to Monday, May 19. So that puts me at 38 weeks, which means hopefully everything will be okay. Although I may need to go and get a few newborn sleepers, we put Crew in the 3 month ones to start out.

So just keep us in your prayers, 38 week babies are generally just fine, but you never know. Chris will have his computer at the hospital so we will try to keep the blog updated with any news.

Baby #2 we are so excited to meet you!!!!

Rollercoaster Ride....

Wow, what a ride I have been on the last 36-48 hours. My contractions picked up significantly and my pain was no longer tollerable at work Tuesday morning. Since I wasn't able to see my doctor last week, they sent me to Labor and Delivery at 9:45 am. They hook me up and yes my contractions are 3-5 minutes apart, and the pain is awful. They checked me and I was at 1 cm, 80% effaced. Since I was only 37 weeks they wanted to see if I would progress before deciding if they wanted to take the baby c-section that day.

Two hours later they checked an no change, but I was leaking some fluid, so they did a strip test and it came back positive for amniotic fluid, so they reported that to the doctor that my water was leaking. So without further warning they put me on the c-section schedule and told me to call my husband becuase we would be having a baby in the next hour. So freaking out of course, I call Chris, he rushes from rotary to come home, and he had to pack my bag, and grab all the baby stuff. He gets in there about 2:00 and come to find out they had an inaccurate read on the strip test... Wow, so C-section is now off for that point.

At this point the contractions are coming hard and painful, so they give some morphine for the pain, and told me they were going to wait another 3 hours to see if I progressed anymore. The morphine didn't even help with the pain just made me very sick, headache, and dizzy. Still contracting... 3 hours later, they check again, NO CHANGE. You have got to be kidding me. They then decide to do an amnio to check for lung maturity. I hate needles, but honestly this day was just going to be one of those days. The baby is already decent size, my doctor thinks that is already high 7's at 37 weeks, so it was hard to find a good pocket in my uterus to with drawl fluid from. So while I sit there with my eyes closed which seemed like an eternity they finally got in and got the fluid they needed. The catch, (things just don't go smoothly for me) they ended up having to go though my placenta and uterus which caused their to be blood in the fluid which can alter the results. They told us well we will just wait and see what comes back. They said just wait an hour and we will have the results. They come back after THREE hours and say, no we don't think the lungs are mature, we are not going to take the baby tonight.... At this point after how long the day was (being there for 12 hours, not eating or drinking for 13 hours) I was doing everything possible to keep from crying because I was so frustrated. If my baby wasn't ready and I am in this much pain, how can I manage this at home?

So my doctor decided to give me another shot of morphine (right in the butt :)) and gave me at IV double dose to knock me out and try to help cope with the pain and contractions until Thursday when she is going to see me again. I don't really remember anything after that, just waking up at 9:30 this morning at home in my bed in a total fog.

I am still feeling a ton of side effects from the morphine which will last for a while and if my pain and contractions keep picking up they are going to keep me in the hospital until the baby shows signs of lung maturity to take him.

The next step.... I go to the doctor tomorrow afernoon, they had the amnio results sent down to Oregon to have them accessed more cloesly and we will have a better idea if the lungs are mature or how soon they will be. Keep us in your prayers, this has been the weirdest pregnancy ever, even the doctors are surprised, they have had patients with this in the past, but very few to my extreme. God has a plan, and I trust that things will be find in the end, I just need to find ways to stay positive (and pain free) until it does.

I can't believe how long this post is, but I guess it was A LONG DAY TOO!!!

Curious Crew is 2!

Lots of people wanting to see what I would do to the cake, to my mom's surprise I didn't try to attack it like I did last year.

Wow, this cake looks good!
I love all of this attention!
It was so cute when we all sang happy birthday, he just pretended to sing with us, and clapped at the end.
Crew had a little bit of trouble blowing out candles, I guess we should have practiced before :) He made some good attempts though!

So with the Curious George themed party I made sure to get monkey faces and party hats, but Taylor was the only one really wanting to participate in wearing them!
Tay Tay and Lane, the only kids at the party, along with Crew the 3 of them kept everyone pretty entertained.
Mom get this hat off of me, please don't make me wear it!!

I got a lot of really nice gifts from everyone, thank you!!! I even got a baby boy doll, stroller, and diaper bag pack from Kassi and kids so I can practice helping my mom when the new baby comes. Some other cool things that I got were, an outdoor basketball hoop, a John Deere pedal tractor with trailor, a carhart jacket with Nice Lawns embroided, puzzles, books, additional pieces for my train set, baseball pants and mitt, monkey pool, ESPN practice batter that loads balls to swing at, money for savings, and other little fun things!! THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!!!

Happy Birthday Eve... Crew!

Tanis and Cole couldn't make the party the next day, so they came over the night before and gave Crew his present early. Uncle Cole doing airplane, which Crew LOVES!!

OOOOHHHH!!!
Too excited for my new toy to pose for a picture. Besides a new truck I got some cool John Deere sweats and shirts!
Auntie Tanis, still can't say her name, but I do love her :)
Watch out! Coming through!