Saturday, July 18th

As I am writing this, I am at the hospital waiting for the lil' one to wake up for a feeding. She is on a 3 hour schedule and we are activly trying to get her to take from the pacifer dipped in milk and suck on it before putting the bottle in her mouth again. We don't want her to get an adversion to things in her mouth so we are moving slow with this process. Please pray that once she figures it out then she will progress quickly so we can take her home...this is the one thing that we are waiting for.

Her MRI results came back normal and her renal exam was also good. THe little one is making slow and steady progress, but progress none the less. Her ears are shaping up like they should, so no more concern for having something physically wrong with them. She currently has her rump in the air with O2 blowing on it b/c of diaper rash...so she has normal issues as well. :)

Update on Deanna

Here is the lil' miss without her cannula! As of now, she has her NG feed tube in and a couple of monitors for her heartrate and pulse. Deanna has new splints on her hands to help stretch her fingers out and have a better range of motion. I think today she is getting her next cast on her leg. SHe is making progress. Today she will have an MRI on her brain to check for its activity level- pray for clear and good results and that it doesn't truamitize her.

Her ultrasound on her brain showed that her blood clot has not changed, but they are encouraged that this is okay. She is up to eating 50 ml of breast milk through the tube and we are continually working to get her interested in taking the pacifer to begin interest in a bottle or breast--then she will get to go home. Continue to pray that she cooperates with eating.

Her chromosomal tests came back yesterday with results that the doctors are still looking at. Pray that the results will be clearly understood by the genetist(?) and that we will understand them as well. Brian and I are getting blood work done to be able to compare our DNA strands against Deanna's to be more thorough.

Here is my baby girl and her proud brothers on Wednesday evening.

We spent Sunday morning at the hospital, then had a family lunch out. Here are the boys and I in front of the entrance to the hospital.

Today (Monday) the night nurse had her dressed in the morning when I got here...it was so good and refreshing to see. She is starting to look "normal" being in clothes and not having so many lines of wires from her body.

Here is Deanna's first cast. They will be changing her cast weekly to accomodate her growth and help fix her club foot.

I forgot to mention on earlier posts...

Deanna's birth weight was 6lbs. 12 oz. We don't know how long she is??

She was "term" at 39 weeks and 2 days.

Her birthday was July 5th.

The reason she is in the NICU was that she was really stressed in labor and for a couple days before. With the cord wrapped around her neck twice, she was deprived of the good stuff for too long, that is why the doctors are checking all possible things.

Deanna Nicole -Part 2

Just a side note---read previous blog first to get the right order of events.

After going to the recovery room for 1 1/2 hours, I was taken to see Deanna. She was all hooked up to lots of different things. We were told she had lots of meconium and that she is getting the help she needs right now.

Here is our first picture together as mother and daughter.

Look at Deanna's hair-we thought it was going to be light and curly, but it has changed a lot.
The boys came by in the afternoon to see her face. The nurse covered up a lot of the cords so they wouldn't be scared for her- Adam's first question when they came to my room- Where is she?

I went to my room and she stayed in NICU.

WE were given lots of information the next time we went to see her, but honestly I can't remember what time it was or what was said...it is all a blur. I spent the next 3 days in the hospital and with each day there was information overload as to what went on with Deanna. I was and am recovering fine. I don't feel too bad considering a c-section is a major surgery. I always trusted God to look after Deanna and I raised my hands in worship that I had another day with her. Each morning that I see her, I praise Him for another day. I thank Him for each feature on her body (working or not) and know that we can get through this obstacle.

After day 2, Deanna has made progress for the better. She didn't have pneumonia, but there are other causes of concern. WE are awaiting chromosomal tests to eliminate any possible abnormalities. Some of the concern of the drs. is that her hands are positioned differently than most newborns. They are in the right spot placement-wise, but she holds them in a relaxed way, not with her fists clenched. They also noticed that her forearms are short, her eyes are really sunken, and her ears lay flat. We don't know if there is a connection between all of these things or not, maybe it is the way she was "crafted." Deanna will also be wearing a cast for the first few months of her life. Her right foot is a club foot, this is a common genetic abnormality and not related to the delivery or how she was laying in utero.

Deanna's heart is normal, her lungs are good, her brain is looking good,but we will see more info on an ultrasound being taken on Monday. She has shown a blood clot in the "air pocket" in her brain. This can be normal for newborns after delivery, but again, we will know more later. We pray for complete reabsorbption back into the brain of the blood.

She currently is being moved to a level 2 room instead of the level 3 where she has spent the last 6 days. This is great news!! She is off the ventilator, off any pain medications, and is currently on cortisone (her body used her supply up in the labor process) and antibiotics. She is being fed through a NG tube-through her nose and straight to her belly, of my breast milk and is doing well with it.

Here is the latest picture: Deanna is off the ventilator-YAY!!!!

Deanna Nicole Kraft

Let's start at the beginning...

On Thursday, July 2nd, I went to my check-up appointment and had no news. I was barely dilated and my cervix was pretty far back, so things didn't look very immediate for baby.

On Friday, I helped sell some of my junk at a garage sale w/ my friends, hung out and visited and about lunch time felt contractions more consistent (10 minutes apart) for the rest of the day. I called the dr. about 4 pm w/ some complaint of sharp pain down low, but was reassured that my cervix was most likely dropping b/c it needed to in order for delivery to get closer. There was no change in my contractions. We went to supper at Olive Garden(tried it Susan:))--it was sooooo good and the closest the contractions came were 7 or 8 minutes apart,but most of the time they were 10. I felt like nighttime was going to be show time so I packed my bag for the middle of the night rush- that is how both Casey and Adam began their debut. I slept really good, got up once to go potty and fell right back asleep. The next morning, I was a little disappointed...

On Saturday, the 4th of July, the boys and I went to the Wellington parade and then headed home to pack the car for camping and a rodeo on Sunday. We got up to the Maxwell Ranch (CSU's summer pasture) about 3 pm and sat around during a rain, ate supper under a tree, then dried up by the fire, roasted marshmallows, and lit off fireworks. Brian and I stayed up until 11 drying off the only pair of jeans and boots that I brought for the boys by the fire and then called it a night (so we thought).

2:30am- Got up to potty in the woods, fell back asleep between contractions. They were about 7 minutes apart. I was debating whether to pack it all up or wait until they were 5 minutes apart to make the journey back to town. I started watching the clock...

4 am- Felt that I may not have "drip dried" enough...got up to make sure and WHOOSH! I felt a feeling that I had yet to experience. I waddled to the outhouse, then came back to tell Brian, "It's time to go!" We loaded up the sleeping boys, and all that was in the tent and started the bumpy drive to the highway in about 20 minutes. THe drive down 287 usually takes 1 1/2 hours, but Brian kicked it up a notch and we arrived in Fort Collins in about 45 minutes. My contractions were still only 5 minutes apart and not to painful so we took the boys to his parents' house, stopped at home so Brian could change out of his campfire clothes and then headed to the hospital.

5:45am- I am admitted to the hospital and shown my room, asked to leave a sample-What??? Apparantly she wasn't told my water broke and for the past 2 hours I have been leaving samples on everything. Another nurse begins the admission process, but is quickly distracted by my answer to the color of the water leaking from me. She checks it out and then moves quickly into action upon realizing that there was meconium involved. My contractions progress...it hurts...after about 10x breathing through, more nurses come in to help me w/ changing positions. Deanna's heartrate was "decelerated" after each contraction and took longer each time to get to "normal". They brought in the ultrasound machine to check her position and reasssured me that she was head down, but must have the cord around her to have such a slow recovery after each contraction. Another one...I changed positions again...this time her heartrate went to 85...another one...etc. My doctor was now present along with my closest nurse friends-all 7 of them--and it was decided that the cord was definetly wrapped around her. They checked me again, I was only a 5 with contractions 4-5 minutes apart. Did I mention that I really did not enjoy having my water broken? It is a gross feeling-trust me and I kept getting fresh bedding underneath me and still was complaining.

THe next thing I know a different dr. comes in and discusses w/ my dr. that a c-section is the safest way to deliver Deanna w/o compromise. I signed some papers...they talk to Brian...and off I am being rushed down the hospital corridor into a meat locker! Within minutes my legs are numb and my toes are tingly and the drs. ask me if I can feel that? It was the initial slice into my belly. They deemed it safe to bring Brian in now that I can't feel anything. hmmm??

I was awake during the c-section and was making some jokes. Word got out that I was camping and sleeping on the ground just hours ago and the drs. were poking fun at me/us. After some time, they pulled Deanna out and reassured me that they didn't want her to cry. There was a lot of meconium in the placenta and they needed to clean her out first. The cord was wrapped twice around her neck and once around her shoulders. We were told that she probably would have pnemonia b/c of her environment. She was rushed away and I lay open in a meat locker.