Evelyn is 1 week today... YAY

Good evening everyone,

Welcome back!!! Evelyn turned one week today and is doing well. She is still in the NICU and we don't have a timeline when she will come home yet, but we are happy to say she is out of her isolet[??]. As of this morning she has been doing a great job regulating her own temperature. She is still 4lbs 13oz and that seems to be the major reason now she is still in NICU. She needs to show the Dr's that she is able to eat enough on her own before they will remover her feeding tube. So far, she has only eaten all of her food just a couple times.
Overall we are really happy with the current pregression and as much as we cant wait to bring her home with us we do want to make sure her health is at the forefront. After all she is only 36 weeks old today.
Katie spent the first night in the "parents room" at the hospital but has since moved back home since we live so close. It opens the room for parents that arent as fortunate as us and live 15 minutes away or have babies that are sicker than Evelyn.
Logan is doing well too. We are working on trying to get him back on somewhat of a normal schedule again. He is as happy as a two year old could be and looks forward to another day with dada home from work.
Here are a few more recent pics. We didnt get one of Evelyn in her isolet, but it is in some of the previous posts.

Evelyn Louise Kirsch

As promised here are some more pics....

welcoming our newest edition, baby Kirsch

Hello everyone,

Well I am sure many of you, if not all, have heard the news that our newest member has arrived into the family. She is much earlier than we expected, but she knows " when its baby's time, it's baby time." We are more than happy to welcome her, too.
We still haven't found her perfect name yet, but have narrowed down the list to two, so standby for her name very soon.
What we can say about her, is that she is a very precious, beautiful little girl with blond hair like her mom. She was born 5lbs 4 oz at 11:09am Jan 8th. She was born via C-section because she was transverse. (I'll let Katie talk more about the procedure or the early stages) To say the least it was unexpected and sudden news for the 3 of us.

At first she didn't have to go into the NICU because she met the weight criteria of 5lbs or more, but has since been admitted into the NICU. Initially her respiratory rate was in the 90's which is high but not too abnormal for the first 4 hours as she was 5 weeks early and only 5+lbs. Having been born via C-section, she didn't get the chance of going through the normal birth canal which allows all or most of the fluid in her lungs to be pushed out. So, she retained some of the fluid hence the higher respiratory rate as she expels the fluid. She has also recently had a hard time regulating her temperature so they have moved her into the incubator to assist keeping her warm. They found that she would spend so much energy trying to stay warm that she didn't have anymore to eat so would then become hypoglycemic and lethargic. She has already lost 5% of her birth weight; the normal is 6% so she will have to catch up a bit, but has taken to a bottle of formula pretty well until Katie's breast milk arrives.

Katie's mom made it out here from Minnesota and has since been an enormous relief for all of us. We obviously can't thank her enough, and my sister Heidi for helping us get her tickets out here.

Logan has been handling it well so far too. He has yet to see her as he isn't allowed in the NICU, but Amy Jo hart helped us watch him all day on the 8th so he still got to have fun at the park and play in the abnormally warm 70 degree California winter.

Even though "she" is in the NICU, Katie has still been able to go see her and feed her. At first Katie was confined to her bed post-surgery, but after a few hours of momma being away from her little cub she had had enough and put her foot down. Since then she has got to hold and feed her every 3 hours. Katie has developed a sudden pain in the same side of her chest that her pneumo was on so they are looking into that but hopefully its just post surgery symptoms or dehydration.... More to follow on that.

Ok, well here is a much awaited picture or two of our newest baby Kirsch!!!!




Sean

Christmas Vacation fun

Merry Christmas 2011

As promised here are a few pics from our Christmas out west...

Christmas Eve and I can't wait till tomorrow

Just thought we would share a few pics of an early present Logan got to open and play with today. He sure cant wait till tomorrow though as he knows Santa is coming tonight.
I have been off this entire week so its been truly way too much fun playing all day with him and hanging out with Katie. Time has flown by though and heading back to work next week. Until then, we will make the most of our sunny and warm California weather, although we sincerely miss the snow and winter activities.
Anyway, more to come tomorrow.
Merry Christmas everyone

S

Baby girl update

Hello! Here is a profile pic of our baby girl at 31 weeks (sorry about the annoying flash). As I mentioned, I had to have a growth ultrasound last week to see how big she was. The ultrasound went great, she is in the 34th percentile, so, a little bit small, but they only start to worry when they are 10th percentile or less. So, she is doing great!

On another note, she is transverse (laying sideways in there), and has been for several weeks now. It makes me nervous because if she doesn't flip over, a c-section could be in our horizon. I was thinking about trying to have her with no meds this time around, and now I'm just hoping that I can deliver her myself. With the abnormalities of my uterus, it is not safe to do a version (turn the baby by hand). If you are unaware of my abnormality, I have a bicornuate uterus, it is heart shaped. So right now, her head is up in one lobe, her butt is down at the bottom, and her feet are in the other lobe, a very precarious position! Her positioning has been causing a lot of discomfort during the last few weeks of my pregnancy. In the end, just having a healthy baby is what matters, so it is a waiting game right now to see if she can flip herself head down. We still have time.

Anyway, hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. We are sure going to miss not spending the time with family and friends this year. However, we are pretty excited for Logan this year as he has more of a grip on what's going on. I'm sure we will post some awesome present opening pics!

Hugs and Kisses,

Katie