Halloween...better late than never!

I decided that I need to learn to sew. I was determined to sew Zoey's costume without any help from my mom. I did however go to the store with my mom just to make sure I was getting the right things. I actually really enjoyed sewing this! I think this is the first project I have sewn with a pattern in forever that I didn't end up in tears from frustration! But...I didn't accomplish my goal. I ended up needing my mom's help for the hat. I was pretty happy with it overall though!

KSL Story

Here is the link to our story! Click here

I am happy with the way it turned out! Thanks Jennifer and KSL!

Milk Allergy and Watch KSL

Everything at the hospital tested for came back negative which was a really good thing. Since they couldn't find anything they told us it was a milk allergy. We don't know for sure if she has a milk allergy, because they just told us that by default. We go into her Pediatrician on Wednesday to find out what he thinks about what kind of a diet we should have her on. The downfall of trying milk products again is that if she begins to have bloody stool again we would need to go back up to Primary's because there will always be that risk of NEC since she has the heart defect. Primary's suggested we keep her on a non dairy diet for now, and then in a couple months try again. I am thinking maybe keep her on a non dairy diet for a couple weeks and then try again because our insurance is changing at the end of the year and I would rather take the chance of another visit to Primary's this year.
She is such a happy baby! All the nurses at the hospital couldn't get over how often she was smiling and giggling! Here is a picture of her playing with her monitors. Ha Ha!


Watch KSL Wednesday night at 10:00 PM! Jennifer Stagg (same reporter that interviewed Stacey and Angela about Twilight) from KSL came over to our house today to do an interview with us about the meth apartment we moved into and about Zoey! Of coarse since they have shots of Zoey it will be a hit! :) Not that I am biased or anything! :)

Home Again!

I will update more later tonight, but I just wanted to do a short little post letting everyone know we are coming home. Details later, but they told us they think it is a milk allergy. So that is good news...I guess? At least that means she won't need another surgery!

Back up at Primary's

Tuesday night Zoey started to not feel good. She woke up Wednesday morning with a diaper rash. Thursday came and her diaper rash got worse and started to blister and bleed so I took her to the doctors. They gave me a prescription strength cream and off we went. Early Friday morning she started to poop blood so we took her to the doctors as soon as they opened. They did some tests and said they thought everything would check out fine. They gave me a special non-dairy formula to feed her and sent us home. We weren't home for 30 minutes when they called back and said that her tests didn't turn out fine and that we needed to go up to Primary's right away.

We still aren't sure what is wrong yet. They are doing some tests, but we won't get the results back until tomorrow and some on Monday. There is a possibility she has Necrotizing Enterocolitis which is poor blood flow in the baby's intestines. This may lead to an infection in the wall of the intestine or bowel. It can cause a portion on her intestines to die in which case she will need surgery to have that portion of her intestines removed. They are also testing for a dairy allergy and infections.

Healing

Zoey's scar is looking so good! This is a picture of what it looked like before we came home from the hospital.


Here is a picture of what it looks like now!


Doesn't it look great!

September Update #2 and Conference Weekend

There were a couple of things I forgot to add on my September post, better late than never right? I went back to work at the beginning of September (right when I stopped posting updates...what a coincidence, right? ha ha) It is taking a bit of an adjustment to be a working mom, although I am very blessed to have the job I have. It is the perfect job for me! I work from home for 1-800-CONTACTS. I work from 4AM-8AM Monday-Friday and on Saturday from 4-2:30 PM. I am not a morning person, so it is taking some adjustment to go to bed early so I can wake up at 4:00 AM. Adam is able to take care of Zoey while I work, except on Saturdays she sometimes will go to my mom's if Adam has to work. During the week, Zoey takes a nap with me after my shift so that is nice!

We blessed Zoey on September 20th at our home. We had to limit the number of people we invited so Zoey wouldn't be exposed to too many people at once. We invited mine and Adam's siblings, all of Zoey's grandparents and of coarse our Bishop. Zoey is very blessed to have 13 grandparents, so even with limiting our guests we still had quite a few people!

The whole group!

Adam's side of the family

My side of the family

More pictures!






Here is a picture I have been really excited for! Our 5 generation picture! Here we have Great Great Grandma Bawden, Great Grandma Willard, Grandma Jacobs, myself, and Zoey! All girls! How fun and special is that!

5 generation hands



Zoey slept so funny for a few days in September. You can't really tell from the pictures, but her arms are not resting on the pillow. She actually has her arms in the air. Doesn't look very comfortable to me! If we didn't swaddle her, she slept like this every time for almost a week! Ha ha!



I really enjoyed listening to conference this past weekend. During Saturday's second session we made sugar cookies. Zoey is usually happy if she can see what mommy and daddy are doing and feels like she is involved so we had her on the counter helping us!




My favorite talk this past weekend was President Monson's talk about service. It reminded me that I need to do better at serving others, but it also reminded me of all the kind acts of service we have received the past few months. Thank you all so much for helping us and supporting us. We really appreciate all that has been done.

September Post! Update!

Well, a lot has happened this past month! Zoey is getting so big and is much more alert. She has started to smile and her smile just melts my heart! Here is a video taken earlier this month of her smiling.


Here is just a cute picture I took one day. Notice her little hair on the back of her head that pokes straight up. Ha Ha! It is so cute! I just love it! It always stands up like that! It reminds me of all the baby cartoons that you see where they have one hair poking straight up! That is my little Zoey! What a cutie!



For Labor Day weekend, we had planned on going to Adam's family cabin. A few days before we left I was talking to Zoey's Pediatrician and he said that he didn't suggest to take Zoey in any elevation above 5500 feet above sea level since the air is so much thinner up there than it is here. Zoey's oxygen levels were not very good that week and we couldn't risk them going any lower. We were pretty disappointed to hear this because we needed a vacation badly. We decided to go up to Lava Hot Springs. We went with Adam's family. It was so much fun! Zoey can't go in public so Zoey stayed the whole time in the house we stayed in, but it was still so fun! Here are some pics from the weekend!
We did get her picture by the sign that says Lava! Had to get a picture of something for her first vacation!



Going down the river!


We broke the rules once and took Zoey out in public and participated in a heart walk. It was a mile walk, so not too long since a lot of the people participating have heart defects. We had so much fun getting Zoey ready for her "walk." We gave her a sweat band and put on her walking shoes. Also, her pants are covered in hearts. She was just so cute! Grandma Jacobs and Aunt Marci (aka "Auntie M") also came along! Next year I will make sure I let you all know about the walk with plenty of time in advance so we can all do it together to support little Zoey! It was so cool to go to the heart walk and see lots of people who have been affected by heart defects. Not that it is neat to see that lots of people have been effected, it was just good to be with people who are in our situation, and to see older healthy kids with heart defects. Here are the pictures from the walk!




Because Zoey can't go out in public, we blessed Zoey at home. I don't have the pictures right now from the blessing because they are on a different camera I don't have right now. But, but I will post them later in the week.

Zoey had her 2 month well check on Monday. She is doing better with her weight! She weighs 10 lbs 3 oz and is in the 31st percentile. This is major improvement. Zoey was in the 11th percentile for her weight when we took her home from the hospital. She is 22 1/2 inches long, which is in the 53rd percentile.

We went today to Primary Children's for a clinic visit. She is doing really well. Here is a picture of what she looked like when they were monitoring her heart. She wasn't very happy when they started doing all the tests! I think she likes being home much better than at the hospital.


Welcome fall! I love the fall! It is my favorite season! Since it was so cold today, we put a hat on Zoey before taking her to Primarys. Oh! She is just so cute! Sorry the picture is a little blurry.


Just a little update on the nursing thing...yeah, that isn't happening. I talked to a lactation consultant and she said that Zoey was "ruined." So I kinda gave up on it, but tonight I got a recommendation from a friend for a different lactation consultant so I think I will try her and see what we happens. We will just keep trying. I hate pumping!

Well, there you have it! My long update with pictures of the blessing to come! I will try to do better at updating this thing more often! :)

You know you need to update when...

You start getting comments on your old post asking for an update! Sadly though, this is not the update you are all looking for-BUT I PROMISE to do a BIG LONG update by Wednesday at the latest!

Pictures and Update!

Zoey has done really well over the past week. On Tuesday we went to her Pediatrician and she weighed 8 lbs 3 oz! She is starting to gain weight! Yeah! On Wednesday we went back up to Primarys for her follow up visit. They said she was doing great and they were happy with her weight gain. They said that I didn't have to wake her up every 3 hours anymore to eat!!! THANK HEAVENS!!! That was getting old, and I wasn't even waking up to my alarm anymore. Zoey would wake up to the alarm before I would and then she would cry and I would wake up to her crying. So everyone here is getting a much better nights rest now. She usually goes about 4 hours inbetween feedings and sometimes she will even go 5 hours! Yahoo! They also told me I could start trying to nurse her every other feeding. There are some restrictions that go along with nursing her though. First off, she obviously still needs to gain weight. Secondly, she needs to still drink from a bottle since she will be going back up to the hospital for another surgery when she is 5-7 months old. Zoey hasn't shown much interest in nursing though. Has anyone tried to teach a 1 month old to nurse? Any suggestions? I know I just need to be patient, I am just not very good at being patient.

Wednesday night we went to Kiddie Kandids in South Towne Mall and got pictures taken! I love them!

My Little Zoey

Today we went to another Doctor appointment for Zoey. This appointment was with her Peditrition. They weighed her there and she weighed 7 lbs 7 oz...only 2 oz more than when she was born! I had been telling Adam the other day that I thought she was getting so big so fast-but 2 oz in 3 weeks I guess really isn't fast! She is eating good, so it suprised me that she has gained so little. I guess that is what heart surgery and throwing up all weekend does to you though. I want her to stay my little baby-but it would be good for her if she started putting on the pounds!

Being Home is GREAT!

Sorry I haven't updated for a week! Every spare moment I have had I have slept! :) Zoey is doing great! We have really enjoyed her special spirit here in our house. She is a good sleeper at night, and many nights she only has waken up twice to eat.
Wednesday we went in to her Peditrition. She had been eating well at this point and hadn't needed her feeding tube for the whole day. The doctor said that if she went 3 days without using the feeding tube we could take it out. Later that night, she pulled the feeding tube out herself. She must not have understood the waiting the 3 days part-she just knew take it out! We didn't put it back in because she never needed it!
Friday night she started to throw up and would eat very little. She slept very little that night, and wasn't doing any better Saturday morning. We took her back up to Primary's, they determined that she just had a upset stomach and they were just about to release us and then Zoey started breathing really fast and they were afraid that she had a respiratory virus like RSV. They decided she needed to spend the night for observation while they ran some tests. She did really well that night, and they released her Sunday afternoon. Since then she has done great!

Welcome Home Zoey!

We made it! Zoey has done so well! We are so excited to be home! We were released from the hospital today at about 2:30 PM. It is so great to be home! We really have been so blessed. I cannot thank you all enough for the prayers and support each one of you have given. We wouldn't be home today without all the prayers, fasting, and priesthood blessings. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

So we were released from the hospital with only one prescription and Tylenol. Can you believe that? It is amazing! She does have the feeding tube, but she doesn't need oxygen! Our insurance is also paying for a nurse to come to our house 3 times a week to check on her and make sure everything is ok. We have to go back to Primary's in 2 weeks for a check up, but that is all our discharge instructions! She is just doing great!

Her shirt says "Follow Your Heart"

Our house was decorated so cute! What a surprise!

The nurse said "Home"

Zoey really has done unbelievably well! It really amazes me how strong she is. She hasn't even needed any pain meds all day today-and she had heart surgery 4 days ago! Geez...I had a baby 2 weeks ago and I am still taking pain meds! She also hasn't needed oxygen today either. She makes leaps and bounds of improvements every day!

We are becoming more and more comfortable with her feeding tube. It really isn't as bad as it looks. Adam even took her old one out and put the new one in. It does make it easier for giving her meds! She has to drink 55 ml of milk every 3 hours. She drank 5 ml today at her 2:00 pm feeding(the rest goes in her feeding tube,) 21 ml at 5:00 pm, ALL 55 ml for her 8:00 and 11:00 pm feeding. If she keeps eating good we will be taking out the feeding tube soon!

So because she is way ahead of schedule, the nurse said they will possibly be sending us home tomorrow! If not tomorrow it will be on Tuesday! She has received such great care up here, but we are sure excited to go home!


They took the dressing off of her incision today. We were a little surprised of how big it was. She is going to have a nice scar! The little red mark on the bottom is from the drainage tube.

Proof she drank her bottle! :)

Mommy got one of Daddy holding her sleeping too!

She had to practice going home by sitting in her car seat for as long as it takes for us to drive home. They did this to monitor her oxygen levels to make sure the incline of the car seat won't harm her. She did great! Looks like she is ready to head home too! She is even holding the car seat straps like she is ready for takeoff!