Kendall is a Growing Girl

She has been eating through the bottle more frequently now, which is required to leave the hospital. Cathy has been pumping milk every 3-4 hours and we bring it to the hospital for her. Here, I am feeding her a bottle and she has been taking about 1-2 ounces every feeding. She is doing great and regularly goes 3-4 hours between feedings. We're hoping that this is a sign of sleeping through the night as soon as she gets home. We told the nurses to make sure that they get her into a pattern that works for us!

More Visits to the Hospital

Every day, Kendall has been making progress, gaining weight and surpassing where the doctors and nurses thought she would be. Only a few days went by and she was able to have the IV removed. She still had the feeding tube through her nose and a heart rate monitor. Overall, she has been doing great.

Visting Kendall

We got to visit Kendall whenever we wanted. Our visits to the hospital became a routine. Cathy would go first thing in the day and spend the morning with her. She would either come home for lunch or stay at the hospital (getting free lunch) and then come home around dinner time. I would then go visit her for her feeding around 8:30. I would try to spend a few hours with her, feed her and just hold her for a while. It was a very peaceful experience for both of us. Sitting with her and holding her cleared our minds of everthing outside of the NICU. Nothing else seemed as important as being there for her.

She lost a little weight at first, dropping down to about 3 pounds. She quickly started taking feedings and was gaining about 1 oz/day and was quickly back to her birth weight after about 1 week.

She had to stay in the incubator until she could maintain her own body temperature.

Cathy gets to go Home

Although Kendall had to stay in the NICU, Cathy was doing so well after her surgery, that she was able to go home less than 3 days after delivering Kendall by c-section. It was so hard leaving the hospital without Kendall, but we knew that it was important for her to stay until she was ready.

Kendall Meets More Family

Some of the other family members get to finally meet Kendall. Going into the NICU required that Cathy or I were there and a scrub down was required to make sure that infection didn't get in.

Kendall Moves to NICU

After Kendall was born, she had to quickly move to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Upon entering, she had to be monitored a number of different ways, including her heart rate, blood oxygen level and a few other things. Since her veins weren't strong enough to sustain an IV, the doctor had to insert a tube through her umbilical cord. It was sad to see her take on all these different tubes and cords into her little body. She was so strong and handled everything so well.

After about a day, Cathy was finally able to go over and see Kendall. It was so hard on her to not be able to hold Kendall.

Kendall is born! 7/18/07 6:35pm

At a routine Level 2 ultrasound, the doctor found that although the fluid flows were strong, the baby wasn't growing. At around 4:00pm, the ultrasound doctor decided that it might make sense for us to deliver the baby 4 days out. She sent us over to talk to Cathy's doctor and her doctor told us that she wasn't growing because the cord was around her neck. The doctor decided that it was time to have an emergency c-section. Cathy walked over to check in to the maternity ward and within 2 hours, Kendall Victoria was born! She weighed in at 3lbs 4oz.