A Favor To Ask

The 2nd week was just as good or better than the first week home. We really enjoy being home with our little girl. We are of course busy with taking care of her, but it seems like we have so much more time since we can now be at home with her. Being able to leave work and go directly home was really kind of fun. She continues to impress us with her progress and with all of her changes. She is a lot of fun to be around. The only time she cries is when she’s hungry. Otherwise she’s pretty laid back like her daddy.

“If there is anything we can do to help, let us know.” We have heard that probably hundreds of times since McKenna was born. The reason I’m telling you this is because we have come up with a way to help. It is closing in on time for Suzanne to go back to work and we’re going to need people to watch her for a couple of weeks until we get the go ahead to put her into daycare. So what we’re asking is, if you’d like to watch McKenna for a day or week or whatever, click the link on the right hand side of this website to send us an email and let us know what days work for you and we’ll start a calendar and email you back or call you with when we’ll need you. The hours that we’ll need someone will be from 7:30am – 4:00pm. She will probably go back to work full time in May. So let us know what works for you. We appreciate any help that you can offer us. Thanks in advance. Love to all, have a great week.

What A Week

To describe this week in one word, ‘wonderful’ comes to mind. Suzanne and I have really enjoyed being home this week learning what it’s like to be a family. A couple of the days we didn’t even go outside, a couple of the days we didn’t get out of our pajamas until close to noon, and a couple nights we didn’t get to sleep very early (mostly Suzanne). For the most part, McKenna is a very well behaved child. She really only cries if she’s hungry or when we plop her into her bathtub. She sleeps anywhere from 3-5 hrs at a time. She is really getting the hang of the bottle. Lately she’ll have 2 ounces of milk gone and a couple burps in about 10 minutes. We’ve got a couple doctors’ appointments this coming week, and this last week she had another eye appointment. The eye doctor wants to be aggressive with her treatment, but doesn’t want to treat her needlessly. Next week if he sees any progress in her eyes, he will probably do the laser surgery. We really don’t know how invasive that surgery is or how much time she’ll spend in the hospital, but it is definitely scary. Something very amazing happened to us when we were leaving the hospital last Saturday. One of the couples that we shared our South Africa experience with, who also lost a son, told us that every time they find a coin, that means their son is thinking of them. As they were telling us this, Steve looked down and saw a coin. So, Suzanne and I have taken that on as well and we have found coins when we’ve least expected it, or really needed to find them. Well, when we were in the elevator leaving the NICU, there was a penny on the floor. It was very hard to keep our composure, but it just proves to us that Ian has been watching over her this whole time. I can’t wait to tell this little girl about her very special brother. She will always have her very own angel. Have a great week, unfortunately I have to go back to work. It’s been real, it’s been fun, it’s been real fun!!!

Home Sweet Home

Saturday afternoon about 2pm we left the St. Luke’s NICU to show McKenna the big, big world that has been waiting for her. It all happened so fast, when we got the go ahead to leave, we wanted to say goodbye to everyone, but we also wanted to get out of there before they changed their mind. She has been eating pretty decent. It is such a great feeling to finally have our little girl home with us. At the same time, it is very strange to have such a fragile being solely under our care. It is everything we’ve ever dreamed it to be. There are thousands of people that we would like to thank. First of all, this would’ve been a lot harder without the support and love our families and we can't thank you enough. All of our friends that have been there for us. The wonderful doctors, nurses, therapists, and other caregivers from St. Luke’s who took excellent care of her during her short (112 day) stay. We would also like to thank the large amount of people from all over the world that have prayed for this very special little girl. It is quite an honor for people to email or send us a letter that we have never met but tell us how they have prayed for McKenna every day. I sound like I’m giving an acceptance speech at the Oscars but this is much bigger!! Thank you all so very much. As much as Suzanne and I would like to invite you all here to ooogle over her, we ask that you give us some time to adjust and to have some quality “family time.” I am going to end with a poem that Suzanne wrote that we will place on our front door which is supposed to help keep germs and sick people outside our home since it can be very detrimental to McKenna’s health… Thanks again and love to all.

If you are ill
Or have a chill

McKenna can tell
If you feel not so well

I beg you please
Don’t come in if you sneeze

A cough is bad
It will make me sad

A fever is terrible
A bubble suit is unbearable

I don’t like germs
These are my terms

Thanks
-The Management

Almost there

We’re getting closer and closer with every day that goes by. It’s just a feeding here or a feeding there that is holding us back. She has not had an NG tube feeding since Wednesday. Her weight gain wasn’t up yesterday, which is very odd for our little girl. That is one of the things that she has always excelled at. This morning she was up a half ounce to 6lbs 12.5oz or 3080g or a total of 3.85 times bigger than when she was born. She had another eye appointment this week with no change. It’s too early to tell if McKenna will need to wear glasses, but I know a couple really good people that had to when they were children. The hospital has finally come to take our birth announcement picture. It can be found on St. Luke’s website. The address is:

http://www.crstlukes.com/body_exp.cfm?id=557

Once you click on it and the screen comes up, go down to the area that says ‘Other Dates’ and put in November 19, 2005 and then click ‘Go’. You will then have to click on McKenna’s name and you’ll be there. If you look real close you will not see the NG tube in her nose anymore. She was cute before, but she looks so much better without that thing in her nose. Love to all, have a great week.

-Mr. & Mrs. Patient

1 Day Old

Some of you may wonder if I have fallen off of my rocker with a title like that. But since she was so premature, her corrected age is 1 day old since yesterday was Suzanne's due date. So now she is "officially" supposed to be here. Her real age is 15 weeks, but since she isn’t the same as a baby born on the same day that was full term, we have to have an adjusted age. She is still having difficulty taking full feedings by mouth. Once she can take all of her feedings by mouth with no NG feedings for 24-48 hours, we will then be considered to go home. Every time she has to use the NG tube, then basically we start all over. She has yet to even have close to a full day of oral feedings, but each day she does take a little more and does get a little better. I would love to tell you that by the end of next week that we’ll be out of here, but I can’t guarantee anything. We are playing by McKenna’s rules because she is definitely the boss here. Enjoy your week, spring is almost here.