Avery Update

So I came home last night to get a few things done at home and go to work since Nicole (Hillary's mom) arrived today. Hillary and Avery are still at Children's Mercy, but now in the company of Grandma Griffiths.
For those of you that haven't already heard, we found out that Avery has a heart defect. From what the doctors have said it's not too major. She has Pulmonary Artery/Valve Stenosis (undersized artery and valve from the heart to the lungs), and a Ventricular Septal Defect (opening) between the bottom 2 chambers of the heart. The stenosis limits the blood going from the heart to the lungs to be oxygenated. The septal defect allows the blue blood (not oxygenated) to mix with the red blood and go through the body. This can cause a low oxygen saturation in the blood which can cause the baby to turn blue or grey. Fortunately she is nice and pink and hasn't had any sign of turning colors at all. They don't think her case is too severe. Her defect is close to a defect called "Tetrology of Fallot". If she had a full case of that defect, they would call her a "Pink Tet", because she doesn't turn blue. The Cardiologist made sure to emphasize that while she has 2 of the associated defects, he doesn't consider her to be full Tetrology patient. They said that as far as heart defects go, it's one of the better ones to have. It is operable, so she will have to have surgery to fix it. Since it isn't an urgent surgery, they want to wait for her to grow and get bigger and stronger before they operate. Usually they wait 9 months to a year before they do it. They did say that there is always a small chance it could grow and correct itself, but more than likely it will have to be fixed surgically. We hope and pray that she won't have any lasting affects and can be a happy, healthy, and active just like all the other little girls!
In the mean time she is doing pretty well. She is steadily progressing towards hopefully coming home soon. At this point they she is just like any other baby born a little early. She started by slowly weaning off of oxygen to room air, moving into a regular crib (not heated), and now she is learning how to mouth feed good enough to go home. She is being a little lazy and stubborn (not sure where she gets that from...), but is getting better and better at it. Yesterday the Nurse also removed the IV. So now all that's hooked up are the monitors and the feeding tube in her nose. We are proud of her for the progress she has made.
It's been fun just to spend time with her and hold her all day long, even though all she does is sleep. It hasn't been so fun spending all that time in the hospital! In the NICU they don't have any T.V's, no cell phones, only 2 visitors at a time, one of which has to be a parent or grandparent, and they don't allow you to fall asleep at the bedside! Not even a little nap! The only things we could do was read and hang out together. Time together is great, but I was getting pretty stir crazy by last night. Going to work today was actually kind of exciting and relieving! They did have a computer room available which helped a little.
Since we live far enough away from the hospital, we were able to get a room at the Ronald McDonald House across the street. Definitely a huge blessing, I don't know what we would have done without it. I never really understood what they were before. This one is kind of like a hotel/dorm. They have a big community kitchen, with lots of donated food stocked. They also have different organizations that volunteer and bring in big buffet meals about every night. HUGE blessing!
So hopefully all will continue to go well and we can bring her home by this weekend. We really appreciate all the thoughts and prayers and support from everybody, it has been a huge help in many ways! Here are a few more pictures that I brought home with me. Hillary has some more that are in the memory card that is still in the camera, so I'm sure you will all see plenty more pictures!

Momma saying goodbye before the transfer

In the transfer incubator

At the NICU

She enjoys the pacifier

Avery Jane Brown

I still don't have a lot of time to tell the whole story, but here is the important info...

We have settled on the name after much debate, of course Hillary won. Avery is doing well. She has long fingers and long monkey toes, she appears to have my cleft chin. She has one ear that sticks out and one that lays flat, hopefully they will even out!

She is on a little oxygen to help her maintain her oxygen level and help her not work so hard to breath. She is being transferred to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City to run some tests and double check a few things. She is stable and there doesn't seem to be anything too alarming at this point, so she isn't critical or anything. Hopefully it stays that way and we can bring her home soon.

Hillary was just released from the hospital, so we just got home to grab a few things and get ready to head up to KC. We are excited and still not quite sure what to think yet! Here are a bunch of pics for everybody that has been begging to see-

Thanks everybody for your continued thoughts and prayers in the behalf of Hillary and our little Avery! I'm sure Hillary will fill you all in on all the gruesome details as soon as everything settles down a little.

She is Here!

Hillary gave birth to our tiny baby girl! She was born Thurs. August 20th at 9:51 p.m. at Western Missouri Medical Center here in Warrensburg. Since she insisted on coming this early she is pretty small. 4 lbs 15 oz, 18" long.
Hillary's water broke just before 4 pm, so it wasn't too long for her. They are both doing really well. Everything went very smooth. Since it's about 2 a.m. right now I will post later with more details and plenty of pictures. We both haven't for about 13 or 14 hours, so it's time for a middle of the night food run!

Update

Hi everyone! Just wanted to give you a little update on my status (if you haven't already heard). I am home from the hospital now. They released me Thursday night and I am now on bed rest until this baby comes. The Dr. did an ultrasound and checked to see if I was dialated any more and everything was the exact same as it was when I was admitted. The Dr. said I am far enough along now that our hospital here should be able to take care of me. They are still concerned about the umbilical cord/excess fluid should my water break at home (I will spare you the graphic details they discussed with me about that), but since the baby's head is down, the chances are fairly low...but I am still considered high risk. So everything is good and as long as I stay down, I'm ok. I really hope my water doesn't break at home, so I don't have to worry about getting to the hospital super fast, but at the same time I am SO done. Part of me wants to just have this baby now and get it all over with, but at the same time, I don't want to have a premature baby that could possibly have problems. So I will sit here at home and hopefully have a few more weeks before she arrives.

Didn't even see it coming

So... For those of you who haven't heard, Hillary is in the hospital. Don't panic, she (and the baby) are ok, and the baby is still inside her. For now... So here is the long story.

A few weeks ago Hillary's doctor decided that she wanted to see another ultrasound because she wanted to make sure the baby wasn't breached. So just over a week ago on Friday we went in and had a regular ultrasound here in Warrensburg. Everything seemed normal, the baby was head down and in a good postion. The technichian was pretty quiet, seemed like she may have been kind of new.

A few days later Hillarys Dr. called her personally and said she was a little concerned about a few things, nothing too major. She said there seemed to be an extra amount of fluid and wanted to investigate a little more with a type 2 ultrasound (more in depth I guess).

So this last Friday we went to her normal appt in the morning, and then went to the ultrasound all the way in Overland Park, Kansas. Just SW of Kansas City (about an hour away from home). It was the closest place that accepted our insurance and specialized in Perinatal care. Hillary's stomach has been pretty tight for a while and has had a fair amount of Braxton-Hicks contractions (I think that's what it's called), we didn't get the impression that this was too out of the ordinary.

The Dr. doing the Ultrasound said that there seemed to be even more extra fluid than the week before. She couldn't see why it was happening and said that the baby seemed to be healthy and normal. The she checked her cervix and said that she was already dilated to a 3, the week before it had been normal. Because of the quick progression, and the tightness and contractions, the Dr. felt like it was pretty serious and acted like she thought the baby was coming sooner rather than later. (about 5-6 weeks early at this point). They promptly rushed us down the hall, admitted Hillary into the hospital, and before we knew it she was in a gown, in a room, and hooked up to moniters... Kind of a surprise for us, we had just planned on going out to dinner for our anniversary afterwards and heading home. Needless to say we were not prepared for a stay in the hospital.

Our Bishop and I gave Hillary a good blessing Friday evening, and since then she has has actually been doing really well and isn't having any further problems. The Dr. still seems to think that the baby will be here pretty soon and wants to keep her there for close obsevation. They gave Hillary a couple of steroid shots to help the babys lungs develop faster in case she decide to come soon. So we are hoping and praying that the baby holds off as long as possible, but until then Hillary seems to be held hostage in the Overland Park Regional Medical Center.

She will either have the baby there soon, or if she makes it another week or 2 we can bring her home to rest and have it here in Warrensburg. Through it all we have felt really positive and really feel like everything will work out ok. Hillary is going to hopefully have a very boring stay at the hospital, and I am going to be doing lots of driving and sleeping some nights a very uncomfortable fold out hospital chair.

Thanks to those who have already shown us so much support, we appreciate it! I will try to post updates when I can.