baby

  • 28 Days Later

    Four weeks ago, we welcomed Layla into this world. It was painful, scary, wonderful, and she blessed us with her first breaths immediately. She still resides at Children’s Mercy Hospital where we spend our days with her. We’ve had so many ups and downs during her stay here – I wanted to document the experience…

  • Grip Strength

    The days here at the hospital seem to follow a pretty consistent up and down roller coaster pattern, and today has been one of those days. It started out great, with an update from Layla’s nurse that she had made good progress eating from the bottle overnight with minimal puking. Poor girl is trying to learn to…

  • Hurry Up and Wait

    Layla is 13 days old and I’m writing this as we sit in her room at the Children’s Mercy PICU. There are what looks like a thousand wires and tubes connecting machines to each other and to her. Her heart and lungs are currently being supported by ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation), which she’s been relying…

  • Calm Before the Storm

    May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. –Nelson Mandela My countdown app says “4” days till Layla. And unless she makes an early appearance on her own, we are on the books at Children’s Mercy to get labor started this Monday morning, November 2nd. I spent my last day of work in the…

  • What a Difference 2 Years Makes

    It’s hard to believe two years ago today, we spent that fearful day at the hospital and found out about Skyler’s heart condition. It seems so much longer ago, especially when I watch her run around crazy every evening like a chicken on speed. There are times I pick her up and hold her during…

  • Bikers for Babies – Here we Come!

    Ever since Skyler went through her ordeal, I’ve wanted to be a part of Bikers for Babies. This is an awesome charity event that happens nationwide, but the Kansas City Bikers for Babies is the largest March of Dimes charity ride in the nation, and one of the largest rides for any charity in the…

  • Random updates

    – Skyler is repeating so many words lately! If she knows what something is and I point to it and say it, she tries to say the word also. It’s so cute because her versions are vary toddlerific – diaper is “biper,” up is “Puh,” Bruno is “Bobo,” pasta is “papa,” and so on. It’s…

  • Baby

    Tonight Skyler and I were “reading” her book that has a bunch of photos of real babies in it. By reading I mean that she rapidly turns the pages and every now and then points something out of interest to her for that split second before turning the page again. I repeated the word “baby”…

  • Weighing In

    Skyler had a check-up this morning, complete with another part of her flu shot, which is always fun! It was fairly uneventful (though you would think from her wailing that they were torturing her with 1,000 needles), but she got weighed and measured and she has gone through quite the growth spurt! She was 21…

  • Time Out

    Skyler has been testing her limits. She will do something over and over again each time I tell her no, and sometimes she’ll do it just halfway, look at me and smile slyly, waiting for me to scold her. It’s so adorable but I have to be strong and stern at the same time so…