Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Molly Gets Ready for Christmas

Well Molly did great in her first 3 weeks of school! Last Thursday-her last day-she came home bearing a little gift bag with a card that said: For Mommy and Daddy, Love, Molly and here's what was inside...

A-dorable:)!

And here are her school friends:


There's Aiden, Dylan and Brody (brothers), Carly, Baylor, Leah and Molly. All children of teachers I work with everyday.

Our realtor sent out an invite for a free picture and visit with Santa Clause and we just couldn't pass it up. We had to wake her up to sit in Santa's lap so she was a little out of sorts at first:

But soon she warmed up to the idea:)

Our tree trimming was quite late this year but we finally got around to getting it up. Molly enjoyed the lights of course and she helped Daddy hang up all of her new ornaments.



Molly hanging her first Christmas ornament:


She was delighted that evening and so were we!

Now we're leaving our tree behind to go first to Kentucky to spend Christmas with my family and then to Mississippi for New Years. Merry Christmas one and all!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Another Addition!


Little Miss Swaylor Brantlee Lucas is here!

She was born yesterday at 4:53 (central time) and was 6 lbs. 7 oz. and 19 inches long! She's so sweet and so tiny and I can't wait to get my hands on her!



Proud Pop


This is the 3rd baby girl to be added to our family in 2009 and we sure are loving it! Hopefully we'll get to meet her around New Years when we're in for Haley's (Ryan's cousin) wedding.
Proud MiMi and Mom & Dad


She looks like a little Christmas angel:)


What a tiny thing! Well, comparatively...Molly had a good 4 lbs. and 3 inches on her:)


Welcome Baby Sway! We can't wait to meet you!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Molly's Debut

Here she is! These are the pictures that the yearbook staff took that I mentioned before:







This is 7th grader, Kelly Griffin. She did a beautiful job and Molly really liked her! Her mother, whose name was Molly, passed away when she was about 4 years old.


Friday, December 4, 2009

Molly's Busy Week

Our sweet girl started school this week! They grow up fast don't they:) Okay, so she's not in kindergarten but school nonetheless! These are her two main teachers--Miss Linda's on the left and Miss Suzy's on the right. They are super sweet and great with babies! I've had both of their children in school too so I already knew them well which was a major added bonus. They tell me Molly's doing so well and that she's an easygoing baby. We already knew that but I didn't have much to compare it to so it's certainly nice to hear from other people:)!

Getting myself and a baby ready and out the door on time in the morning is certainly taking some getting used to! Ryan's so good to help where he can before he leaves. It seems Molly is taking her dear, sweet time to finish her feedings in the mornings...it's like she knows we're in a hurry.

I tell ya, we've got the perfect set up here at school-she's well taken care of and I can peek my head in at any point to check on her. That helped a lot this week because I had to grab her frequently to practice her first starring role as Baby Jesus in our school Christmas program last night. She loved practicing in the manger:
She laid in the manger for much of the program and then during a chorus of "O Come Let Us Adore Him" the angel picked her up and signed "Lord" over her body and then sheltered her in her wing while she exited to Ryan. It was really beautiful and of course she let out some sweet cries at the end for authenticity. She was well fed before her debut--turns out she had quite the full diaper by her exit! In the midst of helping with the program I didn't get any pictures of her in her swaddling clothes but I think the yearbook staff did...I'll put them up here as soon as I get them.
Molly was so pooped she couldn't even stay awake enough to take her bath last night so she had one this morning instead. Today is Miss Suzy's 50th birthday and we all (the teachers who have children in their care) were supposed to dress our little ones in black. It's hard to find black baby clothes but I just so happened to get this adorable black onesie in some hand-me-downs from my cousin:
It's actually a newborn size! We stretched it to fit though and she has on a hot pink hoodie and sweat pants with it. We all pitched in and gave Suzy some flowers, a balloon, and a crisp 50 dollar bill.
So Molly has had quite the week! She's done so well...we're proud of our baby girl for sure! I'll post her baby Jesus pictures sometime today....

Friday, November 6, 2009

Video Trial

So, I think this was taken on our second Scottish Rite visit. I've never put a video up here before (and it takes forever to upload) but now I know it works. Too bad I stopped filming as soon as she started being smiley:) Enjoy a minute of hospital Molly...

Comparisons

A lot changes in two months! I decided to document Molly's growth with a picture series taken on the first of every month with her wardrobe being just a plain white onesie. Well, I couldn't find her new pack of 3-6 month onesies so November's pictures are sans clothing (which is even cuter:) and I'm sooo not a photographer but here she is...our growing girl! Pictures from October 1st are in the left column and pictures from November 4th (we were in the hospital on the 1st) are in the right column:

1 Month Old.............. 2 Months Old............










P.S. Click on the picture for a closer look:)

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween All

Happy Halloween 2009!
From our little Pig-in-a-Blanket!

Molly has been all smiles today! Her IV went bad making her hand swell up pretty bad this morning so they had to take it out. The good news is the doctor said she could do without it for now as long as she ate well. Yay! One less tube to worry about and get hung up on!


Her oxygen level has been all over the place today. They've turned her down and then back up several times over the course of the day which makes it seem like we're not getting anywhere with all this! Her nasal passages are pretty swollen from all the suctioning which then requires them to use a smaller catheter subsequently reducing the amount of stuff they can suck out thus requiring more oxygen support--vicious cycle much?!



A highlight of our day was celebrating Molly's 1st halloween with a hospital-made costume and a cell phone camera photo shoot (could you tell by the many variations on the same picture I've included in this post??) We didn't have her costume here so we made do with a pink gift bag, scissors, an elastic strap from an oxygen mask and some surgical tape. All the nurses and techs came by to take a look at our little piglet. She loved it (although the nose made her go crosseyed a few times:)!
So here we sit and wait...
Please pray for Molly's oxygen level to stabalize! More updates tomorrow...

Friday, October 30, 2009

A little premature...

*didn't have a camera with us so took these pics on my phone...may be a bit fuzzy*

...that is my last post about Molly's hospital happenings! Little did I know there'd be more to add to the sickness saga!
Molly had a cough (no fever) so I took her to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon. By the time we got there she was very lethargic and just wasn't herself. They listened to her chest, heard little movement and checked her blood oxygen level. The reading was 80 (it's supposed to be somewhere from 96-100) which prompted them to start her on oxygen and call hospital transport. Well, hospital transport was too far out so they called 911 and within minutes the tiny exam room was packed with 3 doctors, 2 nurses, 4 firemen, 2 paramedics, 1 wide-eyed baby girl and a weepy mommy. Molly had perked up a bit from being on oxygen and had all those firemen smitten with her before they handed it over to the paramedics:) They strapped her little self in a full size stretcher and off we headed to meet Ryan at the Scottish Rite ER.
Strapped in for her first ambulance ride

Poor sweet girl

Back in the saddle again
We got there at 3:30 that afternoon and were admitted and in our room by 8:30. They diagnosed her with RSV which had led to bronchiolitis. This is a very common illness in babies and, although she's one of the earlier cases they've seen this season, the nurses told us they would have hundreds of babies come through with this from now until about March. They started her on oxygen, began administering breathing treatments and used a vacuum to suction out the mucus that had collected in her lungs. She's been on this course of treatment since her admittance though they've had to tweak it to keep up with her.
Getting her first breathing treatment in triage


Sweet Cheeks


She had a rough day on Wednesday so they transferred us to an ACU (acute care unit) room so they could monitor her more closely. She seemed to improve after the move and they gradually moved her oxygen down from 35% to 30%. Today (Friday), however, she had a few setbacks...a couple of coughing spells and a lowered oxygen saturation level so they had to crank up her oxygen to 40%. They also changed her breathing treatments to include pressure (PEP) to force open her airways and hopefully get the oxygen flowing. The goal is to decrease her oxygen all the way down to 21% ("room air") and she will have to sleep through the night without oxygen and keep her sat level between 96 and 100 in order to be discharged. The doctor predicted that she'd be done Sunday at the earliest--possibly Monday or Tuesday if she keeps pulling these tricks:)

Rockin' the backless gown
So we're back to life at Scottish Rite--something we're getting quite good at! We're on a new floor this time and some of our previous nurses have come by to say hello and see our Molly (who continues to make quite an impression on her caretakers)! A big warm-fuzzy thank you for all of the prayers, cards, meals, goody bags, balloons, visits, phone calls, texts, emails, facebook comments... We're so thankful for such a caring, believing, praying group of friends and family to rally around us while we try to get our baby girl well! Check back for updates...

Mesmerized by her giant puppy balloon (thanks Cunninghams:)!


Having a post-treatment chat with Daddy

And here are a few pics off my phone from earlier in the week:

Beautiful, healthy, smiley girl