I'm Two Months Old!

Kalista is now two months old.  Happy two months!!!

For her two month celebration, she received her first set of immunization shots (Hep B, DTap, Hib and Pneumococcal).  Poor gal!!  To make it less traumatizing, the nurses numbed the area ahead of time before giving her the shot. They also did the tag team approach and gave her the shots simultaneously in her chub chub thighs. Ouch!!  

You never know what kind of bugs are floating around in hospitals.  We usually have to pass by the children's emergency room in the evening to get to the NICU and we sometimes see kids come out "whooping" away from the whooping cough. According to her pediatrician, it's making a comeback and running rampant in California and we don't want to get it. Yikes!!

On a positive note...here are a few pictures of Kalista on her two month milestone:

        

She enjoys her lazy days in bed, which is everyday at the moment

She loves to suck on that pacifier

She has figured out where her fingers are and plays with them all the time...

even in her sleep

    

We are so proud of our little pumpkin and how far she has come in two months!!!  She is now about 9 lbs, 1 oz and about 21.5 inches in length.  She's growing and getting heavier by the minute.

Our swallow study is coming up and we hope that we get the thumbs up to eat by mouth; then we can get rid of the NG tube that is stuck to her face.  If Kalista gets a thumbs down, then we are looking at surgery time to implant a G-tube in her belly so that she can come home sooner.  The G-tube would allow us to feed her directly to her stomach. We won't go into much more detail about it because we hope she doesn't need the G-tube. All we can do is cross our fingers and pray that she'll pass her swallow study!!!

Video Check..Is It Working?

This is our test video

We were goofing around in the NICU and decided to create this mini video for future enjoyment.  We're so glad that we were able to finally post it on the blog since it has been technically challenging. 

Lazy Sunday

Baby Kalista is able to wear clothes and pajamas now that Mr. Bumpy is smaller and more stable.  We think she truly enjoys wearing some sort of clothing since she likes to have her arms exposed when she is swaddled.  The nurses often worry that she gets too cold.

We saw her this morning and had a chance to play with her while she was awake.  It is really cute watching her stare at herself in the mirror.  Most of the time, she ends up staring at our faces though.

We even played with our rings this morning.  She is getting so much better at grasping and grabbing.  The rings miraculously turn into bracelets when she lets go or falls asleep with them.

Because we can't get Kalista too excited after eating or else she spits up (just like almost every other baby on the planet) we like to sit her up and let her relax.  Thank goodness for the Boppy!!!  It's her own makeshift recliner.

Did any of you notice the big heart on her cheek???  It's the latest baby fashion craze in the NICU. Only Kalista can pull it off though.

That Darn Heartburn

Sitting up in her Boppy

That darn reflux and heartburn are the evil of all evils.  Kalista can contribute her baby acne and fits of fury to the severe reflux she gets after eating.  With "O" babies, this is a very common condition because of how weirdly placed their organs are in their abdomen and the loose sphincter muscle at the top of their stomach.  Last night she woke up crying in what looked like some intense pain and her face started sweating. We placed Kalista upright in her Boppy thinking that it might be reflux related and that would allow the stomach acid to move downwards due to gravity.   We think it worked because she settled down and looked more comfortable within minutes.  She eventually fell asleep in her Boppy at 1:00 am.  (*yawn*)

I Love My Toys

We had our occupational therapy session this morning.  Kalista worked on arm stretches and positional changes to get used to different views of the world.  We also played with our mirror and made funny faces.  Kalista loves looking at her pretty self.

The best part of the session is playtime with her rings.  She loves those things and holds on to them very well.  She has amazing grip!

Kalista playing with Dad

Dad trying to get the rings back in her hands

She's not letting go of her rings

Kalista with her occupational therapist

She loves checking herself out in the mirror

No News Is Good News

Everything is status quo with Kalista.  She is now a whopping 4.05 kg (about 8.91 lbs).

We have added a few new things to the blog.  Since we started this blog after all the drama from Kalista's first few weeks of life, we made a photo montage of the moments you all missed.  Trust us...maybe you wanted to miss those moments.

Visit the album (Birth- 2 months) at the side of the blog and away you go down memory lane!

Roar At the Lion

Kalista is at it again with her crib toy!  Here is how it all plays out:

Kalista is quietly looking at her crib toy and listening to the music

She tries to give fist pumps to the polar bears

She gives the dolphin a thumbs up

She finishes off with a roar to the lion 

(which you can barely see on the far right of her toy)

Happy July 4th!

Oh yes...it is that time of year again when folks break out the illegal fireworks and kids run around with sparklers in the night.  We are quiet folks and are enjoying a nice little BBQ at home.  For being sunny San Diego, it was definitely not sunny today. It felt more like Bay Area weather in the winter - overcast and gloomy.

We went to visit Kalista in the early afternoon and plan to go back later this evening.

Kalista enjoys her soothing crib toy

Kalista is now up to 70 mL full feeds through the NG tube.  Her next swallow study is going to be in two weeks or so to see how she does when she swallows fluids.  Cross our fingers, hopefully she can swallow both thin fluids and thicker nectar-like fluids.  If you can recall...we didn't do so well on the first round of testing last month and found out she was a silent aspirator..hence the NG tube for feeding.

Kalista has been sleeping and resting quite a bit when we visit.  Her "waking up" routine is pretty cute with her stretches and face rubbing.

Kalista waking up from her beauty sleep

Update on Jen:  She went to her primary care doctor on Friday since Kalista has the yeasty beasties (thrush) and found out that she is clear and not affected.  Yahoo!  Good job mama! So we can continue our "dry" breast feeding sessions (meaning Jen expresses milk with the breast pump first and then has Kalista go to the boob).  Kalista has been doing very well with latching on and sometimes seems eager to get the job done with our sessions.

Update on the dogs:  Yes...we have two dogs, Joey and Bella and they are doing well.  Joey is a Shiba Inu and Bella is a chihuahua-pug mix.  Today is Joey's 12th birthday.  He's an oldie but goodie.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEY!!!!

Joey enjoying his peanut butter ice cream

We feel bad sometimes since the dogs don't get to go with us to visit Kalista and they don't get out as often as before since we are away for most of the day. We're glad they have each other to play with though. Their highlight of the day is when we bring Kalista's blankets and items home to be washed, we make sure they sniff them. Joey and Bella are getting to know her scent better every day.  Joey goes to town when he sniffs and digs his nose in there.  Bella, on the other hand, likes to lick everything we hold in front of her face. We heard it is the best way to introduce a new baby into the house and make the transition of adding another member to the pack a lot easier.

Hope everyone has a great July 4th!  Have fun and be safe out there!

It's Grandpa's Birthday!

Happy Birthday Grandpa David (Yeh-Yeh)!!!

We wish we could be up in the Bay Area to celebrate grandpa's birthday.  We will send birthday wishes from a far instead.

 Birthday Wishes

Kalista is doing well and is just hanging out. It's one of those resting days.

Here is a typical day's agenda:
Her surgeon, Dr. Saenz, stopped by this morning to change the dressing around Mr. Bumpy and said that the area is healing up very well. Since he is happy with the direction we are heading, we just wait until more skin grows.

She got a bath after playing with her occupational therapist early this afternoon...then fell asleep.

Asleep after a long play session

We typically end the day with a reading session before bedtime.

Quality reading time with papa

Night night everyone!

If It's Not One Thing....It's Another

Oh my..what a life!

She's not sticking out her tongue in this picture above, but when she does it looks like a white cloudy mess.  We thought it was a milk stain at first, but when it was swabbed with a Q-tip it didn't budge.  Gross!!!  So this was a good indicator that she has thrush.


For those who don't know, thrush is an overgrowing of yeast in her mouth, similar to a yeast infection, ladies. Ewww!!  It was most likely caused by a bout of antibiotics she had to take a few weeks ago and probably the cause of her crazy diaper rash a few weeks back as well.  Because Jen has been working on dry breastfeeding with Kalista, it means she has to get checked out too and make sure she is not carrying this crazy yeast.  Oh my, if it's not one thing, it's another.

Kalista has to take a medication called Nystatin to treat the thrush.  It is a lovely yellow liquid that smells like Robitussin cough syrup (original flavor, not grape) and gets swabbed every six hours over her gums, cheeks and tongue. It doesn't taste good, from what we hear, but Kalista doesn't seem to mind.

 Kalista is tipping the scales.

Because we were there and had a few extra hands, the nurse decided to put us to work and perform Kalista's daily weighing.  She is now up to 8 and a half pounds.  Yahoo!!!  They continue to bump up her feeding amounts and she just went from 65mL to 67mL in the last week. As of today, she is at 68mL.  I know....so technical huh? Food is food.


 
We decided to take advantage of her heavy deep sleep and give her a manicure.  She didn't have a clue what we did, but wanted to show everyone what a great job her parents did.


No folks...we are not teaching her gang signs! She learned them on her own from the other babies.  Such bad influences!

Dad wanted to show off his beautifully manicured nails as well.  How pretty!!!





 

We just got updated that our friends Melissa and Donny just had a baby boy.  (If you two are reading this...Congratulations!!!)  Could this be Kalista's future boyfriend??? Hmmmm...