The update y'all have waited for

Sorry to keep everyone out of the loop, I wanted to make sure my sister got her email before I posted this. Brooklyn had an awful night on Friday and Saturday morning I happened to call about 5 minutes before the Nurse Practitioner was going to call me. She had a perforation in her intestinal tract and needed to have surgery. We were so lucky that the nurse working that night was primary on Isabel also so she knows our family and we have kept in touch all this time. She was blessed with some mother's intuition for me and if she had not been there the symptoms may not have been caught for an hour or two longer. Needless to say we are so grateful for Jennifer. Surgery went as well as can be expected, she tried to give the anesthesiologist a hard time and make him earn his money by having her blood pressure going crazy. She came thru surgery fine but was obviously critical. Today is a bit better but not much. Mike and I have been trying to get excited about the itty bitty victories today but the nurses don't want us to get our hopes too high. I guess that's about it. We really won't know what else it looks like might happen for a couple of days or so. Please, Please keep her in your prayers, I know you may be tired of praying for her but this is definitely the most critical she's been since she has been alive...

On a happier note Today was Brooklyn's one week birthday... So she's now a 25 1/2 weeker! OH I almost forgot.... The nurses changed a tube in her mouth today and when they pulled it out... well my lil' girl didn't like it to much so she opened her right eye and glared at them!!!! At least my lil' girl is feisty. Will let you know as soon as we have more info on her outlook. Also thank you to all the church members here in St Louis who have been willing and able to come and donate blood for Brooklyn. We are so overwhelmed by the love that we have been shown.

PLEASE KEEP BROOKLYN IN YOUR PRAYERS

She is struggling today, we will keep you all posted. Thank you so much!

Prayers are answered

THANK YOU everyone who has been praying for Brooklyn... they have been answered. Her blood pressure was stabilized and she is off most all of her drugs treating that. Today has been a great day for her. Her ventilation continues to do well, little changes here and there but doing well. They started feeding her today!!!!! She handled her first few feedings well and will hopefully continue to do well. This may change as her gut is still pretty immature to handle is but at least for today we are estactic! She has a PIC line in now... so it will be easier for her to recieve drugs and nurtrients. I just can't tell you how great she looks compared to Tuesday. We'll take new pictures soon but since you may not notice changes they will not be posted daily. I was discharged from the hospital today and it feels so good to be home with my daughter and family. Isabel is much happier and better behaved. My mom came in this morning so she is here to take care of me. I'm looking forward to resting and getting Brooklyn's room ready, sewing stuff, cleaning, and of course being cooked for! However I've decided that I will really miss the craft-o-matic adjustable bed that the hospital bed had... rolling over off the couch or bed isn't as much fun!
Thanks again everyone!

And more updates

So Brooklyn is doing well today. We had a little scare last night. Her bilirubin (it's the build up that causes the jaundice) spiked last night which could lead to brain damage. So at 4 am when I woke up to pump I called down and found this out so of course being dead tired and forgetting that she was only 30 hrs old I started thinking bad thoughts then I figured if my milk didn't come in it was Heavenly Father's way of saying... well you don't need it because she won't be here. Needless to say I really REALLY needed some rest. I have it now so I'm back to my normal self! Thank goodness for sleep.. I may even get a sleeping pill tonight!!! So for all of you wondering how I stay so calm... now you know I"m not perfect. So her bilirubin has gone down over a full point and is continually getting better. Right now she's maintaining her ventilation, who new that my kids would breeze thru having great lungs! (no comments from my family on this!!!) So really we're just battling her blood pressure. It doesn't want to stay very consistent and they need that to correct itself before they can really worry about much else. Her Echo came back great, she has a duct in her heart that is open but since it's open in practically all babies and doesn't close up in the womb until around 32 or 34 weeks it's totally normal. Her brain ultrasound will hopefully be tomorrow so we'll see if she has any significant bleeding up there. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and well wishes. Thank you to all who live in St Charles who have come and supported thru visitation calls, meals ect, I really appreciate it.
Isabel was so excited to see her sister. She kept saying at her bedside.. that's my sister, that's my sister.... i wuv you bwooklwn! YES it was stinkin cute!
Here are a couple of more pictures from tonight. We had them turn off the lights for a few minutes so we could be closer to her and take a couple of pictures with out her stylish sunglasses! Oh and the ring on her arm is the same one that fit up Isabel's are to her shoulder... however due to Brooklyn's size, well frankly she needs to work out to build up the muscles to raise her arm so we can get the ring farther up!! :)

Pictures have arrived!

Hey everyone, Brooklyn was moved off the cadillac of ventilators and put on the next step up on ventilator. She's on 28% O2 now and she's doing pretty well. She's under the blue lights for her jaundice so please excuse the blueness of the pictures. Also she is sporting the newest in fashion wear with her black sunglasses! I'm recovering well and will get my epidural out tomorrow so if need be I can take sleeping pills!!! Ok so on with the pictures....

A new arrival

Everyone thank you for your prayers on behalf of me and my daughter... if you could please take the prayers you had for me and pass them along to Brooklyn we would greatly appriecate it. So now for the info. I was totally fine until Friday when I started leaking amniotic fluid so I called my MD and he wanted me to go to L&D to get checked out. I was admitted at 8ish and started the wonderful drug of magnesium (It's AWFUL!!!). The cramping finally stopped about 2am and I was just chillin waiting to hear news from any MD that would give me some. I did find out that I was going to stay in the hospital until I delivered because I was leaking the fluid. Later that morning I was feeling a lot of pressure which brought tears to my eyes and that continued all day. They did mulitple ultrasounds to find the issue and other then my bag bulging thru my cervix... that's all I had. About 3:30 they moved my room down to the more intense area across from the Operating room (same room I was in with Isabel) and the pressure feeling was there about every 5 min. OH! she was head down and of course flipped and was breeched about 1/2 way thru the day.
Right after they had me in the room the pressure kept coming back so they did another ultrasound and it turns out the Brooklyn was literally trying to walk out of me. Her foot was in the bag thru my cervix (yes it's as painful as it sounds ladies), so LITERALLY 10 minutes later my OB was called the nurse anestheitis was in my room starting my epidural. Mike's mom happened to show up at the perfect time to take Isabel to the waiting room and 20 after it started I was in the OR.

Brooklyn weights 1 lb 7oz and bruised on her legs from trying to make her escape. She's on the have duty ventilator and all in all doing as good as can be expected. They won't know her chances of survival until later. They said if she can make it thru the next 72-96 hrs she should make it. For those of you that are members of the church I would really appreicate it if you could please add her name to your local temple prayer roles.
The pics Mike took are not to clear of her face and head so we'll get more pic and try and get them posted ASAP.
Thank you everyone for your well wishes and prayers. My family truly appreictes it! Love ya'll

Second Verse Same as the First

Hey all, this is Mike...as many of you may have heard, Tracy is in the hospital. Two years and 4 months after Isabel made her debut, little Brooklyn (that will be her name) has decided it is now a competition, she is trying to come at 24 weeks where Izzy came at 27 and a half. We could definitely do without these silly little games. It seems that both girls are just like their mother, IMPATIENT! Please keep both of my girls in your prayers, it doesn't get any easier the second time around, just brings back painful memories. It's amazing though how much the Lord blesses his children. I thought just the other day that we are so blessed with how wonderful Isabel is. She is so smart, almost knows her Alphabet, can count and identify up to 14 and is like a parakeet in repeating every word you say. My personal favorite...when Tracy says "oh shoot" to which Izzy replies "Shoot mommy, shoot!" Thank you all, it is wonderful to know what wonderful friends we have, may the Lord bless you all!

Seattle update

Ok so sorry it's been over a week but I finally have stolen Mike's computer to post more.
So after the overly exciting trip out to ID we left on that Saturday and flew to WA to see my family. When we got there Mom told us that Dad was sick. They have been having issues with their well and they had little water pressure so we were going to have to ration the water somewhat. So we went home and Dad looked awful. Of course most all of my friends were out of town so I only really saw Eric two days as he was getting married. Sunday morning after we finally figured out where we were going for church, we were in the car starting to leave and Mom came out to see if we had a house key. Dad had been feeling better and then took a turn for the worse. During church I got a call from my mom that she was taking Dad to the hospital. About 3hrs later it turns out that my Dad appendix was about to burst so at the ripe age of 58 my dad had an emergency appendectomy. Apparently the nastiness was leeching into his system and the bacteria has traveled to his colon and his stomach. He needed to stay all day Monday to stay on antibotics and then thought it would be a good time to continue his practice of not taking drugs and doing his self-hyposis crap. Later that night he thought everything was getting worse and didn't believe his wife and daughter when they said TAKE THE DRUGS!!! I guess the MD just told the nurses to give it to him and amazingly he felt great the next day and came home. Right before we got there my sister left for Tanzinia for her PhD research. She's setting it up for next year so there were lots of emails flying around keeping her posted.
The rest of the trip was thankfully more mild and aside from Mike not feeling well for a day or two, mom getting sick for a couple of days we had a great time. Isabel LOVED the horses and went out everyday with mom to feed. She helped clean the water buckets, and even sat on our miniature horse. She was scared but had fun. It was so cute to see my mom and Izzy bonding over the horses.
We went fabric shopping for baby number two's quilt and room decor.
On Friday, a great friend was married in the Portland temple. Mike and I went to the sealing and Isabel stayed with my parents and had soo much fun. Mom took her to the tack store to find more horse gear.... she already has her next pair of boots for people to drool over. (Cheyenne you have to get Olivia some boots!)
THe sealing was great and on the way back up from Portland we stopped at TACO TIME!!! and my grandparents new house. OH! I almost forgot my G'ma, Aunt and Uncle came up on Thursday and my Uncle caught fresh crab on the Sound outside his backdoor and cooked it for me so I had the best fresh crab. It was DELICIOUS!
Saturday was the only overcast cloudy day so we all sat around and treated it like a cold winters day. Mike, Isabel and I went to the wedding reception (Mom and Dad were both not feeling well) and Isabel danced up a storm in her pink cowboy boots. and the Radimak's loved it!
The last bit of saga for our trip follows
You know when you eat so much you want to throw up... I actually did all over my parents driveway after the reception. I guess I don't have as much room in my stomach as I used to. silly babies! I felt better after wards but the next morning we were flying out and I was still a little queasy. We all know that I get motion sick on airlines... but thankfully with Dramamine it's all good... oh wait I can't take that while I'm pregnant. So randomly in the middle of the first flight I got sick. Needless to say we were all ready to be back home at this point and after a layover in Minniapolis/St Paul I about lost it on the next flight and my awesome husband sat with Isabel in the row in front of my and since her carseat was to wide she had her own big girl seat. She kept turning around (at the aforementioned fabulous husbands request) and trying to talk to me while I was just trying to not get sick. She was totally cute wanting to look at EVERY thing out the window and wanting to know what everything was. All in all an interesting but great trip.
I"m so glad to be home!
OK so now for the pictures!

The trip

Ok so this will be a rather lengthy post but bear with me.. there are some good stories and fun pictures...
So on Sat the 26th we went to Sharon's house (we lived in her basement last year and she is the lovely lady we were moving up to ID) and when we get there not only is there a 26ft Uhaul but a 26 ft trailer attached. So once we got settled in and said goodbye to her sons who were flying back on Monday the three of us (yes Izzy was in a car seat in the middle of the Uhaul... very comfortable... or not) we were on our way. We stopped for gas and when we pulled in the only pump that was convienent that we drove to... broken so after trying to figure out how to drive a semi truck sized load around and around to get a better pump we finally achieved it. During the next hour we were eating by bugs, bought powered doughnuts and filled the trailer tires with air. THen we were on the road at 9:30 at night.
Now for those of you who have never been thru this great state let me tell you that our paving on I-70 leaves a bit to be desired. The headlights on the truck were struggling to illuminate our path and there was wind, a lot of wind. So after only making it 3 hrs away we were tired from fighting a fish-tailing trailer so we pulled off and stayed at a hotel. And what would you know... a church building across the street. Now we really wanted to go to church the next morning and totally contemplated it in our gym shorts, t-shirts and flip flops but we felt bad being dressed like that in the Lord's house. (yes all the early saints are rolling in there graves for the sacrifices they made that we took lightly). This will come back to haunt us later. Mike had the wonderful pleasure of driving thru a cement luge course... the jersey barriers were literally 8 inches on either side at most and thankfully Heavenly Father keep us from sideswiping to our death.
On a bright note we picked out a name for our new daughter!
About 3 hrs later... this is what we were doing...






















Once we were finally done with that 2 hrs later, and we stopped and ate lunch we thankfully were back on the road... OH did I mention that we were trying to get to Ogden to stay with some fabulous friends that night... Three hrs later this is where we were..







By the way any Alabama folks recognize the folks helping us? And yes the cement was so hot that the jack LITERALLY sunk into the cement. We were stranded on this section of I-70 for a couple of hrs and Mike made some crop circle paths to get us away from the freeway. Poor Izzy was so hot and tired but made it thru pretty well. When the trailer tire blew, we didn't know it and a nice couple got us to pull over. Then this other saintly pair saw us on the side of the road and drove up to the exit and got us large ice cold water (They felt so sorry for Isabel) thankfully when they arrived so did the calvary of Charmaine and Kerry Kearl. By the way I think we owe them a jack, theirs melted before Kerry called a mechanic he knew. (Cheyenne's parents are amazing!)
Moral of the story, not matter what you are wearing GET TO CHURCH!!! We were watched over but most certainly taught a lesson!

After hearing from many people that the trailer was overloaded we had to stay the night in nowhere Nebraska so we could get trailer tires put on... apparently they were just crappy car tires before
So thankfully we found a hotel complete with mold on the bathroom ceiling, and crud on the shower curtain that started floating in the shower which wouldn't drain. And they only had vouchers for breakfast so Izzy and I had to share. The bright spot of the morning was that Wal-mart actually had the tires we needed. But my credit card wouldn't work so I had to call them and tell them that I was on vacation and that it wasn't stolen! Thankfully the believed me so we could be on our way~

The rest of the drive went pretty uneventfully.. Isabel was amazing, Mike saw a bull and a cow--- together, and we took in the 'sights' of NE and Wyoming.
When we got to the mountains the fun with the trailer started all over again. after some very tense hrs we finally were 45 min from our friends house when we hit another luge course on I-84. This time Mike was being tailgated by a veteran semi truck driver. Finally reaching our destination at 11:30 pm we talked and played way to long with the wonderful Haywood family!! We love them so much and miss them like crazy. They taught Izzy to play the drums. We made breakfast for them Tuesday morning Isabel started singing at the top of her lungs some unintelligble words for seriously like 5 minutes straight. It was hilarious!






Thankfully we made it to Meridian, ID in one piece that day. Mike started to fall asleep a few times so I read to him and it worked. We ate a fake Taco Time and I was happy. Sharon's house is beautiful, I asked her if she'd leave it to me in her will. The rest of the week in ID was so much fun. We stayed with Mike's best bud Cameron and his amazing wife Annette. They had two girls one seven mo older (Alessia) and the other 7 mo younger (Sophie) then Isabel so they played and played and played. We had such gracious hosts. We even all snuck in a date night to see The Dark Knight... very good. Isabel found some favorite toys and we took her picture in this cute russian styled hat and her orange flip flops that if she thought about to steal from Lessie she would have.





Last but not least we all went to the pool on Friday before we left (aug 2nd ish) and Isabel seriously about drowned twice. The first time I was 8 big steps away from her in 1 1/2 feet of water and she slipped and couldn't get her footing and the next time it was repeated MIke and I were each about 3 feet from her. Thankfully she is fine but after she settled down it was all about flip flops and car seats. She was ready to go .
Since this post is soo freakin' long I'll write about Seattle tomorrow... don't worry the fun isn't over yet!