Brynlee Anne

Here are some more pictures. A few of you asked why she went into NICU in the first place. After she was born she had a hard time breathing and that night she was really struggling and they had to take her to NICU for respiratory distress. Also...our little girl was born with only 4 fingers on each hand. Being born without thumbs is extremely rare, especially in girls. Because of her trouble breathing and her thumbs...a lot of other tests needed to be run. That is why she had all the ultrasounds and blood testing. A lot of times if you are born without thumbs there can be a heart defect as well. Lucky for Bryn her heart looks fine. We put a picture of her hand below. I didn't want to put the other one up just yet. I was the first one to notice that she didn't have thumbs when the dr. placed her on my stomach. It was totally unexpected and the dr. was even totally shocked.

Kenna came up with me on Wednesday and read books!
This is her left hand. She is missing her thumb. Well at least we think it is her thumb right now. We will have to wait until the orthopedic dr.'s can evaluate it to tell us if she is missing her thumb or a finger.

Brynlee sleeping in her bed!

Mommy playing with Brynlee

She was trying to wake up!

Poor Bryn had to have oxygen in her nose and a feeding tube down her throat. Luckily it wasn't in there for too long. They took it out on Thursday afternoon!

Good news!

Coming home last night was so hard. It was so weird to come home and sleep in my bed and not have Brynlee here to get up and nurse. This morning I got up and went down to see her at 11am for her feeding. I was able to feed her 10cc's of milk and play with her for awhile. Her poor little IV came out this morning and they had to re-do in her foot. Ugh. I was so glad I wasn't there to watch them put it back in. While I was there we got some good news. Brynlee is now allowed to eat as much as she wants. Tyler was able to feed her at 2pm today and she ate 15cc's and would have eaten more if she didn't fall asleep. I get to go today at 5:30pm and try to nurse her and feed her a bottle if she doesn't nurse. Hopefully the IV will be out soon and she will be able to come home. No one will give us a time when she will be able to come home, but I really really hope its tomorrow. Thank you again to everyone who has prayed for us and thought about us for the past few days.                

Tonight!

Well I am home now. I was discharged this afternoon. Brynlee...Yup that is her name...Brynlee Anne Larsen. This afternoon Brynlee was taken off the oxygen and feeding tubes. She was only left with her IV and her monitors. I got to feed her 5cc's (about a teaspoon) of milk that I have pumped in a bottle. They want to make sure that she keeps the food down and handles it well and also breathes well. So its been about 6 hours since the tubes have been out and she seems to be doing well. We fed her at 2pm, she had another feeding at 5pm and we will feed her again at 8pm. She will continue with the 5cc's for a few feedings and then they will up it to 10cc's and decrease her IV so she will be weaned from that. Tyler and I were able to go to his parents for a little bit to eat Thanksgiving dinner. It was really hard to leave the hospital without our baby, but hopefully by Saturday we will be able to bring her home. We have to wait to see what the heart ultrasound says and how she is tolerating her feedings. I hope that I got all her updates in there...I'm pretty tired. Makenna is doing pretty good considering she has only met her little sister for about 2 minutes and has only seen her mommy a few times in the past 3 days!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our family has a lot to be thankful for. Our sweet baby girl has arrived and we have a gorgeous 3 year old daughter. The baby is still in NICU and we won't find anything new until the dr. checks her this morning and even then he may not know anything because the results aren't back. She is now on room level oxygen (still has the oxygen tubes in though). The dr.'s are doing ultrasounds on her heart, brain, kidneys and bladder. She has had a bunch of x-rays done. Just trying to check everything out. She is very beautiful and we love her very much. Makenna hasn't really had time to understand the process. She only got to see her sister 2 times for a few minutes. Makenna is not allowed in the NICU. It has been nice to have my mom here to help me and Tyler's family here for support.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. We really appreciate them and they are making a difference for the better. We know a lot of you want to visit, but at this time we would prefer not to have visitors. I should be released today from the hospital and we aren't sure when the baby will be!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Baby Larsen

Our new family of 4! The Larsens! Don't I look lovely!
Daddy and Baby. Tyler is such a good dad!

Grammy Catherine. She finally got her to calm down. Has to be grandma's magic touch!

Right after delivery. Haha...she wasn't very happy!

The 3 girls. Makenna is going to be a great big sister!

Our beautiful baby girl was born yesterday, November 25th, at 11:03 am. I had started contractions the night before and went in yesterday morning to be induced. I was already at 5cm when I went in at 7:30am. Her delivery was very easy and I am feeling fine.

Our sweet baby girl, which we haven't named yet, is having some complications. Please keep her in your prayers. I would prefer not to talk about them right and it will probably be a few days before we will know anything. She is in NICU right now and probably won't be released for a few days. Please...no phone calls.

She weighed 6lbs. 4oz. and was 19 inches long! We will post her name when we know it and any information on her conditions!

ERRR!

This morning Makenna woke up covered in red splotches and bumps! The first thing that came to mind was bug bites...then chicken pox. They were on her neck, stomach, chest, back, legs and arms. I started freaking out. Where would she have gotten them? I couldn't think of anything that she ate different yesterday to have an allergic reaction. I was getting dressed to take her to the ER. We looked up online and Tyler's mom also stopped by to check them out and we determined that they were probably hives. The only thing we could think of is that I washed her blanket in a different detergent and it didn't agree with her. Once we got her changed and in new clothes the redness and bumps reduced dramatically. I gave her some benadryl and hopefully they won't come back. I was so nervous they were chicken pox and that Makenna wouldn't be able to meet her little sister until she was few days old. Children have ways of freaking out there parents. I am just glad the bumps are gone!

Sad, Sad Nite!

BYU lost. It wasn't that I was so surprised that they lost, it was how they lost. I knew Utah was going to be a really tough game and that BYU probably would come out on the bottom. But after the first part of the game I was optimistic. We almost pulled ahead of them at one point and then had a turnover. Then it seemed to be interception after interception. It wasn't really that Utah was so much better than BYU...it was just that BYU was having so many mistakes. If the QB hadn't had so many interceptions...things may have not gotten so bad. I just got so mad to see the score go from 24-27 to the sickening 24 point loss of BYU 24-48.

BUT!!!!!! Oklahoma Sooners are kicking Texas Tech's tushie right now! The score is 58-14 right now and its 3rd quarter with about 1 minute left! Go sooners!

3 days!

So today is a fun day. The big BYU vs. University of Utah is tonight! I am so excited and so nervous. I want BYU to win...but realistically thinking...we would have to play the best we have ever played! I am hoping for a small miracle though! haha

Also OU plays Texas Tech. That is going to be a really good game. #5 against #2! Oh so fun. I love college football and I am so sad that it is almost over. 

Then...tomorrow night my mom will be here! Yea!

3 more days until our little girl is here!!

4 days!

Wow...Only 4 more days until our little girl is born! At moments I want her here now and want to be done being pregnant ... other moments I am totally scared about having the responsibility of another life! The past few days have been an emotional roller coaster and I am sure the next few will be the same. Being pregnant you get a flood of emotions anyways, but I seem to be going nuts! haha. I am getting excited to have my mom here this time. I'm just remembering what this time was like when I was about to have Makenna. It was 4 days until Makenna's induction that I found out about my dad being in hospital. 

Anyways...these next few days I am just finishing up loose ends getting ready for Tuesday. Makenna keeps telling me how she is going to rock the baby to sleep and help me hold her. It's so cute. Hopefully she will be as excited when the baby actually gets here!

Biggest Loser!

Ok...do you watch the Biggest Loser? Well it is one of my favorite shows. I have been watching it from day one. I can't believe the vote tonight. Vicky is poison. She is evil and she would take the first chance she had to vote out Amy C. If roles were reversed tonight...she would have voted Amy C. and not Coleen. Coleen was so sweet and should have stayed. I can't even stand to look at Vicky. She is just so mean and acts like a high school student. So do Heba and Ed. I hope some way some how black team can stay above the yellow line and get rid of the blue team. They are so immature! Yuck!

California Fires

Pretty scary stuff. I didn't even know there were fires in CA until this morning when on the Oklahoma news it talked about fires in the L.A. area. Then while watching my brothers football game (ps...BYU WON) my parents said they were watching fires on the news. A fire started in Corona and moved quickly into Yorba Linda. My aunts live out there and were evacuated from their home. They had to sit and wait wondering if their home would be safe. Their neighbors house was burned to the ground. My uncle stayed behind and was trying to keep the flames from reaching their house. I guess firefighters pumped water out of my aunts pool to help save the house. How sad it is to see how many homes have been burned to the ground and how sporadic the flames were with jumping from one house to another. Kind of like tornados...they completely destroy one house and the next house over is untouched. I am happy to know that my aunts' house is okay with the exception of some smoke and water damage. Hopefully things will remain okay over night. God bless the firefighters who are working extremely hard to put out these fires. Many freeways are shut down in CA due to the fires and smoke. The news reported people abandoning their cars on the freeways and I even heard people were driving on sidewalks to pass traffic. Pretty crazy...sounds like a movie!

A reply to "Today"

It's nice to know that Makenna isn't the only one going through an attitude at the moment.  So far...she has woken up and been pretty good. I keep asking her if she wants to be a happy girl or a sad girl. She tells me a that she wants to be a happy girl and get treats :). So far she has been okay. Hopefully the day will be fine because its raining and yucky outside so it's an indoor day! Plus...Tyler is in finals mode and will only probably come home to eat and leave...no time together! He will be done with finals Dec. 19th!!! YEA!!! I can't wait to have my hubby back for a couple weeks!

Today!

Today was one of those days that you wish you could have just stayed in bed. Makenna has been a good girl lately and I have been so proud. I knew the day was coming when it would unravel again. Today was that day. She has not gotten the memo about the time change and instead of waking up at her usual 8-8:30am she is up at 7-7:30. It just seems to make the day go by much much slower! We then had a hard time getting her to eat breakfast and she kept asking for something, not eating it or taking one bite and then wanting something else. Then we gave her a bath. After baths she likes to hide under her towel. I asked her a few times if she needed to go potty and the answer was no. But when she went to hide under her towel I heard a plastic noise. She had gone pee in a bowl from her tea set and it was in the bowl, on the carpet and on her rug. Frustrating. Then we tried to put her down for a nap. She wouldn't go. We tried just having her do quiet time...It didn't work. She was so tired. Then we before church she lied and told us she didn't go #2 and tried to wipe herself and there was poop everywhere. Frustrating again. Had to get that all cleaned up. So off to church we go. Makenna was being so loud and so disruptive and yelling in sacrament. After the sacrament was passed Tyler took her out to the hall. I went out after the first hour and Tyler asked if I had any underwear for Kenna. She had gone pee through her undies, tights, shoes and on the floor. I could either drive her home or borrow something from someone. Tyler borrowed a pair of undies from our friend at church. So Makenna had boy undies on. She was so tired and yelling in the car and I told her she had to be quiet cause I need some peace and she fell asleep about 1 mile from Tyler's parents house and woke up when we went inside. Frustrating day. A few more things happened to make the day annoying but I won't go into those! Errr...I am hoping tomorrow is a better day!

Thing That Makes Me Sick

CONTROL

Not having control makes me sick. Not being able to change a situation. I have to learn to let it go, but I haven't. With this presidential election...I have to let it go. I did what I had control over...I voted. Now it's not up to me. The president has been picked. 

When Makenna fell out of her shopping cart a few weeks ago...the only thing that she hurt was her lips or so I thought. A few days ago her front tooth started turning a grayish yellow color. I am so bummed. There is absolutely nothing I can do to change it. I just wish she would have listened to me when I asked repeatedly for her to put her bottom in the seat. She will have this bum tooth for at least another 3 years when it falls out for a permanent tooth.

I just hate not having any control to change a situation. Sometimes you have limited control, but at least there is something you can do. But I hate it when there is nothing at all in my power that I can do. It physically makes me ill. AHH!!!

November 4th

First...Happy Birthday Mom! Hope you had a great day! Can't wait to see you in a few weeks!

Second...I voted! Did you? It is our duty as an American people to get out and vote for what we want. We can't sit back and complain about the situation if we did nothing to try and change it! Vote for who and what you want! This a huge election! I hope all of you voted! It will be interesting to see how things work out!

BYU VICTORY!!!!

BYU won!! They won!!! YEA!!! My little brother Steven, #24, got to play on defense during the 4th quarter. He played corner! It was so exciting to see him! It was a nail biter of a game though. I told Tyler a few times we might have to go to the hospital after the game because I might go into labor :) haha. I was jumping up and down, screaming at the t.v. and at one point just wanted to cry. I think I'm a little emotional with all these pregnancy hormones ;) I can't believe we pulled it off with under 2 minutes to go in the game. Steven said it was pretty awesome being on the field. He was in total shock that he was put in. He had no idea he would get to play on defense tonight. Once Bradley got injured...he had to go in. It is just so cool to see your family on t.v. Not sure if he will be in again next week...I hope so though! GO COUGARS!!!

TEAM	1	2	3	4	T
	7	14	3	21	45
	14	7	7	14	42