My shy girl...

Darbi got to meet her Great-Grandparents today! She was a little shy but she'll open up to them eventually. I just know it! She's gonna love them! They stopped by for a quick visit on their way through town and I'm so glad!

The doctor updated me real quick while we were up there and the reason her little plastic box is so foggy is because they are keeping the humidity in there at 70% because she's not responding well to temperature changes in the air around her. She's had a little bit of skin breakdown but it's not too bad and they've got some special ointment on her to help it heal. They also did a brain scan on her today and her brain is looking good with no bleeding!

I'm still in the hospital. My BP is still all over the place and they are going to do a kidney ultrasound on me today just to double check everything. I think my kidneys are fine because I have to go at least every hour there's plenty to go around. But we'll see how the next few days go.

Newborns come with palm pilots?!

When the doctors told us that they were going to give Darbi medication to attempt to close her PDA, the first thing I thought was... "Newborns come with Palm Pilots?!" Then I realized that I was probably wrong. They must be talking about Public Displays of Affection. But no... It actually stands for Patent Ductus Arteriosus (you guessed it... latin). If you want a pronunciation key, Google it - I can't pronounce it.

The PDA is a small blood vessel used in the transport of oxygen in the womb. This needs to be closed in order for Darbi to be able to use her lungs properly. There are two ways of treating this.

1 - Surgery!
2 - Medication! (our favorite)

The medication has a 50% chance to successfully close it without surgery, but it takes ~3 days. The doctors gave Darbi a dose of the medication on Saturday and did the echo today to see if it closed. Fortunately it closed! This is great news because now that her PDA is taken care of, she is off of her BP medication, and she is no longer taking doses of insulin they can start making attempts to give her REAL food.

While we have many more milestones to achieve, this is a very important one for her. As long as we can keep her out of surgery, the stronger she can get!

Still here...

So I'm STILL in the hospital. I'm so sick of this place. UGH. The plan was to go home yesterday... and then today... and now we're scheduled to leave TOMORROW. I've gone the rounds with all the nurses and I'm back to where I started. I've probably had them all at least twice! The reason I'm still here- my blood pressure is still out of control. I can't seem to get out of the the 170 range. The doctors changed my medication today though and hopefully it will work. They just checked me and I was at 158/100. That bottom number is the worrisome one though. Hopefully this works. The nice thing about being here though is we can go up and see Darbi anytime we want and we don't have to worry about driving in the awful weather! Have you SEEN the snow??? I can't believe it.

Anyway, we got a call from the NICU doctor this morning and Darbi is doing really well! Everything came back normal with her blood test results today and tomorrow she is scheduled to have another brain ultrasound to make sure there is still no bleeding up there. If it comes back clean tomorrow, I think she's pretty much out of the woods on her brain developing alright. At least that's what we're praying for. They've taken her off of her blood pressure medicine (makes one of us.. at least her BP is cooperating..) and also off of the insulin for her blood sugar.

They turned her on her tummy the other day and she looked so cozy sleeping like that. I can't wait until we can actually hold her. That won't be for a few months though.. We're planning on her being here at least until her due date which was April 25th.

We're heading up to see her right now so if there's more to report.. I'll post it later today.

On a side note.. I'm getting sick of hospital food.. Check out this piece of artwork.. "Windowpane Gelatin" GROSS.

Darbi Update

It's Audrey this time.. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm feeling better. My blood pressure has finally started to drop and I thought I'd post some pictures for everyone to see. We went up to see Darbi last night and the Doctor said she is doing really well for being only 23 weeks. So far her stay in the NICU has been "uneventful" which is really good and definitely what we want to hear. The nurses will start to feed her my milk in the next few days which is going to be really

crucial in her growth over the next few months. It's nice to know that I am important and can do something to help my daughter through this even if I can barely touch her.

Little Darbi Came Early!

This is going to be short, but on January 1st, 2009 our OB/GYN decided that the pre-eclampsia that Audrey was experiencing was no longer controllable and decided to perform a C-section. The good news is that we had 72 hours to prep for it with steroids and various other medications to help Darbi after the birth. Darbi was born at 12:44 PM and was immediately rushed to the NICU. She is doing really well and is responding to treatment incredibly well. When she was born, she weighed 444 grams, 1 gram shy of a pound which is pretty much what the doctors told us she would weigh.

Audrey is doing very well now that she is off of the magnesium drip (to avoid siezures). She is up and walking about now and is able to eat solid foods now.

We will post more, but our family needs some time to recuperate. Please keep praying for Darbi though. She has a long way to go...

Here's a picture to hold you over :)

22 1/2 week picture!

I'm really bad at documenting this pregnancy thing. From the beginning I really had good intentions but what can I say... I'm just lazy.

So to update.. I'm feeling her move all the time! Usually she's way active around 11:00 at night and it does make it hard to go to sleep. I'm sure it drove Clint nuts that I would constantly be grabbing his hand saying "did you feel that??" or "How 'bout that??" or "ANYTHING????" But she gave Clint a nice little present early Christmas morning! He finally felt her move! I think before he was expecting some awesome round-off kick to his palm because of the way I describe (or complain) about her moving, but it was more just a nudge but he felt it! I was way excited! Merry Christmas Daddy! Still feels weird saying that..

It drives me nuts though when I go to the bathroom, go and sit down and get up 20 minutes later, she will find a way to move around and stomp on my recently emptied bladder and I have to go again!! 20 minutes?? Come on kid! Kills me..

Anyway, hopefully I'm looking less like I'm just fat and more like I'm pregnant.

It's not Gay Denny's but it will do

On our first Christmas Eve together, Clint and I left his mom's house late and decided we were hungry but didn't want to cook at home.. We drove around everywhere trying to find a place to get some food but NOTHING was open! EXCEPT... the trusty oh-so-classy Denny's! We went home, got in our PJ's and came to Denny's. Since then, we decided we would go every year (for some reason I don't have pics from last year.. but we did find a receipt so we know we went!) and this year we invited Becky and Ryan to go with us.


It started to snow while we were eating so when we left, the boys were cleaning off the cars, and Becky and I spelled out our names in the snow with our feet. I'm a retard and had slippers on so my feet were freezing but here you can see Becky's huge B..

While we were driving home from Denny's we passed some pretty cool snowmen. It snowed like crazy on Tuesday so there were a ton of 'em out there.. Some were pretty cool. The one on the top left is so perfect!! And the one on the bottom right is some kind of face statue thing.. I sound smart when I say that.. So presenting...

The Snowmen of Christmas Eve 2008!!

After we found 4 we decided we were too tired to keep looking for snowmen and I felt uncomfortable getting out of the car and taking creepy stalker pictures of other peoples houses.. It was after midnight..

It's a GIRL!!!

That's right! We are going to have a little girl! We are SOOOOO excited!!! The nurse said everything looks good and she's super healthy! We tried to get a good profile picture but everytime we tried she would turn away and hide her face. She's already a little stinker! Hopefully she listens better when she gets here! :)

Her head & body

Her feet

Sumidero Canyon

Monday we woke up and went on a quick taxi ride to Chiapa de Corzo to take a boat ride down the canyon. When we got there, Jed was so excited to get us to drink his favorite "dirty water". We were all a little nervous, ESPECIALLY when we saw that it really looked like water with dirt in it!!

If I remember right, it's water, ground up cocoa beans, and ground up corn. I sorta has a sweet taste and reminds me of chocolate milk but not really. When you get to the bottom, there is all this sludgy stuff that you have to chew.. it's just the corn that has settled to the bottom. I made Clint drink my sludge.. yuck.

Audrey, Jed, Liz, Clint, & Dad

Here are some photos of the river. The highest point from the cliffs edge to the water was 2500 ft. and it was created from a river, just like our Grand Canyon. There are more things our guide told us about but because it was all in Spanish.. obviously.. we didn't get it all. Jed translated as much he could but it was kinda loud and he went fast.

After we went up the river, we were all pretty tired and had to catch a taxi back to Tuxtla-Gutierrez but we didn't want to take two because it would have been expensive.. I think. Anyway, FIVE of us crammed into a teeny-tiny taxi to go back to our hotel. That's the driver, Jed, & Liz in the front half of the car, and Dad, Mom, & Clint in the back of the car. I ended up on the laps of Dad, Mom, & Clint. I was probably the most comfortable of everyone and actually took a nap on the way home!

I need to find those pics.. they are pretty funny...

Once we got back to the hotel, we took some taxi's to the OCC (the bus transport station) and took a bus to San Cristobal. It was a very colonial looking city and I guess it is one of the oldest in the state of Chiapas. The hotel we ended up staying in didn't have a heater and it was SO cold!! Definitely jacket weather.

The worst part of the hotel:

Scented toilet paper helps though. I was pretty upset about the whole no-flushing-the-toilet-paper thing. Gross.

Sunday in Mexico

So real quick, before I move on to Monday and Tuesday, here are some images from Sunday that I just got from my Mom.


This was on the bus on the way to Coita to go to church. The rest of us are on the back row of the bus.

This was where Sacrament meeting was held. Isn't it beautiful?? This was looking at the back of the meeting area and that's Jed talking to some of the members IN SPANISH!! He really can speak the language.. he's no faker.

The was the front of the church's lot. You walk through this gate into a courtyard with mango trees and sometimes roosters and then into the covered veranda area where Sacrament meeting was held. It was pretty neat.

Five Guys!

So my friend Leslie recently posted on her blog about this amazing burger place called Five Guys that her and her hubs like to go.. My grandma also told us about it so we decided to check it out.. DELISH. Let me tell you. My tummy is rumbling right now though.. kinda greasy but dang yummy. Worth the rumble... We got the LARGE cajun fries and the regular size hamburgers. It's a good thing Clint was there to eat my leftovers because I was done for halfway through my burger. Definitely recommend it to ALL!! I took pics just like you did Leslie! :)

That's not me in the picture.. I hate when people pull their undershirts way over their bums like that...

I will post pictures from Mexico tomorrow.. Google: Sumidero Canyon.. Something to look forward to. :)

Christmas & Mexico

The Christmas tree is finally up! Our 4.5 foot $15 Big Lots Christmas tree took us 2 days to put up but we're ready! It took us so long because we decided to rearrange the living room. It feels more home-y and *hopefully* we will be able to keep it cleaner. No promises.. we're slobs. :)

The Christmas tree is to the right, outside of the photo. It looks pretty but having it decorated makes Clint and I a little sad because that means Molly isn't here to tear it down and break all of our ornaments.

Anyway, for Thanksgiving, we went to Mexico with Jed as our tour guide and it was AMAZING. I don't know how to recap the entire trip because there was so much to document. I might take a few days to do it.. Hopefully I don't get lazy. I still need to get most of the photos from my mom but I can make do with what I've got.

So to remember the trip as it was happening, I didn't want to take the time to write EVERYTHING down and take an hour everynight to journal everything because I would just get tired of it and by day 2, I wouldn't do it anymore. So to substitute, I decided to write down phrases of things to help me remember what we did each day and if I had time later, I would elaborate. Mostly it's there to just help jog my memory. For today, I'll just start with Saturday and Sunday and maybe I'll tackle more later.

So, to preface, we left Saturday, Nov 22, took 3 flights to Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, and immediately took a 30-45 minute taxi ride to our hotel.

Saturday

Lines on the road really don't matter to ANYONE

Honking is not a rude gesture; they honk at ANYTHING

Heartburn after each flight SO bad

Palace Inn looks cheap on the outside

Dad/Mom/Jed's room smells like smoke - ours doesn't :)

Yummiest hamburgers for dinner from some guys garage - Cost: 20 pesos

Sunday

Church in Coita

bumpy 45 minutes bus ride to church - Cost: 10 pesos each

Everyone shook our hands at church because we were Jed's family - weird, they must have liked him ;)

Church outside by mango trees

Jed gets asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting (HAHAHAHA)

Heard roosters, not birds, during church

Mom had a fetish with taking pictures of doors

Dad doesn't like the word fetish

Visited 4 different houses

Ate dinner at 4 different houses

#1: Dinner (fried chicken, beans, tortillas, salad, & YUMMY watermelon water)

#2: Homemade bread & Coke

#3: Visit Violet and brand new baby and drink Orange water

#4: Best empanadas EVER!!!

This was the home of the family that fed us first. They were so sweet and the cutest little girl in green was there. While we were at church, during Relief Society, she walked up to me and wanted to shake my hand just because she didn't know who Mom & I were. She was SO cute!

This was outside of the last house we visited. They have a 2 story home and they live upstairs and let the missionaries live downstairs for free! I didn't take many pictures the first day but there will be more to come!