Izzy's First Night Home

We were able to bring Izzy home yesterday afternoon! She seemed to like riding in the car ok. We were told not to have her ride in her carseat for more than an hour at a time. She's so little (a whopping 5 pounds and 7 ounces), and her oxygen levels decrease a little bit after sitting in the carseat for about an hour, so no long trips for us until she grows a bit more!

We had a restful night for our first night home. We put her bassinet in the living room and Dave and I camped out on the couch right by her so when she woke, we were right there. She woke up about 3 times through out the night for food, and fed really well!

Dave's taking this week off of work, we have Izzy's first Dr.'s appointment Thursday morning, then we officially close on our house at noon that day, and then Friday, our friend/Wedding Photographer, Chelsie Anderson, (http://www.chelsiekrafka.com/) is coming down to take Izzy's newborn pictures! We're pretty excited about all that's happening this week!
Right now Daddy and Izzy are napping while I update this page. So this is short, but we're all doing well and are home safe and sound!

Izzy's Update

We are told that we may be able to bring our little girl home with us this weekend, most likely tomorrow (Sunday). It finally hit me yesterday how draining it is spending day in and day out at the hospital with our little peanut and not being able to be nestled in at home with her yet. I'm doing fine, but yesterday was a trying day. They bumped her up to her 'max' amount of food (a whopping 56 mililiters) per feeding and she's just getting tired out trying to eat it all. She's so little and only has so much energy...BUT, she's getting stronger daily and we need to be patient while she builds her little muscles and her energy increases to be able to continue to gain weight so she's as healthy as can be when we bring her home. Here are some more pictures of Izzy with Daddy, in some fun outfits, and a few pictures of her nursery. We got most of it put together last night, and I love her room. We're STILL doing loads of her laundry as we find more boxes of her clothes (we keep finding them, this girl is set up for clothes for the first 5 years of her life!!)

Love to everyone and we'll update the blog when she gets to come home!

SHE'S HERE!

Isabella Mae Kavanaugh arrived to meet us on June 5th at 6:10pm. She weighed in at 5 pounds and 10 ounces. She was 19.5 inches long. My water broke at work of all places at 7:30 Friday morning (the day we were supposed to close on our house), and we were off and running from that point on! I had the most uncomplicated labor and delivery I could ever imagine...truly, the pain was brief until the drugs kicked in, and the epidural was a godsend. Mom's and Grandma's, I have no idea how you ever survived without an epidural...seriously, I don't know how you did it and actually kept going through it having more kids! Ok, back to Izzy. She was 4 weeks early, born at 35 weeks and 6 days. She's currently still in the 'Special Care' Nursery at Methodist Hospital in Saint Louis Park, however she is as healthy as can be and getting stronger minute by minute. They started off having to put an IV in her to keep her fluids and blood sugars stable, that was removed on Tuesday of this week. She now just has the little stickers on her belly and chest to keep up with her vital signs. We are really hoping she'll be able to come home to us by the end of this week, but we'll see. She needs to keep gaining weight and maintaining her weight, and that's the last piece of this deal she needs to show to the Dr's, and she's eating like a champ, so there's no worries that she'll be home with us soon.
I was discharged from the hospital on Sunday night at 6PM (exactly 48 hours after delivery, they don't waste time getting you out of there with natural births!), and there is a parent room in the Special Care Nursery that I have been staying in every night getting up with her and feeding her...and staring at her...in complete awww and wonderment that we made such a wonderfully beautiful baby. (I know everyone says that about their own kids, but MAN - she's CUTE!)
Meanwhile, our family has gotten us all settled into our house, the 'big move' took place this past Saturday while Izzy and I were recovering in the hospital, Dave and a bunch of family and friends hauled a big load of furniture down from Brainerd, and cleared everything out of our old apartment to get us moved into our new home! (We were able to move in even though we haven't closed, we did an amendment to the Purchase Agreement, thank goodness that worked out!!) Our house looks ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. The entire main floor is already unpacked, with pictures on the walls, the furniture is arranged perfectly, and that's all set to go! We still need to unpack the bedrooms upstairs, but will get that done in the next day or so here. A HUGE Thank-You to our family and friends that helped us with our move, we couldn't have gotten this done in the short amount of time we did without you all and we are so very thankful for all of you!!
Dave has been doing some 'man-nesting' around the house, fixing stuff, putting in new light fixtures, getting the washer and dryer going, painting Izzy's bedroom. He's been working his tale off to get things ready for when Izzy and I come home, all three of us can relax and enjoy our new home with our new beautiful daughter.
Izzy already has her first nickname....squeaker. She squalks and squeaks at you when you're feeding her or when she just wants to hear her voice, it's the most adorable thing! She's beautiful and I was just itching to get these pictures up to show her off! I could never have dreamed I would have so much love in my heart for my family. It seems impossible to feel this complete and almost euphoric with how in love we are with our little girl and how in love I am with Dave. I'm the absolute luckiest girl in the world to have Izzy and Dave and can't wait for all that's to come! (Who am I kidding, I can't wait for her 3 o'clock feeding, I'm just nuts about our little peanut!!!)
I will try my very best to keep this blog updated, and please feel free to post comments as you like. We will be busy when she officially comes home, so feel free to use this as an outlet to keep up to date on all that's going on with our new little girl!
Love to everyone and we can't wait for everyone to meet Izzy!

Izzy's around the 5 pound mark!

We had another Dr. appointment last night and after squishing, poking, and prodding at my belly, Dr. Thorp guessed that Izzy's between 5 and 5 1/2 pounds at this point! We had another NST (non-stress test) done and she, again, was a rockstar and is VERY healthy! I had an ultrasound yesterday (sadly didn't get any pictures), but she yawned about 5 times and was continuously playing with her fingers and squirming around in there. There's not much room to squirm in there and it's going to get less and less now!
Only 43 days until the 4th of July - and we're anxiously awaiting the day we get to meet our little girl face to face!
Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and stay safe!

WE GOT OUR HOUSE!

Our realtor called this morning and said that we received approval on our house today! We plan to close on June 4th (pending appraisal/inspection). For those of you math wizzes, that's EXACTLY one month before my due date! BUT, my plan is to get in their early, clean the place as best I can, then come moving day, we can get all the stuff in there, and will have a week or two to unpack and organize (like crazy), and get ready for Izzy to come home to our BRAND NEW HOUSE!

Here are a few pics of 742 Magnolia Avenue East, St. Paul! (I'm a St. Paulie Girl now....never thought I'd cross the river!) We love the house and will now be able to start hunting for daycare for Izzy and getting everything boxed up for the big move that first weekend in June!

On another note, I had plenty o' Dr.'s appointments yesterday and they all went very well. Izzy is as active as they come. I received another ultrasound (and will do so every week until delivery), and she was grabbing her toes with her hands and pulling them up to her head! She was moving EVERYWHERE and passed the 'Biophysical Profile or BPP' test in less than 3 minutes! They need to see three large movements from her, test her muscle tone and a few other things, and she passed in record time this time!

I was also hooked up to other monitors for a 'Non-Stress Test' or NST where they monitored her heartrate based on her movements, and she again, was a rockstar....the nurse practitioner even used the word 'rockstar' when looking at her print-out on the monitor. ( I love it!) I will be doing the 'NST' testing once a week until delivery - YEP, the Dr.'s are keeping me busy busy busy!
Onward and forward though, Izzy's a healthy and active little girl, and we are getting incredibly excited to meet her!