What is the significance of Day 6?

 Before Kinsley was born I was afraid that I was going to just sit and cry.  I was afraid that having a baby in my arms again would make Hailey's death and all those emotions come to the surface.  Thankfully I think we were just too busy worrying about making sure that Kinsley was ok.  There were so many tests and small things that we focused on that our minds didn't really have time to wonder.  Things like washing all of the pump equipment with a fresh paper towel and soap so that we weren't reusing a bottle brush or anything that could possibly become contaminated in the hospital....  Using our special body washes....making sure that each nurse that came into the room actually washed her hands with soap and water and didn't just use the antibacterial liquid....

 

It's not that we didn't think about Hailey and try to figure out who exactly Kinsley looked like, but we didn't have time to dwell on the sadness.

When you lose a child there are three dates that are forever in your mind.  The first of course, is your child's birthday.  The second one is their Angel day or the day they passed.  The third day is not necessarily a date, but an age....how old your child was when they passed.  I know for many Angel mom's this last date or age is one of the hardest things to deal with and brings much anxiety when a new child is born after a loss.

I guess I am thankful that we didn't have to wait too long before we hit that mark with Kinsley.  Hailey passed when she was 6 days old.  I didn't realized that the 6-day mark was so important to the kids until Nathan brought it up after Kinsley was born.  In his little precious and innocent mind Kinsley just had to make it past day 6.  It was one of the first things he said on her 7th day of life - "Mom, Kinsley is still alive and it has been 7 days!  She isn't going to die!"  As my heart breaks and I say a prayer to myself that these sweet words from my 7-year old will be truth, I agree with him, we celebrate, and put his little mind at ease.  "Yes, sweet boy, your sister is going to be just fine."  This is not something that children should have to worry about, so I am grateful that he was able to let that worry go at that moment.

These pictures were taken on day 6.  Aaron and I also needed to celebrate a little by taking a moment to record our sweet baby with pictures.  So grateful to have made it to....and past...this day.

Kinsley's Blessing Day

 Kinsley was blessed by her father on August 4, 2012.  Kinsley is about three weeks old.  My dad was able to stand in the blessing circle with Aaron.  It was a little difficult to go shopping for Kinsley's blessing dress.  The last time I bought a little white dress was for Hailey's burial outfit so I definitely struggled a bit that day.  I really like this dress though.  I think it is beautiful!

I was determined to make sure that we had thousands of pictures of Kinsley from day one.  So we went to Portrait Innovations and had pictures taken of the kids.  These are some of the pictures that were taken of Kinsley in her blessing dress.

"Looking beautiful is exhausting!"

I love this picture for a few reasons.  First, it is the one little smile that we captured the whole time.  Not that she was really smiling yet, because she is only three weeks old, but I love it anyway.  The second reason I love this picture is because if you look closely you can see her hair sticking straight up.  Every time I see this picture I think of one of the movies with the penguins that had the feathers that stuck straight out of the top of their heads.  It would help if I knew the name of it, but I don't. lol  Anyway, that is her hair.  Straight out of the bathtub - it dries and sticks straight up.  We can't stop rubbing it!

I was very grateful to have Kinsley blessed.  After Hailey passed away I had a moment where I almost panicked when I realized that she didn't receive a blessing.  Then I realized that it was ok because she didn't really need it.  I still felt like that was just one more thing that we had missed out on with her.  At this point I am just feeling so grateful that our baby girl is healthy and still with us.

First "bath" at home

I was a little worried when I looked for these pictures because all I had were pictures of Kinsley wrapped up after the bath was over because Aaron had wanted to have a video of her first bath.  Then I remembered that I had insisted on pictures (for blogging purposes) and found a few pictures on an old camera that we pulled out.  Phew....

As you can see, Kinsley was not a fan of being naked.  In fact I think she was fairly upset through the whole process on the towel.  This, of course, was not a "real" bath because she still had her umbilical cord at this point, so this was just the wipe-down bath.

In the hospital when our nurse, Jan, gave her a bath we discovered that Kinsley really liked having her hair washed under the warm running water.  We decided that we should give her the same royal treatment at home.  She was a fan!

 

Now she is a happy camper!

 PJ's on and hair brushed...

All clean and warm....

Sibling love...

July 16th, 2013

At home Kinsley was immediately snuggled and loved by her big sister and brother!

Going Home!

July 14, 2012

Our initial feelings were that we wanted to stay in the hospital as long as possible to make sure that everything was ok.  We wanted access to medical attention.  My OB had other thoughts, though... His concern was that the longer we stayed in the hospital the more chance we had of being exposed to something.  Kinsley had been poked multiple times for many tests.  She failed her hearing tests and so she had to have the specialty tests done.  Thankfully she passed!  We still didn't have any results form the tests that had been done, but agreed with the doctor that we didn't want to chance picking anything extra up from the hospital so we hesitantly decided to head home.

Jan was our nurse that first day and also the day we checked out.  She was AMAZING!  I am so grateful for her.  She was very protective of us and made sure that we were left alone as much as possible, but that we had the "extra" care and attention our hearts needed.  She will always have a special place in my heart.

 

Kinsley had already messed up the two outfits that we brought to the hospital so she had to go home in a very large donated outfit.  Still cute as a button though!!

Formula or Breast Milk?

July 13, 2012

As I had said before we had decided that I would have my milk tested to make sure that there wasn't any infection left in my milk that would be harmful to Kinsley.  So I began pumping immediately and this little cutie drank formula.

 

The nurses took the little milk that I was able to get and kept it in their refrigerator with the hope that when the tests came back okay we would be able to feed Kinsley the colostrum since she was missing that part.  Unfortunately, we had a little set-back.  On the second day of pumping the milk from my right breast started coming out brown.  Not a good sign and an instant panic-starter for myself.  The nurses were baffled.  They didn't know what to do with that.  So we instantly cultured my milk again and sent off for yet another test.  It turns out that there is something called "rusty pipe" syndrome.  Nice name, I know....lol.  Anyway, because of the severe infection that I had with Hailey and the fact that I stopped breastfeeding over night my ducts where never able to completely drain and there was leftover blood cells that came out in my milk, making it a brownish color.  Looking back it was a little humorous because I looked like I was making chocolate milk on one side and regular on the other.  It wasn't funny then, though.  There was no way that I was going to feed that milk to my baby, good or not, so we ended up dumping everything that I had pumped in the hospital and I didn't keep any milk until it looked normal again, which was around day four.

 

It took over a week, but finally got the good news that my milk was fine.  It was such a relief to know that I could feed Kinsley breast milk!

Has it already been a year?

This blog has been my journal for the most part over the past few years.  So it makes me sad to know that I have allowed a year to go by without recording all of the moments that we have had.  My excuse (good or not) is that we put Kinsley's crib in the office.  So when she was sleeping and I actually had a few minutes to think, she was in the same room as the computer.  About a month ago we finally moved the "office" into our dining room.  I was tired of never being able to get on the computer and I was also tired of having Kinsley spread across the house.  We had her crib in the office, her changing table in the living room and her clothes in Lexy's closet and dresser.  Now Kinsley has her own room and I can actually take a minute to get things done on the computer while she sleeps.

I cannot let this past year go without recording it.  We had so many raw emotions and feelings when Kinsley was born.  I hope that I can remember them and record them.  So the next posts will be recording our lives over the past year....