Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Last night while I was at the NICU visiting with Keaton and Cortney was out with his Dad and brother, our kids were being watched by Cortney's Aunt. Kyler had an accident where he was rough-housing and hit his head into the corner of a wall. He had to have three staples put into his head at the urgent care, and all this while Cortney and I were away. It was so sad for me to come out of a nice visit with Keaton to find that Kyler had been hurt and I was not there! Luckily when I got to him, he was actually excited that he got to see an ambulance (yes, they freaked out and called 911!!) and he was raving about going to the doctor, so I think he wasn't scarred for life by the incident. (at least not as much as I was!)

Keaton is officially one week old today and is doing pretty well. He had a stuffy nose for a day, so they increased the amount of oxygen given to him. But now they are slowly weining him down again, and he is slowly getting more milk during his feedings as well. We are just taking things one day at a time. Thanks again for everyone's prayers!!

Keaton McKay Larson, The Full Story

Wow! So here's the whole story on our newest arrival. A few weeks ago I started having contractions (I've actually had them for a few months, they just got more frequent AND painful over the past few weeks). A week ago Monday I went in and had a normal check-up where I told the doctor of my contractions, but he checked me and everything was normal. As I said in my last entry about my bedrest, I went back in on thursday of that week because the contractions were getting so incredibly painful that I was spending most of my days on the couch crying. He gave me a medication to stop the contractions, I was dialated to a 1 and 60% efaced, so I went on bedrest. The medication DID stop the contractions for the first day, and Friday night I started to feel them again. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning on Saturday feeling them very strong, frequent. I took an extra dose of the medication, as ordered by the doctor if I were to feel the contractions come on strong again. I laid in bed for 2 hours feeling the contractions and then I said a prayer that I would know if I should take the contractions seriously and go in to get checked, or to let it go until my appointment on Monday. At 7:30 my kids came in and I went to the bathroom. I was bleeding. Cortney and I rushed the kids to my in-laws and we went to the hospital. When we got there, I was dialated to a 4, and still thinning. The gave me triple the dose of the medication to stop the contractions and gave me steroids to help develop the babies lungs if he were to be born. The contractions slowed, and I stopped dialating for a while, but I was still thinning. I continued contracting about once every hour, then they started to pick up, even though they were continuing to up the medication to stop the labor. They ended up giving me three different types of medication to stop the labor, but I eventually was dialated to a 9 and 100% efaced. At about 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning, they told me that we had tried everything and the baby was coming, they gave me an ephidural (I know I probably mis-spelled it!), and at 4:50 a.m., Keaton McKay was born weighing 3 pounds, 8 ounces, 16 inches long. When he came out, I got to see him for about a minute (not hold him). The nurses kept commenting that he was a wiggly little guy and looked really good. They took him away to the NICU and they worked on me to deliver the placenta (sorry, I know this is gross to read about), but I have learned that this baby was early for similar reasons Brayden was. My placenta was tearing away and I had blood clots in with it, which caused the bleeding and caused the tearing. So my need to explain it is because when I learned about this, as I did with Brayden, I had complete confrmation from the Lord that this baby needed to come out when he did. He could not have survived once the placenta detached completely. We are so lucky to have him be born so nice and healthy!!

So now, as I am slowly recovering from birth, I am feeling better every day with the help of our friends and family!! Keaton is doing amazingly well. He is on a very low setting of oxygen and is taking breat milk through a tube. He is showing all the signs of progression and they believe he will be off oxygen within a few days. He is so amazing! He reminds me of myself! (mostly because of his coloring) YEAH! The 3rd boy and I feel a little bit of "finally, all that work having a baby and he actually does look like me!" So we shall see as he gets older who he really looks like.

I cannot express how grateful I am to all the help, love and support we have recieved. I would not be able to spend so much time with Keaton in the NICU if it weren't for the help we are recieving from everyone. We have meals being brought in every night as well, and that has been SOOOO nice!! Thank you so much to everyone. We feel the prayers from everyone and know that our little Keaton is doing so well because of them.

I will not be able to blog as much as I would like to, but I will keep you all updated as often as I can. We love you all!!! Love, Elizabeth, Cortney, Kyler, Brayden and Keaton.

Bedrest Time

Well I had a feeling this would come my way this pregnancy. I am 29 weeks and 1 day pregnant, and my last son was born at 27 weeks. So we have been very careful this time around, I have been seeing a high risk doctor and striving to keep this baby in a lot longer than the last. So when I started having contractions a few weeks ago, I became pretty concerned. I went to the doctor on Monday, where my contractions were about one every hour and a half, and my doc checked me and told me that everything actually looked great and I just needed to be careful. So I went home, still having contractions, but not as worried. The contractions intensified greatly by the next few days, and I am now pretty much screaming with every one. I called my doc to tell him that this pain with every contraction was about as strong as when I was dialated to a 10 and pushing out my last son- so he had me come in today. Unfortunetly I am starting the labor process. I am dialating...only a 1+ so far, and I am 60% efaced. So needless to say, I am sad. He game me medication to stop the contractions- and the good news is, so far they have stopped! YEAH! So I am on bedrest, with the help of neighbors, friends, and family taking my kiddos. And Monday I go back in to see if the labor has progressed. As long as everything still looks the same as it did today or better, we can relax a bit and keep up with the bedrest. If things have progressed, it's off to the hospital for me to keep this baby in longer.

Thank you to everyone for your help, love and prayers! I know that this is in the Lord's hands and confident that everything will work out how it is supposed to. Love you all!

Kyler the soccer champ!

So Kyler's first soccer game was this week...and it was interesting. He practiced extremely well, but when it came time to play the game...he was really mad that everyone was going after the same ball and he couldn't have his own soccer ball to score with. So, we are working on that and hoping that future games will be a little less dramatic about sharing the soccer ball.

Fun with our friends in Boise, ID

So we went to Boise this past weekend to visit our friends- although it was a short trip, we had a great time and it made me very homesick for my old life in Boise!!

Kyler with his bestest friend in the whole wide world Mya! And, of course, their Nemo's...
Me with one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world, Kyra, Mya's mom!
And some of my other bestest friends in the whole wide world, Sarah and Amy (sisters), after we had fun seeing a very late movie- something I miss doing so much!!