The Krill Family

Every once in a while I’ll post a picture from the not so distant past.

Here is one for today:

Christmas 2007 – Robin and Amalea

I have to admit I have a hard time following the “sleep on your back only” rule for babies.  Amalea always slept better on her side or stomach.  Today I let Maya take a nap on her side (yes I was right there next to her the entire time) and she slept great and looked so cute.

Maya had some fun play time with Amalea today. She is becoming much more alert and wanting to play and stretch more so Amalea keeps giving her lots of toys to play with.  Amalea doesn’t quite understand that Maya isn’t ready for toys, but it is very cute to watch her share with her sister.

Maya is healthy and eating really well.  Her jaundice is completely gone now and she doesn’t have to sit under the lights anymore.  We are all adjusting well and enjoying our new addition.

This is a little graphic at parts so read at your own will – it’s not too bad, but consider yourself warned!

I went into birth this time thinking if I needed medicine to help I would be ok with that, but I wanted to try to do it naturally again. I wanted a birth without so many complications this time – that was what it all came down to. I longed to hold my baby in my arms just after delivering her. And that is exactly what happened. My water was broken early in the morning and after about 4 or 5 intense contractions I was ready to push (this time around was much quicker). I asked for an epidural and they told me I was there and I didn’t need one. Between my nurse and my amazing husband I had all the support I needed. Shannon, my nurse, was truly Heaven sent and was so supportive of me. Jim was right there by my side and encouraged when I needed it and said nothing when I needed that. After less than two hours from my water being broken Maya entered the world. Yes, it was hard and painful, but it was incredible when it was all over. She was placed on my stomach and let out a beautiful cry – exactly what I had prayed for. I got to hold her for almost two hours like that before she was weighed or cleaned or anything (in that time she pooped all over me). Jim even got to cut her umbilical cord.
I don’t want to compare my experience this time with my experience with Amalea too much because they both were beautiful in their own way. This time was easier and this time I was able to hold my baby and not have her rushed away to be worked on. I didn’t need stitches and the healing has gone so much better.
I am attempting to nurse Maya as I also attempted to nurse Amalea. It is proving to be a challenge once again, but this time I am receiving help. I can’t say with certainty what will happen with my nursing – I still have a lot of scars from Amalea and a lot of wounds that never healed. In fact I was bleeding after just the first feeding because of the wounds from last time.
Maya is doing really well. She sleeps a lot which can be concerning for me and I know she needs to eat more to help give her energy so we are working on that. She is so mellow! I am sure that can change very quickly, but for now it’s been nice because it has given me the time to rest and recover.

All Amalea wants to do is give Maya kisses and love touches. It really is quite impressive how gentle she is.

We have gone to the doctor everyday since we got home with Maya, because she has a little jaundice from not eating enough and not pooping (that’s the short version).  She’s ok, but they want to monitor it and make sure it doesn’t get too bad.  Basically she needs to eat more and poop more.

Today Maya finally really started eating well and had multiple poops!  That made us all feel better… but we’ll still need to go in tomorrow and she’ll need to get pricked and get blood drawn at least once more.

Robin is doing an amazing job, despite the stress of Maya not eating enough.  I’ll let her go into more detail if she wants, but just wanted to update everyone on how things are going.

In other news… Amalea and I went to the zoo this afternoon.  So much fun!  We took a train ride, which she loved SO much that we had to call Grandpa Dave and tell him about it… and we saw all the animals she loves (bears, giraffe, and monkies).

here’s a pic:

The Girls from Jim Krill on Vimeo.

We are home from the hospital now.  We almost made it out perfectly, but at the last minute they told us that she was a little jaundicy and needed to have this special machine.  They said we could go home and they would send the machine out to our house, as it is just a little box that has a chord thingy that goes to this light that wraps around the baby and helps with the jaundice.  It’s really no big deal, hopefully, and we are now setup at home with the machine and Maya is doing fine.

The Kaiser Permanente in Clackamas, Oregon – is AMAZING.  Everyone was super nice, and the facilities were brand new and flawless.  The rooms was super big and we had everything we needed.  It was quiet (besides Robin screaming) and private.  Our main Nurse, Shannon, was really nice and very helpful.  She was very soft spoken and patient and that helped through the super intense parts.

Now, hopefully, it is time to relax and enjoy this new creation.  Of course, tomorrow we have to take her in for her first doctor appointment (and hopefully the jaundice has gone down) – but I’m taking some time off of work, and Robin’s parents are still here, so we should have time this week to get adjusted and relax.

Thanks for everyone’s thoughts, prayers, and kind words about her new little girl.  If you haven’t had a chance to meet her yet, we hope you get to. She’s so precious.  And if you do come to visit, or want to get her a little something (first of all, thank you, you don’t have to) – but if you do… remember Amalea.  A good piece of advice that was given to me was to tell friends and family to bring a little something special for Amalea as well, so she doesn’t feel totally neglected.

I’ll post some videos on here in the next few days.

Birthday: August 15, 2009 (duh)

Time: 8:29 am

Weight: 7 Ibs. 12 oz.

Length: 21 inches (same as her sister)

Head circumference: 13 3/4 inches

All she has done so far is sleep…