Happy Little Girl

What a happy little girl

This picture was just taken yesterday. Daryl has been a pretty happy girl for a few days now. The doctors increased her feedings up to 2ccs every 3 hours . That isn't even enough to fill up the nipple on the bottle, and she knows it. Today they changed it to 3ccs every three hours, and plan to add 1 every 12 hours. since she had parts of her intestines and a piece of her colon removed, the doctors want to go very slowly to make sure she can make poop out of everything. She is still getting most of her nutrition through the picc line in her head. they have also installed a g-tube into her stomach, but haven't used it yet. She loves to eat so they may not need the g tube, but since they had her open, they put it on in. We aren't scared of the g-tube. we call it a Leila tube, because the second cutest little girl ever had one too.

Wow, a Family!

Our first family photo

Here are the snappy gowns that we get to wear everyday. Leanna and I have been with Daryl every single day. Since Noah is 10 years old, he only gets to visit once a week through the child life sibling program. He is so ready to be a big brother. he comes in and holds daryl every thursday. he really likes talking to her and looking at her. she recognizes him and seems to really like him. He is already a great big brother, even if only for 30 minutes a week.

Seeing is Believing

Okay. I will catch up later. too many pictures to go through. I have dozens of pictures from every day of daryl's life so far. some days i only take one or two, like surgery days. luckily there were only three of those. this thursday we will have been in the hospital for ten weeks.Some of you might think that is a long time but it isn't. Little baby Clayton went home friday after over four months of NICU life. our first neighbor and daryl's first bff, Holden went home on September 10th, one day shy of 5 months. Those are the longest stays that we know personally, but there are babies who leave as toddlers, and even babies who don't ever leave. Whenever I feel sorry for myself about spending "so long" in the hospital, I remind myself that our stay may be shorter than many. And just when I think I'm gonna lose it and go nuts, I think of these other parents, who stood up through the same thing, even worse problems, for so much longer than we have, and I realize that we will go home some day. Thanks to all those parents, especially Dolores, who taught us the real meaning of strength, and how to never give up. Seeing you take your baby home gives us so much hope and comfort.

baby steps

Daryl recovered from her surgery pretty well, although quickly isn't the right word for it. It took two weeks of sitting at her bedside, wondering if she would ever wake up before we believed that anything was ok. I cant even explain how amazing a simple eye blink, or wiggle of the foot meant to me at this point. every once in a while she would move a little, just to remind us that she was alive. it wasn't til about two weeks after surgery that she was well enough to be held. During this time we were told that she would poop any minute, just give her guts a little while to start working, they ve never done anything before. well, we did get get to hold her after a coupla weeks. It was such a neat feeling to come in one day and see no breathing machine at the bedside. Slowly but surely she was getting normaler. she still had a tube in her mouth to remove stuff from her stomach, but she was breathing on her own which is a very good habit.

We can fix her

I can't find the pictures from right after surgery, they were scary, I think my mom deleted them from the computer. Please enjoy this picture of monkeys feeding chickens!


So next is Daryl's surgery. She was taken downstairs at about 8am for a routine operation to remove the atresias (from Greek, A- meaning without,-TRESIA meaning orifice)from her intestine. we were very happy that the surgery was so soon after birth because that meant she could come home sooner. We were told to come back in a couple hours and she would be there for us to see. at noon we returned to be told that they needed another hour,. we sat in the waiting room for that hour and then checked back with the front desk. This time they told us it would be a couple more hours. As if our day wasn't already long and stressful enough, what the hell could be taking so long? well, we got our answer at about 4:30, seven hours after surgery began. the ultrasound showed that there were more than one atresia, so they expected to find a few. what they didn't expect, and for good reason, was to find SIX blockages to remove. about one third of daryl's small intestine was gone. a whole day worth of surgery was much worse on us than it was on her, but don't tell her that. we just found out last week from the surgeon, that this has never been seen before by her, or anyone else in the world. what a girl, just her second day with us and i have to call the guiness record people AGAIN.Trust me , the pictures even freak me out, you'd rather see the monkies feed these chickens.

Welcome to the NICU Daryl

This picture is kind of blurry, but it kinda looks like she has my beard, doesn't it?

When we finally got to spend some time with daryl it was nothing like we expected. We scrubbed for three minutes before putting on gowns and got escorted to our baby's bedside. We were pretty lucky, all things considered. Her brain and lungs were fully developed so she could breathe on her own, meaning we could hold her that day. The staff told us that she would be needing surgery on her small intestine because it was blocked. this meant that she couldn't eat until there was somewhere for things to go. The big blow was being told that her condition was commonly found in babies with downs syndrome. she showed no signs of that, but they sent out for genetic tests, which eventually came back negative. we spent the whole day just holding her and passing her back and forth, getting to know our little girl, not even knowing whether she would live through the night or not. It isn't a pleasant feeling wondering if you will be able to hold your baby again. and then , they kick you out at 6:30. it was a very long day, and we went home knowing less than we did when it all started.That would be the last time we got to hold her for a few weeks because she had her surgery the next day, at 32 hours old.

The Long Road Home

we had already known Daryl was going to need help when she was born. ultrasound pictures showed that she had some "prominent loops of bowel" discovered just days before leanna's birthday. Upon further examination, the facog doctor, Dr. Brar, told Leanna, "Don't freak out."Moments after she was born she was taken to the NICU at st. bernardines for x rays. We were led in at about 2:30 to hold her for about 15 minutes, and then she was transferred to loma linda childrens hospital. We stayed at st b's overnight with a stupid teddy bear named ricahrd instead of our baby girl. Leanna was discharged at 10 am. ten and a half hours after giving birth, so we could go to lluch and get told that visiting hours didn't start until noon. Thanks Milton.and yes, it's nametag actually says ricahrd.

Daryl the Dodger fan

This is Daryl's second visit to dodger stadium.third really. On march 29th we parked at dodger stadium and shuttled to the la coliseum for the biggest baseball game ever. 115,300 people bought tickets. Daryl made 115,301, but guiness never called us back for that either. This was june 8th. the cubs beat up Brad Penny pretty bad that day. We also went on july 13th(batman Day) 3 days before D-Day (Daryl day). Unfortunately, Vin Scully didn't have to deliver Daryl in the park. She was born the day after the all star game, so at least I didn't miss much. Lets go back to this one.

Day 1 of Daryl's rookie season

This is the first ever picture of Daryl. she is about ten minutes old here. so new in fact that i had to edit the picture because Leanna didn't like the portrayal of her leg in the stirrup!
Daryl was born at 11:13pm on July 16th. due to the late hour, we often still think it was the 17th.She weighed in at 6lbs 3oz and was 19somethin inches long.We contacted the guiness record people to make her the official cutest thing ever, but they never called back...

Better late than never

Hey what a swell idea to have a Daryl blog. Thanks family Clayton, for the idea. We will try to bring the joy of Daryl to the rest of the world now. Well, soon anyway. She is over two months old and i have hundreds of pictures to sort through to get started. Oh well, Leanna should have a good time with that. Toodles Darylites, we'll have fun stuff soon. be well