World Prematurity Day- Elijah

World Prematurity Day - November 17th 2012

Today we are rejoicing that our MIRACLE

Elijah "Eli" Cade

 is a happy and healthy 3 year old child!

Eli- 3 years old

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

♥ ♥ Elijah Cade Smith born at 33 weeks 6days ♥ ♥ Our sweet baby boy spent 3 days on a ventilator and spent 2 weeks in the NICU. It was a miracle that he came home so soon....thanks to surfactant treatments he was able to breathe on his own after 3 days with only O2 support at 40%. Of course the "Suck, Breathe, Swallow" was our next hurdle while in the NICU along with A&Bs, but our nurses and Neonatologists were FANTASTIC!!  After 15 days he came home weighing 5lbs 4oz and healthy. Today Elijah is a wild and crazy toddler with little to no effects from his prematurity and without studies like those that developed the surfactant therapy my sweet baby boy may have struggled a bit longer or he could have died. Elijah is happy and healthy thanks to the March of Dimes and thier research teams!!! :)

~~~*Eli- 1 day old*~~~
 (recieving his first of 3 surfactant treatmetns
through the ventilator)


Day 4 and 5 were the days that we were able to hold Eli for the first time. Our sweet baby had already lost 1/2 lb (8oz) which preemie/NICU parents know is a huge loss in 4 days. On day 4, I begged the Neonatologist to feed him breastmilk through his feeding tube and see if he would get better and gain his wieght back. They decided against it. I was devestated because my mommy heart knew that if he could just have a little of mommys milk he would be filled with life. He lost 2 more ozs at his 11pm weigh in. :(

Day 5:
Guess who got a taste of mommys milk??? Yep! Eli did! They only gave him 5ccs which isnt a lot but they wanted to make sure he could tolerate it. Well of course he did! God made that milk in my body just for him. :) 6 hours later they called to tell me he was getting another 5ccs and that he was stablizing and that we could hold him as long as he maintained his body temp and O2 sats. If so mommy was going on day 6 to do Kangaroo care. MY FAVORITE TIME SPENT WITH HIM!!!



Day 6:
Kangaroo Care....this article helps explain it. It is pure bliss. I waited 33 weeks while i carried  him in my womb and 6 more days after that and my heart was aching for that closeness again.
***Unfortunately I dont have any pics of this because its kinda hard to take pictures of that while you are topless and holding a 5lb baby covered in cords and stickers and tubes.***

TAKEN FROM http://www.babyzone.com/newborn/premature-babies/kangaroo-care-skin-contact_65716

What is Kangaroo Care?

The practice of kangaroo care originated in South America. Quickly garnering success and notoriety throughout the continent, the method spread and gained popularity throughout Europe and later in the United States. Modeled after the way a kangaroo mother carries her offspring, this direct skin-to-skin contact is usually best accomplished when a mom or dad is sitting in a rocking chair. The diapered baby, deemed stable by the medical staff in the NICU, is placed either on the father's bare chest or between a mother's breasts with a blanket draped over the infant's back.

Does Kangaroo Care Work?

Research gathered by such leading organizations as the March of Dimes has confirmed that kangaroo care may assist in maintaining an infant's body warmth, regulating the baby's heart and breathing rates, and establishing necessitated weight gain.
"Through the practice of kangaroo care, the infants make many strides—their heart rates become stable while being comforted by their parents, and we see improvements in their nutrition, as these babies steadily gain weight," explains Dr. Jesus Jaile-Marti, MD, Chief of Neonatology and Newborn Services at White Plains Hospital in New York.
Dr. Karen Henricks-Muñoz, MD, MPH, Chief of Neonatology at New York University Medical Hospital and Bellevue Hospital, agrees, adding that, "time and time again, it has been shown that kangaroo care causes a regulation in a premature infant's heart rate, breathing, and temperature control."~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

Day 7-15 learning to eat and breathe and the same time and getting rid of his jaundice and A&Bs!

*~~Eli-Billi Bed*~~
Almost ready to come home with Mommy and Daddy! Still getting fluids in his "unicorn IV" LOL
(Scalp IV)

 

2 years later

We thank God for him  every day!

We are back...stay tuned for an update very soon!

Hello friends! Just a little note say HELLO! We are BACK!! Look for an update very soon!

Until then...


Love,

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Pajama-rama!

As of late, my family has enjoyed hanging out in their PJ's! I have to say there are MANY positives to this, the first one being 5 less outfits to wash each day!!! Whoo hooo!!!!!!!!!!

I have also noticed that my kiddos also nap better when they are still in their pajamas too! So unless we have some super duper important errand to run or doctors appt to go to I think this summer will be deemed the "Summer of Wearing Pajamas!" :) aaahhhhhh!!!

Living the life in my comfies...

Love,

Jacki-one blessed mama :)

a quick update

Hello World!

Wow, Im sorry we havent been keeping up but it has been a whirlwind of a month. The sickness in this house has been out of control! But now I think We are finally done!! :) Yay!!!!

Other then being sick we have had some fun and I will try to catch you up!!

Easter was great! Kevin finally had this AWESOME day OFF!! This is the first time in our marriage that he has been off. It was nice to be able to spend this special day as a family. We went to church on Saturday night with some of our good friends and then on Sunday we spent the morning talking about the special meaning of the day and then had our egg hunts and headed over to the Sharkeys for Easter dinner! It was a great day of fellowship!!!

Now that the weather is nice we have spent ALOT of time in the backyard. The kids love it and it gets alot of thier energy out which makes for an easier, more pleasant evening. We also had out very first beach day of the season. We headed to Isle of Palms and it ws sooo nice! The kids LOVED it and this momma was able to relax....well kinda! ;)

We finally went to the strawberry patch and picked strawberries. The kids loved it! I think Eli may have eaten more strawberries off the vine then he picked...silly boy!

"Eli, Where's your..."

"....your mad face?"

"...your nose?"

"...your eye?"

"...your mouth?"

So excited to watch him learn!! My girls did this much earlier then he is but I have come to realize that boys are just plain DIFFERENT!!! Love him!

One proud mommy,

Baby Dedication

"I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request. Now I am giving him to Lord and he will belong to the Lord his whole life." -1 Samuel 1:27-28 NLT

In February we dedicated Rylie and Elijah "Eli" back to the Lord. It was a great day and we will not forget how important this day was for our sweet babies!! We thank God for them EVERYDAY!!! They are truly a blessing from Him! :)

The week prior to the dedication the outfits I had made for them were still not here and so that meant I was in a panic. It even got down to the Friday before the dedication and they still were NOT here yet! rest assured they got here Saturday at 3pm. Yep and wouldn't you know Rylies dress was more of a SHIRT! So out to Target at 8pm to find a way to make it work!! And i did! I found some really cute white capris and some pretty white sandals! It was perfect!! I love how it turned out! Enjoy!

Blessed,

~Love & War~

Wowzers!!! First off, it has been waaaaayy too long since I last updated!! Alot has gone on and so it will probably take me a few days to catch up but I wanted to share the neatest thing that we have gone through this past 2 months!!!!

Kevin and I have completed an 8 week series on Love and War in your marriage....Whoa!!! At first it was information overload. This small group was not exactly small, but it was in a small group setting during discussion time. :) The small group was based off of John and Staci Elderidge's book LOVE & WAR.....great book and even better small group!

During this 8 weeks small group, we discovered many things about one another and our marriage that we didnt know. Thats always fun , right? :) But most importantly we learned that our marriage has an enemy. Super scary for me because marriage is HARD. Thats one of the reasons half of them end in divorce. We DONT want to be a statistic so we are beyond excited about the knowledge we have gained!

I dont want to spoil it for you, so if you are intersted check it out! You wont be sorry I promise!!!

The coolest thing has happened for us though as we journeyed through the past 2 months. We havent really been consistant tithers until this year. We always said "we just dont have it." However this year we want to be different. Our pastor told us to test God. Tithe and see that he will pour out more blessings then you could ever imagine! :) Well, we did. I am utterly AMAZED by His faithfulness! We have had favor with most everyone. We have people and businesses BLESS us with services and meals and gas and the list goes on. Stuff we NEVER asked for!! He has blessed us with new friends and rejuvinated friendships with people who we have just gotten to busy to keep up with. Its so cool how He works! I dont know why I waited so long to do this!

He is soooo faithful! He loves us and wants to BLESS us and now I feel like a living breathing testimony to his love and faithfulness. It is soooo cool to me! :)

Anyway,that is a quick little tid-bit! I hope you have all have had a good start to spring!! I know we have!!!

Blessings,

"Teaching Moment" Love,God

"Faith makes things in life possible not easy."

I kinda stole this from one of my friends FB status' because I feel like this is exactly what I have been dealing with lately. WE(the family) are still battling illness after illness after illness. IT IS CRAZY!

I know everyone, including my pediatrician has been saying its been " ...a bad cold and Flu season. You aren't the only family I promise." But really??? 5 weeks of it in a row! Yea Im struggling with what in the world is going on and why is this happening to my family...how could I not be?? As if being a wife, mother(and all other sub titles this includes), friend, daughter, niece are not hard enough on ONE individual add in on top of that the business of life and ILLNESS!!

So, because I am learning, and God is teaching(love HIM), that my WORDS are supposed to be LIFE -GIVING and not LIFE-TAKING I have to be "careful" of how I talk about whats going on because I tend to be more negative about things that dont go my way. Nobody particularly "likes" being sick. But instead of pulling EVERY negative out of it I am working on praising God that this cold and flu season has actually given me and the kids more "home time". More time with God. More time with each other. Our life schedule isnt taking precedence over our family time. Maybe thats what God has been trying to show us. Maybe there is a method to HIS madness!! Haha! :) Having faith means ANYTHING is possible with HIM, but Jesus said there will be trouble in this life. So I am choosing, in this time of absolute insanity, to choose HIM. Choose to have faith that I can get through this even if its not easy. God is in the hard stuff too and thank goodness He is. This past 5 weeks has shown me some things in ME that I am not proud of...so im choosing faith. Because I CAN do anything through Christ who give me strength. Phil 4:13 even if its not easy!

Lovingly,

Happy {heart} day!!

with love,

Family on the mend???

Ok just a warning this post will be boring and gross.....consider yourselves warned! :)

3 weeks ago this family was happy, healthy and BLESSED!! However some things have changed in the last 3 weeks...

First, we are still INCREDIBLY BLESSED with friends that love us and pray for us daily! We want to thank them from the bottom of our hearts!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!! Beyond that though we are not happy or healthy...:(

About 3 weeks ago we all slowly came down with a stomach bug. :( It made its way around the whole family and when it got to the mama it put her in the hospital. We later found out it was something much more serious. Apparently I caught the bug and got food poisoning all in one day! SCORE!! 3 days in the hospital stunk, but 18 bags of fluid and some of them with Potassium since my levels were low, and some nausea meds and I was a new woman!! :)

That was until tummy bug #2 made its rounds and all 3 kids got sick AGAIN!!! Yep, its true. Round two was much worse then round one for the kids. They ended up in the ER with IV's and Iv fluids.....at 3am!

Finally just when we think we are in the clear and home free we wake up in the middle of the night to Mr Eli wheezing like his champion wheezing sister Rylie! The next morning it was confirmed that Mr Eli has RSV. So onto the 2nd bottle of Motrin and the 2nd bottle of Tylenol and the steroids, breathing treatments and steam showers....Fun! (note my sarcasm)

So without going into much more detail I have now completed 18 loads of laundry, gone through 2 bottles of Clorox wipes, 1 can of Lysol and half of a container of bleach so that HOPEFULLY and PRAYERFULLY we can be DONE with all of this mess and enjoy the spring! :)

On a side though, there was a small period of time when we were well. So we had a little photo shoot done with BMullniaxPhotography.com! They really caught Rylies personality well! :) Here is a sneek peek. I will upload the rest later..Enjoy!

Hoping you have been well,

Basically our crazy December

December was a busy month for us...
We traveled to Columbia 3 times and Charlotte, NC 2 times. ALOT of driving! Anyway since Danielle had a doctors appt in Columbia after we went there we decided it was a perfect opportunity to visit one of the parks there in downtown Columbia. It was Finlay Park. So pretty. We played there for a little bit and had lunch(crock pot BBQ Beef-which I cooked the day before..yum!)

Once we got to Charlotte and checked in to our hotel, we decided since I had never eaten at a Cracker Barrel that we should try it. Eeeehhh, I wasn't impressed. But I loved the peg game so much we bought one!

(Christmas with Danielle happened before the park and Cracker barrel,but to be honest I tried to move them and it would work!)

So the week that Danielle left we celebrated Christmas with her. It was kinda bitter sweet. My girl has never spent Christmas morning without me and this was a reminder that she wouldn't be there with us this year. I'm so happy her family in California enjoyed but she was missed at her home!

As in the the post 2 times ago...Elijah has hiding spots all around the house. In December they were:


...in my glad ware cabinet.

and behind the Christmas tree!

More pics to come but I gotta get on to my chore list!

Until next time...

Be Blessed,

FuNnY fAcE!!

When Rylie was about Elijah's age she used to always make this face when she was excited or if you said "Funny Face"!


Now that Elijah is about the same age as Rylie was in the picture above, he now makes the same face! Too cute! :)

New year, kinda new ways...

Happy New Year! :)

I have decided there will be no resolutions this year. Mainly because I NEVER stick to them and only partly because they are almost always depressing...like loose weight or stop eating out so much or get on a budget and stay on one. LOL So this year will different. This year our family will just strive to be more and more Christ-like. We should already be doing this but since we struggle because we are not perfect we will consciously make an effort to do it everyday.

Lucky for us, being Christ-like means eating better, being better stewards of our money and body and most importantly being kind, considerate, giving and LOVING to our neighbors and ourselves. Sounds more like a life style not a resolution. :)

And since we haven't uploaded any pics in awhile, be on the look out for some in our next post. Charlotte trip, Christmas and just hanging out around the house! Until then here's a teaser...

....this is Elijahs new hiding place...our glad ware cabinet. WE really need to install those baby latches!

Have Blessed and Safe New Year,

~*~Christmas Blessings~*~

Whew...where has this month gone to?? Shoot, what about this year??

It seems the older I get the quicker the time goes by.

Anyway, here in the Smith household we were probably like any other family this holiday season...CrAzy BuSy! I vowed that I wouldnt let it be that way but alas, it seems thats always the case. We are Blessed though. We have family, friends, church family and neighbors who love us and pray for us. I would have to say that that is and has been the BEST gift we have recieved this year!

I know, I know...very cliche. But for real, prayer has brought us through some serious things this year. Since my family is by far the most important next to God, I couldnt think of a gift more appropriate then that all year long to protect us from harm. :)

Speaking of gifts..material ones that is: Our children were abundantly blessed. Every year we say we arent gonna be buying much because the family does so joyfully, but again thats hardly ever the case. Danielle spent the holidays in California with her grandparents and aunts/uncles. She had a BLAST!!! But she also got the ONE thing (and many many other things) she has really really really really wanted for Christmas: An American Doll! The girl has more clothes the I have for my real baby! Hahaha

Rylie got a bike! Watch out world the child is a natural! She could ride that thing all day and NEVER tire...my legs remind of my lack of exercise and she reminds me that in order to keep up with her and her new bike I need to exercise! Funny girl I tell ya!

Elijah..sweet baby eli. His fav thing...hhhmmm. I think I would have to say the wrapping paper everything was wrapped in. He played more with that then any toy he was given. But coming in a close second was his Chuck trucks and cars. Definetly a must have for little guys and with no small parts or metal pieces it makes me a happy mama too...having a boy is waaaayy different. I{heart} my boy! :)

Kevin & Jacki: 1. A bill from MUSC totaling 10450.00 for outpatient treatment for Danielle with a copy of our account statement attched reading "PAID IN FULL-0 BALANCE-MERRY CHRISTMAS! MUSC Billing :) Praise God! He is always providing.

2. My dream minivan- a new Honda Odessey with ALL of the bells and whistles. My fav: heated leather seats...aaahhh!

Family: Baby Jesus...The Ultimate Gift!

We hope everyone had a blessed Chirstmas and a safe and happy new year 2011!!

**jOyFuL GiViNg**

Joyful Giving.

This season I am trying to teach my children about giving. Not just giving because you should
but giving because He gave. It has been a pretty hard topic to teach by traditional teaching methods. Plus as I was thinking about how to teach this to them I was reminded that the best way to teach is by modeling. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart. :) Jesus taught by modeling and what better way to teach my children.

While out shopping in every store we have repeatedly heard " Mommy, I want this!" or " Why cant I have this?" or "But _____'s mom let them have it before Christmas." I will admit my children have repeated these things to me while in Target a few times, however the argument ends very quickly with an answer that surely turns other parents attention to me. I share with my children that although we have the ability to purchase these items that they claim to "want" and that we also all "want" things, these things are very rarely things that we need. So instead of the argument that happens at simple sight of a toy, my kids have been learning a lesson in giving and receiving.

They will ask and I will respond....

"Tell me how this toy will help you serve the Lord today and everyday you own it."

I completely agree that kids need toys to learn through imaginative play and so on and so forth but our children have an OVER ABUNDANCE!!!! So most of the time my kids really cant give me an answer that will convince me that they can use the toy for anything more then personal pleasure. However, other days they completely surprise me by their answers.

Just the other day Danielle and I were at Target.(i know, i know we are always at Target. lol) She not one time asked me for anything for herself. This is a RARE occasion. As we approached the Christmas Section of the store she asked if we had given to "Toys for Tots". We give every year but usually to gain something in return. (Im very embarrassed to admit this. but we are not perfect by any means) An unwrapped toy gets you alot these days. Sad. Anyway, she said she thought we should give 2 toys this year and that those 2 gifts should be something that her and Rylie had on their gift list. She said "Aren't we supposed to give stuff that you really want so your heart feels happy when another child gets a toy that they probably really really wanted?"

She went on to tell me that when we helped a family and donated to the BREAD BASKET at our church that she felt really happy inside. She shared that when she saw Kevin and I praying for needy families and helping a family friend, that it made her want to do it too. Then she asked "Is that joyful giving, if you feel joyful when you do it and not sad that someone got what you wanted?" Since then Danielle has given her very own savings(not all fo it...we are also working on being a good steward of her money) to various programs that her school sponsors including the Cancer Association and the local food pantries in our area. When asked why she will respond:

"Because I have been blessed." Simple child like faith. I love her.

Be blessed,