So many updates in a short amount of time. Life lately has been nothing but crazy. We'll start with my sister coming to see us.
She came up last Thursday-Monday. It was fun this time! Not even anything crazy but things were slowing down enough that I could actually see her and spend time with her and my nephew. I miss her! I want her to move back so bad!
Sunday was Mother's day. For me, It was my first actual mother's day. I used to have a really hard time on this day. It always ended up with a pitty party and I'd cry on and off throughout the entire day. Now that I finally have my sweet Kinley here, I am so grateful, yet parts of me almost feels guilty because I still know friends and family that want to be a mom so so bad. That, or the people that no longer have a mom, or the people that have miscarried or whatever the situation may be, just makes my heart go out to them. I'm grateful to be a mom. It's one of my greatest things I've ever done in my life. I am also very grateful for my mom and my mother in law. The selflessness they gave throughout their entire life just makes me grateful.
Thanks for finally making me a mom my sweet Kinner bug,
Mother's day was also the day that me, Caleb and Kinley had to leave to Salt Lake for a check up on Kinley.
The drive down was very pretty.
Oh, and Caleb drove the whole way down. It's a freakin miracle! Makes life so much easier so I can help Kinley out when needed. She did awesome and slept for 2 hours.
We checked into our hotel, and then headed to dinner. We tried Rodizios. Not bad, but we thought it was expensive because there's no way we each ate 30 bucks worth of meat. But, there's a first time for everything.
Kinley is super into textures and is super grabby. She LOVES Caleb's beard and always yanks on it. It's hilarious.
Monday morning was when we met with the Neurologist. Here's how it went down. Since the one medication Kinley is on goes by weight, and since she is obviously a baby and her weight is constantly changing, that mean's we constantly have to do blood work to check the levels of medication in her system to know the dosage. Just in a weeks time, she went from good levels, to low levels which results in upping her medication. Since starting this second medication, she has not had a seizure which is AWESOME. She HAS however still had maybe a handful of her aura type episodes which are still considered seizure related which was also another reason we upped her medication. The goal is to be seizure free for 2 years before they even think about weaning any medication. If say she has a seizure in 1 year, that means we are back to square one and the clock starts over. She could still have a seizure here or there. Hopefully that's not the case and hopefully with the continuous blood work, we can stay on top of the right dosage for her. Another thing has happened and it's changing the whole ballgame of what's going on. Our last hospital stay, they did more blood work but this time checked metabolic levels. (I may be saying some of this wrong because it's still somewhat confusing to me,) Anyway, they had the results there and 3 of the levels were considered very high which was scary. They are thinking that since they are high, there may be something else going on and it may be the cause of her seizures. We aren't sure. They wanted to repeat the blood work to see if the levels stayed the same. We got 2 of the levels back and are still waiting on one. The two levels we got back had gone down some, but were still considered pretty high. So, once we find out the results to this last level (hopefully tomorrow) we will most likely be making an appointment with a Metabolic Genetisis down at Primary's to then see what blood disorder is going on. That appointment was hard. I know I've said it before, but getting the blood work is brutal. For some reason, they cannot get her little veins. They poke and poke and praud forever. They end up not getting it where they've been able to in the past, so they FINALLY got it in her little foot. We left feeling a bit uneasy just because we have no idea what to think about the blood levels. I'm an idiot and googled what possibilities are out there with what levels were high and got scared to death. So, I'm trying to stay hopeful and pray it's nothing serious. I feel scared, worried, yet kind of hopeful because we are that much closer to getting to the bottom of what exactly is going on.
Right after her appointment, We pulled the cooler out and made sandwiches there at the car and got some lunch, got into our sweats, fed Kinley, then made the LONG long drive to Boise. It was nothing but long. The gps said it was a 5 hour drive. That's clearly without stops. It took us about 6 hours by the time we stopped to feed Kinley, and get gas. We both had never driven the highway from Utah to Boise and it was probably worse than the highway from Pocatello to Boise. There's seriously NOTHING. It was SO so SOOOOO incredibly windy too so the entire ride was SO loud, you couldn't hear music or each other talk or anything. We got terrible gas mileage, and it was just one of those rides where you couldn't get to your destination fast enough. Kinley overall did pretty good. Since she got worked up from her blood draw, she slept for quite a while which was good. We finally arrived at about 8 that night. We checked into our hotel, then headed straight to the new Big Juds in Meridian where Caleb's boss fed us dinner and gave us a tour. It's exciting see the restaurant grow! After that, we came back and headed to bed. That next day, we slept in...sorta...and layed around and took our time getting ready. Caleb's boss came and picked him up and they went off to the convention thing that we came down for. While they were out, me and Kinley went to Carter's. I found some cute clothes on sale. That's all I did while they were gone. I honestly just wanted to hang out. I feel like life has been so busy with going going going lately and it felt good to just sit, watch tv, hold my girl while she napped, and just take it easy.
Crazy bed head
Caleb got back around 5 that evening.
We then met up with Caleb's boss and his fiance' and son which are also some good friends of ours and went to dinner at a place called Goodwood. It was super good and a lot of fun to catch up with friends and see each others babies. They are only 6 weeks apart so they are fairly similar in what they do so it's fun.
That next morning, we just woke up, got ready, packed up, and made the last stretch back home. Kinely was so done with her car seat. She had a blowout in the car so that was fun and not surprising one bit. We stopped once for gas, and once more to switch drivers so I could be in the back with the screaming child. ha
After she had a HUGE meltdown, then a nap, life was ok again!
We are glad to be back home and it feels good! We will be back down there most likely within the month for another appointment with the Metabolic Genetisis. If not then, we'll be down in 2.5 months for a follow up with her Neurologist about her Epilepsy. We'll have appointments with the Neurologist every 3 months as of right now. That's that for our busy weekend of traveling!
Onto other randoms.
Enjoying our backyard.
I know she's sad, but I just had to document her outfit! Too much cuteness!
So I know I have an OVERLOAD of mom and baby selfies. BUT, I just wanted to document this moment because these here are the moments I just love. I LOVE that she loves me to hold her. I love that we can just watch a show and she'll just lay on me with her hand on my arm like that. I love just cuddling my bebes!
Someone has LOVED our nightly walks!
Mornings are my favorite anymore.
I got to do my sisters hair and makeup for prom last night. She looked so pretty!
I finally caved and let Kinley try some baby food. It's bittersweet. She has LOVED it though. So far I've tried banana's and sweet potatoes and she has loved them both!
Since life has been nothing but crazy lately, we haven't been able to go to our new ward yet. Today was the first day at our new ward. She looks so cute in her little dress. It's always scary and I always have a lot of anxiety doing and going to new things, but we gotta start at some point!
So this is kind of a silly picture, but it's a huge thing for me. I've had so much anxiety since Kinleys been born and it got ESPECIALLY bad when she was going through her period of seizures. I have had her in our room next to my bed in a rock n play since the day she was born. Since she is SO close to rolling over and where she is getting kinda big for the rock n play, I know I need to transition her to her crib. Every nap she's had I've held her minus maybe like 10 times. But she's always been right near me if I'm not holding her. Today, I had her take a nap in her crib while I made dinner. It was kinda scary but she did good, and I did ok. I did check on her a million times even though I have the monitor that shows that she is just fine. Baby steps. If I have that hard of a time, I have no problem moving her crib to my room. :)
