A Treat For Everyone!

I'm sure the quality of these will get better, but for now, have a look! I put together some clips of Abby making some funny noises. There is a part where you may not recognize what I'm saying to Abby. One day, Kelly looked at her and said, "excuse me!" but she said in that exagerated way, more like " Ex Kah Use A Mee!" Well, Abby laughed liked crazy after hearing that, so in this clip, I was trying to get her to laugh again.

Anyway, Enjoy the show! There will be more to come later.

A Quick Report

Hi everybody,

First of all, let's all give a big hand to my unofficial Web Master, Clint, for giving Abby's blog site a new look. The leopard print is perfect and the lettering of Abby's name is great. Clint was the one who had the idea of putting this blog together at the beginning of all this. Good idea my man. It's been great. And thanks for the new cool blog. It's very Abby.

Speaking of Abby, she had a pretty good week. There isn't too much to report other than the fact that her physical therapist thinks she'll be crawling in about 2 months because she is doing so well! I can't wait for that. And right when Eddie is brand new to this world too. Perfect. Toss another twist to the story why don't ya? Anywho, the left arm continues to improve as well. Each day she seems to engage it more and uses it to hold toys so she can hit them or do something else with her right hand.

Did I mention before that she had an eye exam that didn't go so hot? I don't think I did. And if I did, then I must have pregnancy brain too. Well...as it turns out, Abby is nearsighted, which for those of you with perfect vision and haven't had to deal with this issue, means that Abby can't see far away very well. On top of that, one of her eyes is quite a bit worse off than the other. The eye doc wasn't too sure as to how bad it was so he told Kelly to put a patch over the good eye and see how Abby responds. If she freaks out and gets frustrated it's because she can't see anything, but if she continues to play with her toys and doesn't do more than some reasonable fussiness due to the patch on her eye, then we know it's not too bad. The good news is that Abby continued to play with her toys. Kelly said she was bothered by the patch but that she was able to continue to reach out to the toys in front of her. The eye doc said he does have glasses for a child her size but we opted not to get them yet. Anyway, enough of all that. She is doing well overall so we're happy. She's a tiny little peanut still, and we'd love to see some chunkiness on those legs and arms soon, but we'll get there.
As for momma and Eddie, they are doing okay. We had another scare today though...6 contractions in one hour. But Kelly did what her doc wants her to do in this situation, which is to get off her feet, drink a ton of water and take a terb pill. (See below for what a terb pill is if you haven't checked in for a while). It worked and her contractions slowed down. We're on week 29 now. Week 30, which is on Friday, is our 2nd hurdle. There is a lot of hope at this point but still a definite NICU stay. Week 34 is when we can start hoping that maybe, just maybe Eddie will come home with us from the hospital. So we have a bit over 4 weeks to go still. We're hopeful though and feel good about everything. Keep those prayers coming.

Our love to everyone.

Have a good week.

The Gaya Family

PS - I don't have any new pics this week. I'll load some up soon. No promises though. You guys know how that goes.

A Close Call

Hi guys,

So last weekend was Abby's 1st birthday party and it was a smashing success. We had a great time, Abby was in a good mood and the weather was perfect. We had a lot of friends and family step up to help since Kelly is on semi bed rest and we are thankful to all of you. Speaking of bed rest, Kelly started to have some contractions on Thursday. By Saturday they got more and more frequent so she called her doctor. He told her to start taking the medication he prescribed her, terbutaline, every four hours. Terbutaline is a muscle relaxer and it calms the uterus down which slows the contractions. Anyway, that worked for a while but on Sunday night, even with the "terb" pills every 4 hours, the contractions increased to more than 4 an hour which was when we were supposed to call the doc. Kelly brought him up to speed and before we knew it, we were back at Mission Hospital and Kelly and Eddie were hooked up to a monitor. It was all pretty scary to be honest. Kelly is only at 28 weeks with Eddie right now and we're hoping to land somewhere between 32 and 38 weeks with him. Clearly we're not ready for any kind of 'in the hospital" kind of bed rest. Especially with Abby at home.
The good news is that we were allowed to come home. Kelly was monitored for about and hour or so and she only had 2 contractions in that time. She was given some more terb (this time as a shot, not a pill) so that helped as well. The terb by the way makes Kelly's heart start beating really fast. So the catch 22 is that she's on bed rest but takes medication that makes her feel like she could run a marathon.
And there you have it...

Oh, I almost forgot. Abby Girl is doing great. She's really starting to move around when we put her on her stomach on the floor and she is really engaging her left arm more as she moves. It's a slow process but she has the spunk and fight in her that will see it through. She is still hovering around the 14 lb stage and is teething a lot so she is a bit more fussy these days but other than that she's great!

Here are some pics for you..

Abby's Birthday Party Pics

Here are some pics of Abby's Birthday party. Stay tuned as I will write my weekly summary soon.
But for now, I'm glad a picture is worth a thousand words because I'm pooped and can't even keep my eyes open!

Enjoy...