10/9/08 - The Shield Worked!!!!

Kayleigh is having yet another great day. She weighed in tonight at 1513 grams (3 pounds 5.6 ounces), so it is a little better than last night, but not back to where we were the other day. It is all a balancing act and we need to limit the amount of calories she is burning anyway possible. She is still on 2 liters of flow with her oxygen at 25%, and they may drop her to 1 liter soon to see how she handles that. We had a great visit today and she was not fussy at all, even when it was time to feed her. Lately, she has been fussy about 30 minutes prior to feeding and today she was sleeping when we got there and she was sleeping when we left.

Okay, now for the awesome news!!! Kayleigh latched on to Aimee today while she used the nipple shield. It is unbelievable the things they have come up with to help our little girl along. I am just do blessed to be in our unbelievable hospital at this day and age. We had a lactation consultant come in today and give us some wonderful information. I am going to share some of this with you as many of your had questions, either about breastfeeding, pumping and dieting.

First of all, let me tell you about this lactation consultant. She too was a preemie, but over 50 years ago. She was born weighing 1 pound - 7 ounces, and hold on to your britches when I tell you this! When she was born, they didn't know what to do, so they put her in a shoe box and in to the oven, not to turn it on, but to prevent her from catching a draft of cold air. They took her out every 3 hours and fed her. That is all they could do, or knew what to do. What do you think about that???? That is craaaaaaaaaazy! God Bless all the research and changes that have been made over the years.

She told us that dieting does not effect milk production and as a lot of you were concerned with our dieting, she made some good points and brought some documentation to show us. We asked a bunch of questions just to make sure we weren't doing anything to hurt Kayleigh. The documentation states that milk production would only be affected in a state of famine lasting several weeks. She made a good comparison when she talked about the mothers in Africa/Ethiopia who don't eat the high calorie/high fat/hormone injected food that we do in the U.S. Maybe Kayleigh won't be 6 feet tall and have large boobs at age 10 like most girls these days, but she will be healthy from the 80% natural foods that we do eat. If you haven't seen the nurtisystem diet food list, it is all very small portioned that must be accompanies by a lot of fruits and vegetables to make up our daily caloric intake. All in all, it states that this is the best time to exercise and diet as your body is constantly burning calories to produce milk, so it gives you that extra calorie burning boost. This is good news so we can all pass it along to others who are questioning it in their journey.

Someone asked if Kayleigh would be moving to a bassinet and we asked the doctors today when this would happen. He told us that Kayleigh is already ready to move to a bassinet. The requirements are 1500 grams and she is over that mark. The only reason they are not moving her is because she will burn a lot of calories trying to hold her body temperature up and right now we need to focus on growing. She will have her time to graduate, but after hearing that, I am okay if she stays in that isolette until she is ready to come home because I want her to grow!!!!

I have not received any photos or letters yet from anyone who purchased a bracelet. Kayleigh is going to be very sad when she sees an empty scrap book. Sorry, I had to give you a guilt trip. But, seriously! Send them in so we can put an awesome scrap book together. Someone asked me if we were ordering more and if I have to, I will. I do have a few left from last order. There were over 50 bracelets that have gone out, but no photos back yet. Please take a minute to do get that done for us. Thanks so much.

Also!! Last but not least. With my journey to touch the world with our story and yours, I was thinking about ways we can reach many more people in need. Aimee and I have our own real estate website and one way to build up site popularity on google or yahoo is to link our website to others. A lot of us have Kayleigh's website linked already, so that is awesome. IF WE ARE NOT LINKED TOGETHER....please send me your website. I don't care of it is a preemie site, term baby site, work website, blog, myspace, or any other site that is out there, we need to link our sites together to create a big chain link fence that will get our stories across to those who need them the most. If you don't know what I am talking about, email me at Adam@TeamFreemanProperties.com and I will help.

If you have any questions about anything, we are here to help. I have been getting a lot of great questions about different things, so don't be shy if you are dying to know something. Just email me.

Thank you all for everything and God Bless Kayleigh's accomplishments. She is just doing amazing and we pray she continues to move in the right direction.

God Bless,

The Freemans :)