The Sandersons: April 2009

Bath Time

She'll probably be embarrassed about these pictures when she's a teenager, but I had to have some of Reya taking a bath. They turned out really cute. These are also from March 21st. She doesn't really mind the bath itself, but she hates having her face and hair washed. I usually do that part first because once it's over, she's in a pretty good mood about the whole thing.

No idea she's about to get a bath.

Maintaining her modesty.

Getting washed.

Wrapped up in her cute frog towel.

Playing on the floor

Playing on the floor, March 21st. The doctor said she should spend about 15 minutes a day on her stomach so she can work on her arm and neck muscles. She has a lot of fun laying on her back on the floor too. She moves around alot, she likes watching her rattle (though she doesn't touch it yet), and she stares at the TV if it is on because she loves watching any kind of light.

Practicing her cheerleading moves.

Tummy time.

Trying to lift her head.

Sleeping on Mommy

Reya sleeping on Beverly, March 16th at about seven weeks.

The swing might be even better than the bouncer

I really wanted to get a swing for Reya because I've heard that babies really love them. So I took some of the gift cards I got at my baby showers and used them to help buy this beautiful swing. It's really nice -- it swings side to side and back and forth, it has a moving mobile, it plays lots of different music and nature sounds, and it has a light system that projects moving stars onto the netting that she really loves to look at.

Reya in the swing for the first time -- March 13th at six and a half weeks.

On March 20th at seven and a half weeks. Sleeping, of course.

Visit from Beverly's Mom and Sister-in-Law part 2

Reya hanging out on Charity's lap. The weird thing is, I don't have any pictures of Charity from the visit. Mom or Charity -- you definitely need to send me some, I know you guys have them.

Grandma, mommy, and baby.

The new family.

Visit from Beverly's Mom and Sister-in-Law

Beverly's Mom (Pam) and Sister-in-Law, Charity (Ben's wife) visited from March 6th to 10th. It was a very good visit. Reya is about six weeks old.

Reya trying to move her head around with Mommy's help.

Another proud new grandma.

Reya with Grandma Pam.
Reya cuddling with her grandma.

Sleeping in her bouncer

Still sleeping in the bouncer on March 8th, at six weeks old.

Visiting friends

One of our first ventures out was to visit our friends Steve and Ashley Campbell. Here's Reya passed out on Steve's legs. Amazingly, I think she was comfortable like this. These pictures are from March 1st, just about 5 weeks old.

Reya in her bouncer Feb. 13th

We discovered very early that Reya did not like sleeping in her bassinet or her crib. I think she didn't like laying flat on her back. So we got her a bouncer. It is a round shell-like thing that sits on the floor. It doesn't actually bounce, but it vibrates and plays music. Here she is sleeping in it at 2 and a half weeks old.

Visit from Steve's Mom part 2

More pictures from Steve's mom's visit.

Sleeping baby doesn't want to be disturbed, even for a kiss.

Daddy.

She's so small!

Visit from Steve's Mom

Steve's Mom (Rosemary) was Reya's first visitor. These are pictures from her visit February 9th to 13th. I think the lighting is just a little weird, because she didn't look quite this red.

Proud new grandma.

A really goofy look.

It cracks me up that SpongeBob is on the TV in the background. No, we don't have any other kids in the house -- just Steve.

New grandma, new daddy, new baby.

Last day at the hospital

At Children's Mercy Hospital, you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a baby discharged.

We had to bring in her car seat so they could inspect it and install it for us.

Then they had to do a "car seat test" where Reya had to sit in the car seat for an hour to make sure she could breathe properly.

We had to meet with a social worker so she could tell us how to take care of our baby.

Because Reya had digestive issues, she had to eat 50 mililiters of milk every three hours for 24 hours straight.

Three doctors and a nurse had to sign off on her leaving.

But the worst thing was that we were basically forced to stay overnight with her at the hospital in order to be allowed to take her home. They wanted to make sure we could get up with her at night and that we weren't "overwhelmed" by taking care of her alone. What did they think would have happened if we had taken her home on day two like most people do? At least they let us get food from the cafeteria, though Steve ended up running to McDonald's because it wasn't that great or that filling.

Anyway, these pictures are from our overnight at the hospital on February 5th and 6th.

Now that she's off of all those tubes, she just wants to be held to make up for all that time alone.

Steve's hat is almost as big as she is. This is an homage to a picture of Steve next to his dad's hat when he was a day old.

Ultrasound Pictures

For the people who missed seeing these, here are the pictures from our 20-week ultrasound.

Baby's foot

Profile view of baby's face.

Baby's face.

Intensive Care

Reya was five weeks early (she was due on March 2nd), so the doctors wanted her to go to the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit overnight so they could watch her and make sure everything was okay. During the first night they realized that she was not processing the small amount of food that she was taking in. So they kept her to see if her digestive system had a problem. She spent three days at the NICU at our local hospital. When she wasn't getting better, the doctors were concerned that she had an intestinal blockage, so she was moved to Children's Mercy Hospital so she would be near the surgeons who specialize in babies in case they needed to do surgery. They had to take her in an mobile incubator on a special ambulance.

She spent a week at Children's Mercy. It was slow going, but she sorted her digestive system out on her own. She didn't have a blockage, she just wasn't completely ready to eat on her own because she was so early. We were very lucky. There were so many poor babies at the hospital that had much worse problems than she did.

These pictures are all from January 28th while she was still at our local hospital.

Trying to sleep despite all the tubes.