Nayeli Faith

Nayeli 3 year pics

2011-11-15T21:49:00.000-08:00

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Nayeli Faith is THREE!

2011-10-22T21:24:00.001-07:00

I love that Nayeli is being more expressive with how she feels and what she wants. Sometimes too expressive when she says "Leave me alone man" or "No timeout". I do love that she started to tell me "I love you mommy" yesterday and I was in awwww with it. She hugs me more often. I will be doing something and she will come and give me a hug. My girl is so sweet!

Three years ago I was nervous about delivering her. I didn't know what was going to happen. It was the most terrifying and exciting time of my life. I look back and it still feels like it was just yesterday that I was sitting by her bedside praying to God to have mercy on my baby. I am thankful for the gift he has given us. She is my miracle baby and we are so blessed to have her in our lives.

We went to the UCSF CDH reunion last night and she had a blast dressing up as Snow White we left the twins at home with our babystitter. It was nice just spending time with Nayeli. It was great seeing the Doctors and we presented them with a $2,000 check from the Nayeli Faith Fondation. We went to the UCSF NICU reunion today. We took Eli and Eliana and they all had a great time. They were all so tired on the way home they took a one hour nap on the way home.

We took Nayeli out for dinner for her Birthday and had the twins stay home with our babysitter. I feel bad that I had to leave them two nights in a row but they are in a strict schedule for bedtime I don't want cranky babies out for her special day. We then stopped at Toys R Us and picked out her gifts. She is so happy with the gift we picked out for her. It's her own digital camera! She kept taking pictures and didn't want to put it down. We also got her a Disney pillow to sleep at night and another Disney chair for her to read books in our room while I am pumping or just wants to hangout. She has a total of three comfy chairs! I hope she shares with Eliana.

Here is a video I made of Nayeli enjoy!

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It's been a while

2011-09-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Nayeli took a poop on her toilet for the first time. We were so proud of her we took a picture.
Nayeli has become my litlle helper. she grabs the babies toys, diapers and bottles for me when I ask her for it. She has been enjoying playing with them alot more. She doesn't like to share her toys with them and will say "that's mine" if it's one of her old baby toys. I have had to watch all three by myself a few times all day and night because Shane has been working alot of OT. I do have help that comes but she is not always available. It's a challenge to bathe and put them all to bed but I am proud to say that I can do it! I have also taken them for walks and the park by myelf and have taken the dogs too. I just do it!

We took Nayeli to UCSF for the CDH clinic and everything went well. We were so happy to hear that the hiatel hernia and unbilical hernia are no longer a concern. She amazes us on how much she loves all the Doctors.

She has grown up so much these past few months. She likes to sing Twinkle Little star. Her favorite TV show is Dora, Olivia and Curious George. She likes to wear dresses and will change at least two times in one day. The other day she said to me "call grandma Toria I need money" I asked why she needed money. She said "for my wallet". She is funny! She loves to get attention from us and when she wants something and I am busy feeding the babies she will say "he is not hungry" or "put bottle down". When my hired help comes I take Nayeli out and spend one on one time with her. I am so glad I can do that with her. She loves when I sing "hush little baby" and "Itsy Spider". We are trying really hard to get her potty trained. There are days that she will tell us she has to go potty and then there are days she will just go in her pull up. My dad came to help me for a week while Shane was away for work. Nayeli has a bond with him from the time he was here while I was in the hospital. I was so grateful for his help. He looked exhausted when it was time for him to go home.

I can't believe Eliana and Eli are 6 months and Nayeli will be three next month. Time is flying by!

I was offered to go back to work PT two days a week. I accepted the offer and was supposed to go back at the end July. As the day approached I noticed I was getting very sad and Shane noticed I was getting moody. Shane said he would like me to be a SAHM and it would be up to me if I wanted to go back. I had a tough time deciding. I love my job but I love my children alot more. I think I made the right decision. It's hard to keep up with two babies and a toddler. Every little thing they do each day is so amazing.

First time eating solids.

First time watching TV. I put the sign language DVD on and they love it. They only watch it once a week for 10 minutes. It will be a challenge to keep them from watching TV while Nayeli is.

Twinkie got sick two weeks ago. He ended up staying over night at the hospital in the oxygen tank. He had labored breathing. The Dr. told me that he has heart disease and will have to be on medication for the rest of his life. He is doing better. Here is a picture of him with Molly with their halloween costumes.

Eliana started to roll over about two weeks ago and this week she started to roll from back to tummy. She is mastering it from watching Eli. She also has started to push her self up with her arms. She gets frustrated sometimes from getting tired. She has two front teeth growing in and loves to chew on her hands and toes. She has a great appetite and sleeps well for naps during the day. She slept through the night once this week and usually wakes up once or twice. She has started to show less interest in her swing now that she has more freedom to move around on the floor. So we will be packing up the swings soon. I am sad but know that it's just one of the many miletsones she has accomplished. She has an incredilbe smile that makes you say awww each time. She likes to squeal and will let out a little scream every now and then from being so excited. She loves her bath time every night and loves to kick the water. She is a true pisces! I am having her practice sitting up with propping her with pillows she loves it. She will pull her self up with anything that she can grab on to. She loves when I sing "You are my sunshine" to her. She makes me so happy and I am so glad I am with her everyday to see her go through all her milestones wich is priceless.

Eli is full energetic little boy. He loves attention and will make sure that he gets it. He will smile and giggle at you. He has mastered rolling around to get to one destination the other. He has two front teeth and loves to chew on his fingers, toes and Elianas feet. He gets a little rough sometimes while on the floor for play time with Eliana and will pull her hair. He was a terrible napper during the day but this past week he has surprised us and has been sleeping twice a day in his pak n play in our room. He was waking up 3-5 times a night he has narrowed it down to 2 times a night. He likes to come and sleep with me and loves to snuggle up to me. He loves to scream and is babbling alot. He also is starting to gurgle with little spit bubbles. I remember Nayeli doing the same thing. He loves his bath time and likes to kick the water too. He absolutely loves when I sing him songs any song he isn't picky. He loves being tickled especially on his belly and feet. He is trying to sit up but still falls sideways if I let go. He is so strong he pushes himself up with his arms and looks around to see whats going on around him. He loves watching Nayeli dance and laughs when she runs past him. He has a contagious laugh and you cant help but to kiss and hug him each time he smiles.

So sad summer is over! We had alot of fun going to the park, pool and taking a drive to LA for two weeks to visit my parents. Shane played in a hockey tournament and he also ran the SF marathon. He had eleven runners run with him to raise money for the Nayeli Faith Foundation. I am so proud of him. I hope I can run with him next year. Shane's parents came to visit for two weeks in June. We were so grateful for Grandpa Jim who grilled the best BBQ and for Grandma Darlene making some nice dinners. We always are sad to see them leave. It's hard to live so far from family. We are grateful we have great friends. I have met wonderful friends at church at my bible studies on Wednsedays. I guess it is true angels are disguised as friends. God is always watching after us.

I remember someone telling me that the first year will be a blur with the twins. Yes, they were right! I have to write things down in my journal otherwise I will forget what happened a week ago. I am soaking all of my children in everyday. I love them all so much! I am so grateful to GOD for giving us all three. Each one has their different personality. They make us very happy! Nayeli got her wish when I asked her last year. Do you want a brother or sister? She said "brother sisiter"

5 months!

2011-08-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Eli and Eliana are 5 months today. Time is not slowing down. I will eventually try to update the blog soon. Here is a video of our photo shoot a few weeks ago.

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Eliana Hope and Eli Luc Photos!

2011-05-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

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Nayeli has a new brother and sister

2011-05-03T09:18:00.003-07:00

March 12thEliana Hope born at 5:10pm 6 lbs 11 oz 19 inches longEli Luc born at 5:11pm 6 lbs 9 oz 19 3/4 inches long
On Thursday, March 10th one of the Doctors came to tell me that it's ok to go outside in the patio for 20 minutes once a day in a wheelchair. I was so excited! I waited to go outside until Friday with Nayeli and Shane during their daily lunch visit. I had a few tears from just being able to go outside and breath fresh air. So much you take for granted such simple things when you are healthy. I had a nice time sitting in the sun. Witihin 15 minutes I told Shane I wasn't feeling very well sitting any longer so he took me back to my room. I had friends coming to see me after Shane and Nayeli. I almost told them to cancel because I wasn't feeling very well. For the rest of the day I felt very sore and lots of pressure on my pelvic area. I remember one of the nurses tellimg me not to move around or do much when there is a full moon or when there is a change in the barometric pressure. That day there was an earthquake in Japan which caused a tsunami in Northern Cali. They made it sound so bad but when it finally hit it caused little damamge. I didn't put it together until the next morning when I woke up and went to the bathroom and saw blood for the 8th time. I called the nurses and they called the Dr. on duty. She told me that she planned on monitoring me and would come back. She came back in and told me that they were going to move me into Labor and Delivery room and I would have a csection today. I heard her say I would not get breakfast. I was so hungry I quickly got the cupcakes my friend brought for me earlier in the week for my bday. I stuffed my face with three and dranke 16 oz. of water. I knew by doing this they would have to wait on doing the csection.

I called Shane and told him what they were going to do. We quickly called my parents and they got everything ready and drove from L.A. We called a couple of our friends to see if they could watch Nayeli in case it became an emergency csection and Shane would have to come in right away. The Doctor told me the surgery would be after 4pm. My parents weren't going to arrive until 7pm so we had Aunt Sherrie and our friend Sonya watch Nayeli. We are so thankful they were there for us.

I tried to take a nap but I just couldn't I was so nervous all day. I cried a few times and kept praying. One of the Doctors came and told me how serious the surgery was going to be. He explained that the placenta is on the back and would have a hard time getting to it. I would be loosing alot of blood. I would probably need a blood transfusion. I prayed that the surgery would go well and Eliana and Eli would arrive healthy and I wouldn't need a blood transfusion. Shane brought Nayeli to see me one last time in the morning. She came up to me in bed. She lifted my gown and said "babies". Out of all the times she came to visit me she never did that until then. I guess she knew they were on there way. She would always kiss and rub my belly and say "babies" I thought to myself this will be the last time she will be the only child. Next time I see her she will have a brother and sister. How great!

Shane arrived at 4pm and got his scrubs on. The nurse came in and said it's time. I got out of bed and put a head net on. They took me into the surgery room in a wheelchair. The surgery room was bright white and so cold. They did a spinal tap on me and I thought that was more painful than when I got the epidural when I had Nayeli. It took the Dr. a couple of tries. The surgery didn't take too long. Shane was able to take pictures as they were coming out. I think they are to graphic to put on here. I heard Eliana cry first and I just bursted into tears. I saw her as they were weighing her and checking her. Then Eli came out is was a chorus with both of them crying. Eliana weighed 6 lbs. 9oz 19 inches long and Eli weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. 19 3/4 inches long. Shane and I were laughing and I was crying so happy I couldn't stop crying. We have been through so much to finally have had a normal pregnancy and deliver semi normal. GOD IS GREAT!

They took me into the recovery room. Things startedto go bad and my blood pressure went low. Everyone rushed in Shane looked so concerned. I almost passed out a few times. The walls and ceiling felt like they were caving in on me. It was horrible! I was in the recovery room until 11pm. I was so anxious to see Eliana and Eli. They finally took me to my room and I finally was able to hold them and cuddle them in my room. I cried again! They are so precious! Shane and I had a rough a first night. I think Shane had a harder time with the sleep deprivation at the hospital than I did. I was exhausted but I had this burst of energy come and go. My parents and Nayeli came in to visit us. I was so curious to see what Nayeli would do when she finally got to meet Eli and Eliana. She did great! She came to visit every day until I left the hospital.

My parents stayed with us for a one week and were so helpful. My mom cooked dinners and put them in the freezer for us. It was great having extra helpful hands with the babies and Nayeli. I was sad to see them go. The first week was very hard for us. The past few weeks have gotten easier. We are starting to have a routine. We put the babies to sleep by 8pm and Nayeli by 830pm. It's a little hard to do the evening routine starting with dinner time up to bedtime. We decided to hire help so I have it when Shane goes back to work. So far she has been a wonderful help to me.

Eli and Eliana smiled for the first time a this past week. Eli loves to do it more often. I have yet to see a smile from Eliana. Shane said she smiled for him. They are so different from each other. Eli loves to be carried and held and Eliana is very content on her swing or bouncy seat. Eli grunts when he eats.

We are cherishing everyday because we see it's going by fast. I read in one of my twin books that it's like we are sailing in the high seas and we have to learn to tie the knots on direct the boat soon we will be able to have a smooth sailing. I hope thats soon. They take cat naps during the day at home but if we drive to their Dr. appt or take a short drive they will sleep for 2 hours or more. I am just glad we are keeping them on the same schedule and it continues to work. Consistency pays off!
Eli's first SMILE!

Nayeli has been wonderful with Eli and Eliana. She was so excited to visit me each day at the hospital and would say "babies" each time she grabbed my belly. We were all wondering what she would do when she would see them. She was excited and wanted to hold them. It was wonderful watching her hold them. It was funny that she didn't want to hold them once they would start to cry. She has a funny look on her face when they do. Once we brought them home I thought her enthusiastic would go away. She is wonderful with them. The minute they start to cry she will say "babies" crying", when the their binkie falls out of their mouths she is quick to try to put it back in. When she sees us diaper changing them she will grab a diaper and the diaper rash creme for us. We always praise her and tell her she is a wonderful helper and a great big sister. The funny things she does is when the babies cry sometimes she will say "oh dear" and will also say "shhhh". When the babies are sleeping she will say "shhhh babies sleeping". She enjoys having her picture taken and will strike a pose. She used to cry and scream before the babies were here. She likes to see her picture after it has been taken. Everyday is an exciting day in the house. There are milestones with each one of them it's hard to keep up.
Nayeli is doing well with potty training. We had to put her in pull ups because she was having too many accidents and with two newborns around it becomes hectic cleaning her up each time. My mom did a great job in starting her on potty training. She will still pee once in a while but usually will tell us when she has to go. She has been great when we are out. We have a little portable potty in the car just in case there is no restroom near by. Plus I actually like it better than the public restroom. We usually hold her straight up with out touching the toilets it's a great workout LOL. She still poops in her pull up and hasn't told us when she has to go. I am hoping that will happen soon. She will tell us after she has
gone in them.

We have tried to take turns in having alone time with Nayeli. She loves it and enjoys it. She is enrolled in her music class and gymnastics and will soon start swimming. She has gone from 3 word sentences to 4. Yesterday she said "Daddy put on shirt" our little girl is growing up. She loves to wear dresses and her tutu's which she has plenty of. She will say "princess dress" when she wants to wear them. Lately she likes to pick out what she is wearing for the day. Sometimes she is unhappy when I tell her she can't wear her skirt in 50 degree weather because it's too cold. She will have a tantrum. Or she will want to wear her dress over her pj's or wear her pj's for the day. She makes me laugh when she does this but it's sometimes hard to deal with too.

We thank God for our three miracles and feel so blessed to have them in our lives. God is great!

3 weeks in Hospital!

2011-03-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

I had an ultrasound on the 4th. It was my last u/s before Eli and Eliana arrive. I am glad Nayeli, Shane and my dad were there. They told me that Eliana weighs 6lbs 9oz give or take 15oz and Eli weighs 6lbs 12 oz give or take 15oz. Eliana is breech and Eli is faced down. I am having pep talks with Eliana so she turns. I don't want another csection its all up to her.

My dad has been flying back and forth from LA to help watch Nayeli while Shane goes to work. At first Nayeli gave him a hard time for dinner, bath time and bedtime. She would say "I don't want it" when she didn't want to eat what my dad my for dinner. I told my dad to ask her what she wanted and she would respond "chicken dinasours". She ate chicken dinasours for 1 week. My dad and Nayeli had so much bonding time that she made it easier for my dad after the first week and they have a bond that is so precious. So grateful for my dads help. My mom will be here to help us when I go into labor. I wish they lived closer.

Being away from Nayeli and Shane has been difficult. I appreciate Shane bringing Nayeli to visit me everyday for lunch. She has grown so much in just these past few weeks. When it's time to go she will say "come on mommy let's go" and when she says bye to me she will kiss me on the cheeck, give me a two kisses on the belly and say "ok bye". Watching them leave is sometimes hard and I sit and cry especially when I see them walk by from my window view.

I celebrated my birthday in the hospital on the 7th. Shane and Nayeli came to visit me and brought me Mcdonalds. I was craving a Big Mac and I got it! Shane has been great about bringing Nayeli to visit me everyday for lunch. On the weekends sometimes he brings her twice a day. She is doing great and not giving grandpa a hard time anymore. I can't believe I will be in the hospital three weeks tommorow. I feel like I have missed so much with Nayeli. I know its a big sacrifice being in the hospital and I am doing it for Eliana and Eli. I don't want them to end up in the NICU. I only have one more week.

On Saturday the 5th at 2am I started to bleed and I had a clot the size of an orange come out. I already knew why it was happening. Earlier on Friday afternoon I got upset regarding a nurse talking with me about a procedure. After she left within an hour I threw up 5 consecutives times. I was so stressed over our conversation. I was coughing a lot because I threw up and I felt a lot of pressure on my pelvis shortly after. I went to bed and sure enough I let out a clot as soon as I coughed. I was so upset for allowing this nurse to get to me this way. I was so afraid they were going to do an emergency csection that day. The worst part was Shane wasn't answering his phone. I called him and texted him. I texted him after they observed the babies on the monitor for over an hour and told him everything was fine. He didn't call me back until 6am I also left him a message what was going on. I am just glad nothing happened otherwise he would've missed everything. I thought for sure my high risk Dr would've come to see me on Monday morning to talk to me about what happened.

My high risk Dr came to talk to me and Shane on Tuesday. He talked about having an amnio and the benefits. He said that if the babies lungs are mature he can deliver them but if they are not then he would wait another week and procede with the csection. He said if I wait there is a 1% to 2% that I could bleed again and I would have to have an emergency csection if the bleeding was heavy. He also said if I do bleed again I would have to have a csection. I decided to wait.

All the nurses have been very nice to me and some even take the time to talk to me when I am feeling lonely. Which is great since I sometimes go days without visitors other than Shane and Nayeli. The daily routine is breakfast at 730am, medications at 830am, NST at 9am, shower at 10am, soap opera at 11am, lunch with Shane and Nayeli at 12pm, medication at 1pm, nap at 2pm, vitals at 4pm, dinner at 6pm, NST at 8pm, bedtime 10pm. I have to pee every hour so sleeping longer than that is not happening. No one comes in until 630am to take my vitals which is great! I have had my hairstylist come and give me a haircut and it's amazing what a haircut can do. I feel great!

It's been very hard to be in a small room for a couple of weeks during this time I have taken this time to rest and meditate with my pregnancy CD's and have caught up on reading alot of books. I have also prayed alot and have asked God to help me find strength throught all of this. When I have felt very down and sad I immediatley get visitors or phone calls. It's almost as God is working through my friends to give me strength. I am grateful for such amazing friends and appreciate all they have done for us. One of the projects I was able to finish was two photo albums from pictures from the summer of 2009. I get up almost every hour to pee I am half asleep and manage to go back to sleep right away. The other night I heard a drilling. I have a white noise machine that I had Shane bring to me since I kept hearing all the newborn babies crying all through out the night. I actually heard the drilling over the machine. I got up with my tank top and underwear and looked out my door. I saw a hosptial worker buffing/waxing the hosptial floors at 3am. Who does this? I couldn't believe my eyes. I just stared at him and then went back in my room. I was in shock and almost felt like saying something but I was too tired.

It's been getting more difficult to move around. I either lay down on my left or right side. I favor the left because when I lay on my right I feel a stab on my lower ab. I feel Eli move alot more than Eliana it's been like that through out my entire pregnancy. Eli gets more hiccups too. I can't believe they will be here soon. We are so excited!

There is no WiFi in the hospital so trying to update the blog from my cell phone has been very hard. I am not able to load up any pictures.

Eliana Hope and Eli Luc

2011-03-02T08:03:00.000-08:00

On Thursday February 17th I started to bleed again. Shane cam home from work and took me to the hospital. I am so glad my dad was home because it was 1030pm and I would've felt bad if we had to take Nayeli with us. The Dr examined me and said I would have to stay over night. They took me to a double room and there was another patient there. I didn't sleep at all that night because I was still fighting my cough/cold. The nurses kept waking me up because they we're monitoring the babies and me. I was exhausted Friday morning. I was so glad to see that the other patient was going home. Maybe now I can get some rest. The Dr told me that they are going to hold me for another night and my high risk Dr is going to call me. I was hoping that once I spoke with him he would tell me I would be able to go home. My high risk Dr called me and said for the safety of the babies and myself that I should stay until babies are born. It could be 1 to 3 weeks. He said since it is the 6th incident he said it would be best for the babies and me. I was really sad with the news. I am going to be away from Nayeli and Shane everyday. I was in tears. I started to pray and I realize its the best for the babies and me.

I am 36 weeks this week and the Dr thinks I will be able to make it to 38 weeks woith no porblems. I haven't had anymore bleeding and I hardly have any contractions. Bedrest is making a difference. We are very thankful that my dad has been helping us out. He stayed for two weeks went home last Friday and came back this past Monday. Nayeli was taking advantage of him and not cooperating at all. They are doing a lot better and my dad has finally figured Nayeli out. I am so glad and happy they are having this bonding time together and makiang memories. My mom is working and the plan is as soon as I have my csection she will come up to take care of Nayeli.

My high risk Dr told me that he has me on the calender for a scheduled csecxtion on March 17th. I will be exactly 38 weeks. He asked me if I would be ok if he did an amnio on the 37th week to see if babies are ready to come out then. Shane and I are not agreeable to that and don't understand why take a chance for infection or hurting the babies when there is only one more week after that. After everything we have been through with our last three pregnancies we don't want to take any risks. The babies haven't turned Dr said if they do I can have a Vbac but if they don't then it will be a csection. I would love to deliver vaginaly but if I don't then I am just thankful for all that God has given us.

The names we chose for our babies are "Eliana Hope" for our baby girl and "Eli Luc" for our baby boy. We chose Eliana because it is in the baby book with Nayeli being the sister name. When we picked Nayeli I thought if she had a sister Eliana would be the perfect sister name. It also means God has answered which is how we feel. Shane and I had a tough time with our baby boy's name. I wanted Noah and Shane thought it was a soft name. He liked Eli and I did toobut still wanted Noah. We finally agreed and we are happy with choice. We chose Luc as the middle name. In October of 2007 I had to end my pregnancy at 14 weeks because of our baby having anomolies that were not going to allow him to survive out of utero. When we got the pathology report back we found out we were having a boy. I had a dream prior to that he was a boy. We decided to name him Luc. We hope that Eli will one day be honored to carry his brother's legacy in his middle name. We thank God for giving us this beautiful blessing of having twins and for the miracle. We praise him for all that he has given us.

My 2nd Home is Labor & Delivery!

2011-02-17T13:41:00.001-08:00

Here we go again! On February 9th I went to Labor and Delivery for the 4th time. Everytime I go in it's for the same reason BLEEDING. I actually anticipated it this time because I strained myself with Nayeli the night before. Nayeli had been very uncooperative with me the last previous nights and I was afraid this was going to happpen because I used my ab strength with her to bring her upstairs. I woke up the next day bleeding. I called Labor and Delivery and they told me to come in. I went to Labor and Delivery for the 4th time they checked me for a few hours and examined me and everything was fine and they sent me home.

Our good friend who is Nayeli's godmama came over to help me that night to bring her upstairs and give her a bath. I layed down and kept out of sight so she wouldn't cry. I hear her cry a little bit and kept saying "Mommy do it" several times. When I told her to thank her Godmamma for giving her a bath and she was leaving she quickly got up and stopped crying. She gave her a hug and grabbed a book for me to read to her. I was going to have a friend come over and help me again but I was able to bribe her in going upstairs without her getting upset.

I started having a weird tickle cough on Friday night and woke up sick on Saturday morning. Shane was sick too. We both had fevers over the weekend and were both coughing. We were being very careful around Nayeli and she didn't show any signs she was getting sick until Monday. I slept all day on Saturday while Shane took care of Nayeli. Shane took a nap while Nayeli took a nap and he let me keep sleeping after she woke up.

I was feeling terrible and kept coughing all through Saturday night. I thoght I peed on myself so I went to go pee and I had blood all over me. I peed and a big 2x2 piece of clot looking thing came out. I freaked out! I called Labor and Delivery and the nurse told me just to observe the bleeding for the next 2 hours. I was concerned since each time they have told me to come in. The nurse said since I am now 34 weeks they let me go into labor without stopping it. I called back within in 30 minutes and told her I went to the bathroom again and I was still bleeding clots. She said for me to come in.

I was exhausted since I hardly had any sleep and was coughing non stop. The Dr. examined me and told me my cervix was closed at a 2 and I was dialating at a 1. He said they are going to keep me overnight to observe me for any laboring. He also said I might need a csection if I do. I was freaking out because the worst thing is going into labor when you are sick. I also couldn't stop thinking if I do go into labor I wont be able to hold the babies because I am sick and so is Shane. It brought back memories of Nayeli. I lost it and cried. I then prayed and said I am grateful and thankful for having these two babies and if this is the plan I will go with it. I have always wanted to have a vaginal birth but if that is not in Gods plans then I will go with whatever the plan is as long as the babies and I are healthy. They did a level 2 ultrasound and wanted to make sure babies were ok. I arrived at 630am without eating because I ran out of the house. They told me I was not going to be able to eat for a while until they made sure I wasn't going into labor. I was thirsty and coughing non stop. I was miserable!
They gave me something for my cough and made me fall asleep. I took a nap and woke up with a dry throat. I was told by 1pm I can eat. I was so hungry and thirsty. I started feeling very hot and they checked I was running a fever of 101. I was praying I would get better. Shane and Nayeli came to visit me in the afternoon. I was sad that I couldn't hug her or kiss her because I didn't want her to get sick. As they were leavig she said "Mommy let's go". The Dr came in to talk to me and said she called my high risk Dr. at home and he agreed in keeping me overnight for observation. The Dr. told me that if things were looking ok I might be able to go home the next day. Staying in the hospital with monitors attached to your belly and the nurses checking you every minute was not a very restful night especially with me being sick. I also had to get up to pee every 2 hours.

The next morning I was exhausted from just being in the hospital. I was hoping they would tell me I was going to be able to go home. My high risk Dr. came in and I was happy to see him. He told me that the babies look great and I am not contracting going into Labor so I should be able to go home by early afternoon. He also told me I will have to take it easy for the next few weeks so the babies stay in a little longer. He told me I would have to start having NST's once a week to check the babies. I was so happy to be going home.

Shane and I had my dad fly in from LA so he could help us with Nayeli. It's been great having him around. He has been a great help to us. He has been playing with Nayeli, feeding her, changing her, giving her a bath and putting her to bed. He has cooked dinner for us and checks on me to see if I need anythng. He also has been walking Twinkie and Molly which I feel so bad I haven't been giving them any attention. I am staying away from both my dad and Nayeli since I am still sick and coughing. I hope this cough goes away soon. My side hurts so much from coughing and blowing my nose. This past Tuesday I had an appt to see my high risk Dr. and to also have an NST. The NST brought back so many memories of when I had to get it done with Nayeli. The Dr. checked me and the babies on the U/S. Everything looks great! He checked my cervix and he said it's closed and is 4 in length. I asked him why they said 2 the other day. He explained U/S and feeling it is different so when can feel one way but the U/S will show another. He also told me the bleeding might have been caused because the Placenta is very close to the cervix and that could cause an irritation. He told me it's not dangerous at this time. I am praying that the these two little ones stay inside a while longer or at least until I am healthy.

Nayeli has been coughing since Monday and it gets worse at night. So far she has been eating and playing and shows no sign of this cough slowing her down. She covers her mouth with her arm and my dad has been careful around her. The last thing I want is for him to get sick and go home on Friday and give it to my mom. He is going to fly up again on Monday and stay thru Friday every week until I go into Labor then my mom will come up since she has to continue to work right now.

We went to our friends super bowl party and had fun. Nayeli enjoyed playing with other kids. She loves to give hugs. We are trying to get out more during the cold/flu season but it scares us too. Shane and Nayeli went to their first father daughter dance. I had a few tears of joy as I watched them. I remember being pregnant with Nayeli and wondering if this day would ever happen. It did and we are so grateful to GOD for our miracle.

3rd time in Labor and Delivery!

2011-02-08T13:59:00.001-08:00

Nayeli went to one of her friends TuTu Birthday party a few weeks ago. She had so much fun being around other kids and eating pizza! We think it's great when she tells us she wants to see kids. She will just come and tell us out of the blue when she is playing. We recently went to our friends house for dinner and as we were leaving we were giving each other hugs and kisses. Nayeli gave our friends seven year old a hug and he was great about it. When it came time to give their 5 year old a hug he ran away. Nayeli ran after him saying "Come back" and chased him. We laughed so hard. She was determined not to leave until she got her hug. She finally got her hug from him. We all couldn't stop laughing.

We took Nayeli to the petting farm and she loves watching but is still scared in feeding the cows. It was a nice day to hang out and have a picnic afterwards. I love these momments.

The last couple of nights have been challenging because she is not cooperating with me when it's time to go to do her bedtime routine. I can't carry her up the stairs so I just let her have her temper tantrum for a moment and let her calm down. Well sometimes that takes 30 minutes. I just sit there and watch her. Usually asking her for a hug works in calming her down sometimes it doesn't. I have no idea why she is behaving this way. It reminds me of the witching hour when she was a baby. I feel sad sometimes because I feel like I am not doing alot of hands on with her. I miss carrying her I think she does too. Shane helps me when he is here since I can't bend over as much or pick her up anymore. It's hard when he is not here to help me and I have to do it by myself. The only way to make up for the attention I used to give her is to sit and play with her but usually she doesn't like to sit for too long. I noticed she can sit and play with her dolls for a while so I usually take those out and we have fun. It's great watching her interact with her dolls and how she takes thinks so seriously. She will give her dolls baths, put pretend lotion on or put pretend shampoo on. She is going to be a great little helper.

I ended up in Labor and Delivery again. This is the third time and I hope it's the last time until I deliver. I was spotting blood on Sunday early morning the Jan 30th. I called the Prenatal Hotline and they told me to come in since I am pregnant with Twins. We called two of our friends that usually watch Nayeli but they weren't answering. We had no choice but to take Nayeli with us. I am glad they had a private room for us. They monitored the babies for a few hours and me to see if I was having contractions. No contractions. They did an u/s and other not so pleasant exams. Everything checked out fine. They released me and I went home. These babies are keeping us on our toes. We are so glad everything is going well and we thank God for it everyday.
Here are some belly pics of me. I feel great! I just wish I could walk more and do more but they have me on limitaions. I am just glad I am not on bedrest.

We had our Coed baby shower last Saturday. It was great having all of our friends get together in one place. We had a fun seeing and visiting with everyone. We are so blessed to have such special friends in our lives. We realized we didn't take pictures of everyone which makes us sad. It just reminded us how fast time goes by when we are having so much fun!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Vacation in LA and in Labor in Delivery

2011-01-26T14:18:00.001-08:00

I can't believe how I just don't have time to finish the blog. I always start and then never finish. I hope to be able to update sooner next time.

We had a nice Christmas at home and enjoyed watching Nayeli open all her presents. We had the Loal News contact us regarding the Nayeli Faith Foundation and were interviewed. It was great talking about CDH and to raise awareness of this birth defect. It gave us a great oppurtunity to talk about our foundation. We had alot of friends contact us and tell how great it was to see us on the news.

We planned a vacation to go to LA and visit my parents and have our babyshower down there to see our friends. We were so excited to go on our last vacation as a family of three. I guess I didn't realize that I was exerting myself getting everything ready for our trip. On December 30th I ended up in Labor in Delivery. I was about to give Nayeli a bath when I went to the bathroom I noticed I was bleeding. I FREAKED OUT! I cried and called the Prenatal Birth Watch Hotline. They told me I need to go in the hospital and get checked out. I called Shane at work and I sounded very upset. He came home and we had our friend come over and babysit. Nayeli must have known something was wrong because she was clinging to me and wouldn't let go. She would cry if our babysitter tried to play or talk to her. I have never seen her act this way. I was supposed to lay down until Shane got home but Nayeli was so upset she wanted me just to hold her. I finally got her to lay next to me until Shane got home.

When we got to the hospital they immediately were looking to see if I was contracting and they checked the babies heartbeats. Then they did an ultrasound and lastly my least favorite they checked me with a specula to see where the bleeding was coming from. Everything was fine I had not bled since I got to the hospital and that was a great sign. The Doctor said it was ok to travel and go to LA. We stopped several times
We had the best time visiting my parents. We took Nayeli to the Rose parade and she loved it! She got to go pony rides on Sunday and Thursday. We bought a new car on Monday. A Honda Odyssey mini van. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to like it now I love it! We took Nayeli to the snow for the first time on Wednesday. She took off her gloves and played with the snow with her bare hand. She didn't care her hand was freezing. She had the best time. I love those momments when we see her enjoy something so simple. She made three little snowmen with Daddy and Grandma. We went to the mall twice and I loved getting a scotter and ridding on that instead of walking. It was great! Nayeli enjoyed the rides too. On Thursday afternoon we went to have a 3D/4D ultrasound. We were a little disappointed because they couldn't get any pictures of our baby girl. The only pictures they got were our baby boy were profile ones. They asked us to come back on Saturday and we did. They captured a few profile pics of our baby girl and they refunded us some money back.
We were having a great week and I was resting and letting my mom and Shane do alot for me and taking care of Nayeli. I ended up in Labor Delivery on Saturday morning for brown discharge. This time they said they wanted to make sure it wasn't my plug. I was examined right away which was good because I didn't want to miss my babyshower. They said everything was fine and did the same procedure as before. They also told me it was ok to travel and I could go back home the next day. We made it to our party and had a great time seeing our friends. Nayeli had a great time opening presents and receiving them as well. I am so glad our friends included her too. It was hard to say goodby to our friends and family. We plan on going back in June. We had a nice drive back home in our new car. I love that I was able to recline the seat all the way back. Nayeli loved it too because she now has a DVD player and loved watching Barney and Yo Gabba Gabba on the way home.

I had an appt with my high risk Dr. on Wednesday the 12th and he said everything looks great. He told me the babies look great. I also had an appt with the sonographer on the 19th. She measured the babies. Baby girl weighs 3 lbs.5oz and baby boy weighs 4 lbs. 2oz. She didn't tell me the length. Both babies look great and she showed me the diaphragm. I can't help but to ask each time.

Some of the precautions I am now supposed to take are I am not supposed to pick up Nayeli up as much. If I do it's usually during bedtime to rock her. I put a mini ladder next to her crib when it's time for bed. She climbs up on it with no problem and I am right there making sure she doesn't fall. I have lowered her highchair so she can climb on it instead of me picking her up. My high risk Dr. told me its ok to pick her up but to limit it. I usually only do it when she wants to be held at night. I rock her for a few minutes and I put her back in her crib. When I give her a bath each night she cooperates and sits on the side of the tub and slowly puts one foot in the tub at a time while holding on to me.

She has been showing off her belly and saying "feel babies". She will come up to me and feel my belly and say "baby kicking". She laughs so hard when she sees the babies on the ultrasound. She will yell "BABIES".

My parents came to visit on the 14th and were here for the weekend. They took care of Nayeli for an entire day while Shane and I went to a childbirth class. We are glad we took it again. It was different this time since the first time we had a planned induction. I had a Dr. appt today and he said that the babies are at 4 lbs. each and they are measuring 16 inches. We discussed birth plans. He said that if baby A is faced down and baby B is breach they can still do a V-Bac. If they are both breech then it would be a c-section. I am 31 weeks now so by the time I am 34 weeks he will have a better idea of what plan we are going to go with. I am not as scared as I was in delivering Nayeli. I am actually excited and looking forward to giving birth to twins. What a blessing God has given us. We are forever grateful!

Nayeli sure knows what to say to cheer me up. Lately my hornmones have been getting to me and Nayeli will see me cry and say "stop crying mommy,it's ok". She is so sweet. Her vocabulary is taking off. She will ask me if I like something before she tries it. If she sees or hears something scary she will either cover her eyes and say "scary" or just come up to us for a hug for reassurance. When she hears something she will put her hand next to her ear and wait to see what the sound is. She loves to sing along with some of her favorite songs from her Yo Gabba CD or the other CDs she has. She gets very upset if she drops somethng or spills something. She is very vocal and will tell you what she wants and she hates to wait. We need to teach her patience. We enjoy playing with her. Shane usually is the one that can play with her more physical with her right now. I miss that! I usually will sit down with her and she will play with her tea set with me or just read books. I love watching her. She has been such a great big help lately. She will put her laundry away and knows where it goes. She will also put her dirty clothes in the hamper. She has had her terrible tantrums they are priceless. Sometimes it's hard keeping a serious face when she melts down like that. I will usually just say let's hug and that makes her calm down. I don't think she knows why she get so upset sometimes. Everything she does is priceless!

Here is a video of our trip to LA.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Two Parties are Tea Parties!

2010-12-21T21:09:00.000-08:00

We have a little party animal. We went to three parties last weekend. We took Nayeli to all of them. We told her we are going to two parties and Nayeli kept saying "tea parties". The next day when we were going to the third party we said there will be kids there for you to play with she said "go see kids". I guess she really liked the third party because she is still asking to see kids as of today. She had fun at every single one. We never thought we would be a normal family. A year ago we avoided crowds and didn't go out and were on winter lockdown. This year is so different. We are still paranoid when we here someone coughing or sniffling we run the other way. We are just trying to enjoy going out as a family during the winter months. She tried ice skating a few weeks ago. She loved it! Twinkie and Max! I love this picture! This is how we look every night while we are watching Barney or Gabba before tubby time. I am trying to picture the twins and how I am going to juggle them in here too. I keep telling myself I can do it! I am also praying alot and asking God to help me. We have a comedian in our hands. The other day when we were driving in the car Nayeli said "ewww fart" "roll down window". She farted and it was a stinky fart.Shane and I laughed so hard. She is so funny! She has the cutest little voice. I love hearing her talk. When she wakes up she will start yellling "Mommy" several times. Then it will be "Daddy". She hates getting dressed in the morning so we let her stay in her jammies when we have no where to go right away. She also hates diaper changes in the morning. Just today she has been saying she needs to go potty. So I think she is ready for potty training this weekend. I have been reading books that some potty trained children will regress after a sibling arrives. I am expexting that to happen and will know why if it does. She loves going on the computer and seeing pictures and blogs. She is very vocal on what she wants and what she dislikes. She is following simple instructions and she is a great little helper. I ask her to clean up or put toys away and she will do it and put things away and loves to do it. Since I am having a hard time bending over she is a great helper in getting things for me when I can't bend over. We are so happy that we can listen to other music other than hers in the car again. She will actually say musica and more if the volume is too low or we have a CD on and waiting for the next song. She loves to play with Twinkie and he seems to be ok with her doing things to him that Molly won't allow. She will dress him up, wrestle or hug him and put blankets on him. We got her a Yo Gabba Gabba music CD. She loves it! Here is a video of her dancing. She loves to dance and run around when she hears this CD. She has become more independent. She wants to do things herself and will say "I do it". I will look at her eveyday and it's truly amazing how fast she is growing up. She is so sweet and loves to cuddle. I hope that we will continue to have one on one time with her when the twins arrive because it's so important to me and I am sure it will be for her too.

We took her to get a picture with Santa. She was serious the entire time and didn't smile once. When she was done she went straight to the ducks and was so happy she laughed non stop. She loves animals and will say each animal sound. We have video of that back during the summer but I will make a new one soon. She will go around and pretend she is a bear or lion and make a roaring sound and ask me if I am scared. I say yes I am so scared. She giggles and continues to do it. She will do something and ask if I like it or will ask Shane if he likes it. Sometimes we have to say no because it's something like pulling my hair or squeezing my breast. Not fun! Other times it will be her brushing my hair or putting a blankie on me. That I do like. We turned her car seat forward facing a few weeks ago and she loves it. She will say "careful mama" when I am driving or "come on people". She likes to say that when there is also hockey game on. She is a great Kings and Sabres fan.

We decorated the tree last week and she had so much fun putting up ornaments. She received her first gift from her nanny who she calls "Nina". She wanted to open it but we told her she would have to wait until christmas. She has been really good and hasn't touched any of the gifts that we have wrapped. I went to my high risk Dr. today. He said everthing looks great. He said it's ok for me to travel and to go to LA. I am so happy! He did have me go on a preterm birth watch. It's sounds scarieer than it sounds. I am 26 weeks this week and I have been put on preterm birth watch. Basically they are just monitoring me a little closer. I get a call from a nurse once a week on a Tuesday morning. They want me to lay down for one hour once a day and feel for contractions. I am just glad I am not on bed rest and things are looking great. Thank you GOD!

My Dr. has to check my cervix each visit with this device not fun. Shane made him laugh during this picture. Here is a picture of the twins heads I made a short video of the funny and cute things she is doing. I wish I had a candid camera all of the time because she will sometimes stop doing something when she sees the camera. She will say "see it" and wants to see herself.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

2 year checkup and more!

2010-11-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

I realized that I never posted Nayeli's 2 year check up that she had in late October. The check up went well she weighs 25.6 lbs and is 36 inches long. They had to measure her twice to be sure. She had her flu shot and didn't even cry. She is tough! Here she is giving her Dr. a stare like "what are you going to do with that?" She was so happy when she received a book from the DoctorThree little monkeys! My parents came to visit at the beggining of the month while Shane was in NY running the marathon for CDH research for UCSF. He raised over 3k. I am so proud of him for doing what he did. He now is addicted to marathons and is running his next in January. My parents were awesome! They cleaned the house, cooked dinners for me and spoiled me rotten. The greatest thing was Nayeli loved spending every minute with Granma and Granpa. Here is my mom and Nayeli having a tea party. Nayeli is so cute she told my mom to sit down and then tried pushing her chair in.On the steam trains! My mom knitted this beautiful sweater for Nayeli. She loves it and wanted her hood on the entire time. She looks adorable!Nayeli giving Grandpa a kiss and a hug. Our little girl is so amazing she is talking, singing and dancing non stop. Her vocabulary has expanded so much it's hard to keep up with her new words. She calls a purse a pocket. She is always requesting Gabba and Barney. When something is on the way she will say "its coming". She loves looking out the window at the Garbage truck. She dances to anything that has a beat. She has empathy towards animals or her stuffed ones. When Twinkie and Molly decide to get her Teddy or doggie stuffed toys she gets upset and takes them away and immediately gives them a hug. She is putting sentences together more each day. She will say "Here it is", "a hold you" "go kings" "I bring it" "I got it" "Tutti (twinkie) get squirrel". She has a great memmory. If we are driving past a landmark she knows such as the Doctors office or the place she had her basketball classes during the summer she will call it out "Doctors" "Basketball". She tries to sing "Twinkle little star and ABC she makes up words if she doesn't know the rest of it. I will try to get it on video. She is funny when we film her. Sometimes she hates it and other times she doesn't care.

Her bottom back molars started coming in at the beggining of the month. She would chew on her sleeves or her fingers. She had a slight fever twice. It also caused her to wake up a few times a night. We gave her tylenol a few times at night to relieve the discomfort. We also noticed she was very clingy and moody. She is back to her normal self.

Fingerpainting on a rainy day She got a cough for the first time last Friday. She got over it fast. The first two nights she gagged and puked. We elevated her mattress, gave her honey, lots of fluids and got a humidifier for her room. Her cough was gone by Monday. We are so glad it didn't last and it wasn't serious. She has gotten back in the habbit of being rocked before bedtime. Our routine for bedtime is reading a book everynight and she drinks milk in her sippy cup. As soon as I put her in her crib she will say "hold you" and is standing up with her arms reaching out to me. If I am standing and holding her she will say "sit down". I am a sucker because I can't say NO. I don't rock her for a very long time just for a few minutes. Then I put her back in her crib give her a kiss and walk out. She falls asleep right away. She has only done this to Shane once. She also prefers I put her down for her nap or bedtime. She will sometimes cry when Shane takes her. I thought we were passed this phase. I guess its a mommy thing. I love this momment with her because I know it won't be for very long she will soon phase it out.

My belly is geting big! It's sometimes hard to hold Nayeli on my lap. She will say back and wants me to sit back. I am but she thinks I am not. My belly sometimes bumps Nayeli's head because she will be standing right next to me. I am starting to have a hard time sleeping because my back and hips get sore from laying on my side. I don't remember being this sore with Nayeli. I am feeling more movement and it's great feeling it! Nayeli kisses my belly and will say "hi babies" she still wants me to open my belly so she can see them. We take her to the Dr. appts and she loves seeing the babies on the U/S. I bought a few books to help her understand about being a big sister and bringing a baby home in our case babies. I also bought a book about juggling twins. We are sure it will be a challenge we are ready and excited.

I had a great time having dinner with a friend. We had to compare bellies. She is 33 weeks here and I am... well I look huge! Nayeli is kissing my belly We went to see Yo Gabba Gabba live. Nayeli loved the show. She hardly sat down and stood up danced the entire show. She was so excited she kept telling the people sitting in front of us Gabba, Gabba! It was great seeing her face light up when she was watching the show. After the show was over she said "see Barney"
We had a nice Thanksgiving. Shane had to work that evening so we ate before he went to work. I was thankful I didn't have to cook. We are thankful everyday for Nayeli. We are thankful that God has chosen us to be parents of twins. We are excited and so happy! Yesterday we took Nayeli in to have her hearing tested. The Doctor told us that she would have to have her ear wax build up removed before the test. She said it was alot of wax in the back of her ear that it would cause for a bad test. We had a Doctor see us right away. He told us if she cant hold her head still he would have to probably surgically remove it by anesthesia. I quicky got my cell phone and tried putting Barney or Gabba on. No service! So I tried the next thing. I put videos on I have saved on the phone. It worked she didn't move her head at all. The Doctor took out the ugliest piece of wax from her ear. It was the size of a finger nail. We were shocked! Off we went back to get her hearing tested. Nayeli did great and passed all of the tests with flying colors. She doesn't have to go back for another year. As a disclaimer we clean her ears regularly. The ear wax was build up so far back in her ear that it would probably would have never come out on it's own. We hope this doesn't happen again.

We are going to try to start potting training in two weeks. I have been reading and getting helpful hints on what to do. I am torn between using Pullups during the day or just having her wear underwear and cleaning up the mess each time. During the night it would be a nighttime pullups. If you have any suggestions we would love to hear them. Thank you!

2 year photos

2010-10-29T21:29:00.001-07:00

We had our 2 year photos taken a week ago. I decided to make a video since there was so many to post.

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I had my level 2 ultrasound today. I was so nervous about it I lost some sleep. Yesterday Nayeli distracted me by having her terrible twos meltdown. I think it was her way of helping me keep distracted on not think too much about today. It worked!
The sonographer took over 2 hours to examine the twins. I kept asking him questions but he said he is not allowed to share any information with us. I kept trying. When it was over I tried again and he said he didn't see anything wrong. The Dr. came in and said everything looks fine but she needs to check a few things. She took over an hour and concluded the twins look great and there is no CDH. I had tears of happiness. Thank you GOD! I am so glad to hear those words. We are continuing to pray that my pregnancy remains healthy.

Nayeli Faith is 2

2010-10-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

Nayeli turned 2 on the 22nd. We had her birthday party the week before. We are so glad we did because it rained this entire weekend. She had so much fun playing with her guests and meeting Strawberry shortcake. Her favorite was getting her face painted. When it was time for her nap she was out within a minute. We are so glad we got to see our friends we hadn't seen in a while it was a very special day. For her actual birthday we had a photo shoot with our photographer and took her to dinner to her favorite place Red Robin. They sang happy birthday to her and she ate a sundae.

Opening presents after her nap the day of her birthday party.Opening presents the morning of the 22nd.She made a table and chair out of her boxes that her presents were in. I guess I know what to get her next. Video of dinner at Red Robin

She is talking non stop. It's great that she is able to express what she wants and feels. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what she is trying to say but we tune in and after the third time she says something I understand. It's almost like a different language. I can see it in her face that she is so happy when I get it. She stopped breastfeeding at the end of Septemeber. She started by refusing BF during nap time then shortly it was bedtime. I was sad for a few days. I prepared myself ahead of time and new that day would come. I don't blame her since I was dry and nothing was coming out. She is very happy with getting milk in a sippy cup before nap and bedtime. It's great that she stopped and now I feel like I have a little more freedom for a short while before the twins get here.

My parents came up at the beggining of the month. We held our first bingo fundraiser for the foundation and it was a successful event. We showed the guests a video of our story and educated them about CDH. Nayeli would yell her name when she would see herself it was so cute. Nayeli left with my parents and it was nice knowing I didn't have to go home and BF. The following week we made plans to go out with some of our good friends. It was great getting a babysitter and not having to BF and put her to bed. I really had a hard time leaving her before but it's easier now that I am not BF. I had a Dr. appt on the 22nd. It went well. I had been nervous up to that day because of what someone said to me two weeks before that. I am sure they never meant to hurt my feelings but it sure bothered me until my appt. The Doctor told me again that it looks like baby A is a girl and baby B is a boy. We saw them and they are so active and look great. My Level 2 ultrasound is next Friday so I am sure I will be nervous and anxious as it gets closer. I am praying for a good appt.
Our cat Max always likes to keep us on our toes. A week ago he woke up and looked disoriented. He was bumping into things and was walking all over Twinkie and Molly and couldn't see them. We took him in after a $700 bill it turns out he has high blood pressure which caused his retina detachment. They gave him medication and he is alot better. We don't know how much of his eyesight he got back but he is looking out the windows again. He now has a heart problem, kidney problem and high blood pressure. You would never know there was anything wrong with him. He is one strong cat. His vet bill adds on to our bills that we can not afford but are struggling to get by since the Dr. took me off of work and my short term disability got turned down. I am appealing it so I am praying it will get approved. God always takes care of us and we are healthy which all that matters to us.

We went to UCSF ICN reunion yesterday. It was great seeing all the Doctors and nurses that helped Nayeli during her battle with CDH. We got so many ideas and input from them for our foundation. We hope to be able to accomplish all of it for them. Here are some pictures.

"Babies Open"

2010-09-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

We are sad summer is over especially since we didn't have alot hot summer days. I guess today we got lucky and had a warm day. Looking back we had a great summer. We went to LA twice, Lake Tahoe, Colorado and Disneyland. Nayeli likes to travel. During the summer I had her enrolled in wee hoop a basketball class, gymnastics, swimming and kindermusik. She loved it all. For the fall I signed her up for Gymnastics, Kindermusik and the new sport Soccer. She thinks it's basketball and says "basetball". She loves all of her classes. Gymnastics and Soccer end at the end of October and Kindermusik goes through December. I can't believe we are actually going to take her into a room full of children during the cold/flu season. The instructor is really good about disinfecting everything and knows about Nayeli so I am not too worried. Nayeli was turned down for her RSV shot this season so she will only get her flu shot. A few weeks ago she kept coughing everytime she would take a nap or go to bed at night. She almost gagged a few times. It was scary to hear her when she would wake up cough and gag and then cry. She would immeidately fall asleep. When I spoke with the nurse at her Doctors office she said it was nasal drip and she was right. She had no fever and had a runny nose during the day. It lasted for 3-4 days. She showed us how her body can fight something. So we hope to make it through this cold/flu season.Nayeli was so happy to see Barney Live at the Kids Expo

I am enjoying my time at home with Nayeli. We have so much fun. Every morning when she wakes up she says "wake up" or will yell "hey". She is full of energy and sometimes doesn't want to take a nap and will fight it until she is in her bed. Then she is out within 5 minutes. She loves playing with her toys by herself alot more. She will come and grab my hand and say "sit" if she wants me to play with her. If I leave she gets really unhappy. So I basically leave everything that needs to be done until her nap time. She will call Twinkie "TOOTIE" and loves Molly and says her name right. She is glued to Barney when we put the DVD in. She likes Mickey Mouse in the morning for 30 minutes. and Barney and Yo Gabba Gabba at night for 45 minutes. She is fascinated with stickers she puts them all over her body, on me, teddy or anything she can stick them on. She loves going to the park. It's funny to watch her because she just stops and stares at the big kids and wants to participate with their games. When it's time to leave she will say "bye guys" I don't know where she got that from. It's very cute! She says hi to everyone including people that ignore her. She keeps saying hi until they respond. It's funny because I do the same thing.

One funny thing she did while we were driving in the car is she said "come on peoples lets go". I guess she is picking up on our vocabulary. She is such a fast learner. She will repeat everything you tell her. I have been trying to speak to her in spanish alot more. I think she understands. She loves her wooden puzzles and gets frustrated when she can't get it right. I am always right there telling her it's ok I will help you. My favorite thing I love is when she hears music and grabs my hand and wants to dance. She has this big grin on her face when you twirl her around. It makes me so happy to see her this way. She cracks me up when she grabs my belly and says "babies open". She wants everything opened so I guess my belly is included in this. She gives us so much laughter and happiness. We are grateful for her to be in our lives. I can't wait to see what she will do and teach the twins.

I went for my NT ultrasound earlier this week. I was a nervous wreck before going. I had sleepless nights. We prayed everyday and kept faith in God. The appt went well and we were so happy. My mom came up from LA to watch Nayeli while we went to the appt. I was so glad she was here. On my way to pick her up I was alone in the car and I just bursted out crying. I had to release my emotions. I am thankful for the appt going well and I pray the Level 2 appt goes the same way. They weren't for sure on what the sex of baby A is possibly a girl but the sonographer said baby B is a boy and she said she is 90% on this. Please keep us in your prayers.

* This note is for Sarah, Noah's mommy. Will you please email me nayelifaithfoundation@gmail.com thank you.

We have TWO BELLY BEANS!

2010-09-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a week to try to finish this blog. I will sit down and start before Nayeli wakes up then I have to put it off until she is napping or asleep again. She is such an active little 22 month old. I love spending every momment with her. I find myself sometimes just staring at her while she is playing or looking at her book. We cherish every momment with her. We thank God for our blessings.

On August 20th we went in for our first ultrasound. I was nervous as the day approached. I am sure that will continue each time I have an appt. We took Nayeli with us. She was great the entire time. She looked at the screen and pointed to it. The NP said she would be checking for a heartbeat. We immediately saw one and it was a sigh of relief. I am holding my breath until NT ultrasound and Level 2 ultrasound are done. I asked NP if she could see my fibroid. I have a small one the size of a pinkie nail and it grew while I was pregnant with Nayeli so I was just curious if it was growing. She looked, started to smile, and said "oh wait you another heartbeat." The NP said you are having twins! I was laughing, she was serious. Shane and I were in shock. I am so excited! I now have to double worry. I have been praying everday for the twins. I worry about so many things. I drank chamomille tea thinking it was good for me later to find out it can cause miscarriage. I think I am going to stop reading the internet. I called the Doctors office. The nice NP we had on the 20th called me back and said to stop drinking any herbal tea. Herbal tea is like a drug and can cause problems. So I drank a total of 6 cups. I am freaking out! They won't see me until NT ultrasound on the 20th. Meanwhile I am wondering how the twins are doing til then.
My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will never be shaken. (Psalm 62:1-2)

I was put on short term disability at work because they don't have light desk duty for me. I was upset at first but realize what a blessing it is. I get to spend all this time with Nayeli and we are loving it. I also know God always has a plan and he knew I was having twins and knew I am at a high risk prenancy so took me off right away.

We decided to take a road trip to LA. This time we decided to go along the Pacific Coast Highway. It takes a little longer but the drive was worth it. Nayeli was so cooperative. We had Barney playing on a DVD the entire time so that helped. Thanks BARNEY! Our first stop was Big Sur. We ate dinner at River Inn. The patio had the best view of the river. It was such a nice place. The river was so calm and they had lounge chairs in the river so you can soak your feet while you relax. Nayeli loved playing with the rocks. We saw two whales and it was an incredible view. We finally made it to our destination, Cayucos. It was already night and couldn't really see the town. Nayeli fell right asleep, she was tired. I followed right after. Twinkie slept with us and Molly slept in her crate. We brought along a fan and used it as white noise. Nayeli slept right through my coughing. I had this annoying cough the entire trip. Shane and Nayeli were fine so I think I got it from stress. We packed up the car and we were on the road again. We stopped at Santa Barbara. I saw this taco place. It was the best tacos I have ever had. We notice Nayeli was getting tired. We thought she would fall asleep for the reamining of the drive. She only slept for 45 minutes. We were glad she did since the day befoe she didn't. When we arrived in LA the heat was on. It was hot! I was happy at first but then realized it was going to be in the 100's for the next 4 to 5 days. I guess my wishing for a warm summer finally came true.

Nayeli slept in a room separted from us. This was the first time we did this. We are glad we did. She slept longer and seened happy about her having her own room. We went to the beach, walked around Santa Monica, went shopping, and met with a few friends. I was really happy to be spending most of my time with my parents. It's always great to be with them. My mom spoiled us rotten almost every morning. She made huevos rancheros, chilaquiles and chorizo. She knows exactly what I need. The day before we were leaving the weather cooled off. We drove back home on Saturday morning and stayed at our favorite place in Cayucos again. This time they gave us a suite for the same price. It was great because we were able to put Nayeli to bed and Shane and I were able to stay up. We got dessert from accross the street and it was yummy!

Our little girl is growing up so fast. She is now saying
*tak you(thank you)
*please
*hold it
*take it
*Amen
She knows how to make the following animals sounds: horse, pig, elephant, lion, kitty, dog, bear, rooster and dolphin. We have a video of her doing this from the previous post. She loves music and dances when she hears her music CD which has all kid music. I have enrolled her in Kindermusik for the fall. I trust this class because the instructor knows of how we are and she also is very clean and disenfects everything. We are also brave enough to enroll her in gymnastics and wee hoop again for a month from September thru October. I am hoping it will be ok since it's right before cold/flu season. It's going to be hard to keep her under winter lockdown this year so we are going to try in getting her out more but being cautious. I think we will all go stir crazy if we don't.

I told her we are having a baby a few weeks ago. She amazes me because she has a great memory. I haven't said anything since then and she will say baby and hold my belly and say "Open" then she will kiss it. She just recently started to double kiss my belly. Then sometimes I laugh because she will say "baby" and start smacking my belly. Funny girl!

She is starting to voice her opinion if she is not happy. I stopped breastfeeding her in the morning two weeks ago. I am only doing it for nap time and at night. I will be dropping the nap time one soon. She is still asking for it in the morning and gets a little upset with me when I don't comply. It really hurts to do this to her but I am trying to do what is right while I am pregnant with the twins. I was told that I can start having contractions and that I should stop BF soon. I was hoping to go until she is 2 years old.

We are planning her 2 year birthday party. I still can't believe it. She is growing in a blink of an eye. I am just so happy that I get to spend all this time with her.

The Nayeli Faith Foundation is having it's first Bingo fundraiser on October 1st. We are excited and have alot of planning left to do since it's only a couple of weeks away. We hope it will be a great turnout and a fun event for everyone. Go to the "Nayeli Faith Foundation" website for more details on this event.

Shane is also doing great (minus some ankle issues) with his NYC Marathon training, which he is running to raise money for UCSF's CDH research program. He has run around 140 "training" miles so far in about 5 weeks time and plans to at least double that amount by race day. For more details or to donate to Shane's efforts, please go to the Nayeli Faith Foundation website. Thank You.
A few weeks ago we took Nayeli to a wildlife rehablitation center. She met Ashley who is a oppossum I rescued in October 2010' from a garage that burned down. She is blind and lives there since she will not be able to return to the wild. So happy to see she is doing well.

Belly Bean!

2010-08-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

I am pregnant! I found out a couple of weeks ago. I am seven weeks and we are so happy! I also find myself worrying and getting nervous. We have been through so much that I guess it would be normal to feel this way. I am trying really hard to focus and be positive. Please pray for us that our pregnancy will be a healthy and a smooth one.

Grandma Dar came to visit and stayed with us. We had so much fun. We went to Sulphur Creek a center that rehahilates wildlife, Tahoe, Tilden Park, Lindsey Wildlife Center and San Francisco.
While we were in Tahoe Shane was playing in a hockey tournament with the Police and Fire Games. His team came in 2nd place. Nayeli had so much fun watching her daddy. I snuck in Molly twice and even took her inside the ice rink to watch a game. Nayeli would yell hockey hockey hockey. It was the funniest thing. She also got so excited when she would see the players come out with all their gear on. She would say WOW and Wo. She cracks me up. We stayed at our friends cabin and it was so relaxing.

Nayeli is mastering eating with a spoon. She gets upset if we try to help sometimes. She likes to do things on her own. If she is playing with something and drops it she gets so upset. I try to tell her it's ok and then she forgets. She loves to dance and listen to music. She loves listening to her favorite CD and will say ABC ABC until we put it on. She will clap and go in circles. She will then try to grab my hand and wants to me dance with her. She likes alot of attention and when she is awake I pretty acomplish nothing since she wants all the attention. I don't mind at all. I usually wait until she is asleep. She loves to chase Twinkie around and calls him Tutu. She is always asking for Debbie who takes care of her. She calls her Nina. I am so glad she is so fond of her. Sometimes I will come home from work and she will not even care or come up to me to hug me because Nina is still around. My baby is growing up!

This last week she has been waking up once or twice at night. I am thinking the last of her molars are growing in. I don't know what else it could be. I think it's still to early but you never know. She is still BF. I don't think she is ever going to stop. I am just glad she doesn't bite me.

I can't believe I haven't posted letting all of you know that the Nayeli Faith Foundation is now NON PROFIT 501(c)3. We are so happy with the news and are going to have events coming up soon.

Shane is joining with Global CDH team to run in this years NYC marathon. All the money he raises is going to be going to UCSF for CDH research. He is training really hard for this and is so excited about it.

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I LOVE YOU!

2010-07-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

There is always something new that Nayeli does everyday. If I don't write it down right away I forget. She is so smart in figuring things out. She will get a container and put the lid on it and seal it tight. I amazed on how easily she is pleased. She loves water and will go outside and ask for water from the hose so she can put her hands and face over it. She can sit there for a while playing. She is using more words to communicate to us on what she wants. When she is fussy she forgets to use her words and just cries or yells. So I usually know what she wants. Either a drink or a snack. She also loves to be picked up. Shane said that one day a few weeks back he had to put the carrier on so he can do work around the house while I was at work. She loves to grab your hand and have you follow her where she wants you to go. She will say sit if she wants you to sit. If you don't she gets upset. She is getting a little bossy but all she really wants is for someone to play with her. How can we say no to her?

Last week she started to say Amen during dinner prayer and lunch. She held her hands almost through the entire prayer. She says mommy here when she is giving me something. If she really doesn't want it she will say here until I take it away. She will let me know to stop something she doesn't like by telling my "Stop it". She started to say ABC and will keep singing it over and over again. She said Hi How are you? to herself while she was looking at herself in the mirror last week. Her favorite toy is her Dolly. She puts her Dolly in her little stroller and will put a blanket on her and say cold. Every night before going to bed she has to give Daddy, me, Twinkie and Molly a hug and a kiss. She never fusses when it's to go to bed. We have a routine and she likes it.

We have her enrolled in Gymnastics, Swimming, Basketball and Kindermusik. I hope we are able to keep taking her to one or two classes during the winter months. She loves all of her classes. I think my favorite is Kindermusik. They disenfect everything plus the teacher is so creative. She sat on the teachers lap for the first time last week. I was shocked. I am so happy she is being more sociable. The classes have helped.

My parents came for a visit last weekend. We went to Monterey and Carmel. We had so much fun walking around and smelling the ocean air. The annual Dachshund gathering was held on Sunday. Over 175 dachshunds were there. Nayeli loved having all of them approach her. She had a few of her chips taken away by them. She didn't mind.

Shane's mother arrived yesterday and is visiting for a week and half. Nayeli and Grandma Dar are having a great time with each other.

Tonight was a very special night. Nayeli said I love you to me as I was putting her to bed. I had a few tears as I walked away. Not a day goes by that we don't thank God. She is 21 months today and it's amazing on how in 3 months she will be 2 years old. There is no slowing down.

Nayeli's favorite dance moves

2010-07-16T22:05:00.000-07:00

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Colorado

2010-07-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

On June 22nd we flew to Colorado for five days to visit our family and friends. We thought of driving and then decided to fly. As soon as we got on the plane we disenfected our seats and window. Nayeli did great on the flight there. We bought a car seat for her since the two that we have were too big to go on the plane seat. We had the carseat out for two weeks in the family room so she would get used to it. She loved sitting on it while watching her favorite TV shows. She was great on the flight there.

As soon as we arrived Nayeli took a nap. She slept for over 2 hours. Shane's mom and step dad Jim flew in from Buffalo to visit us. They stayed at Great Grandma Gerry's house while we stayed with our friends. We stayed in their basement which looks like an apartment. We loved it! Nayeli loved that there was toys for her to play with. She would wake up and go straight to the doll house. She was so happy to have other kids to play with. Everyone got to meet Nayeli for the first time it was so exciting. She immediately bonded with Grandpa Jim. We also noticed that she was very comfortable in going up to everyone and receiving hugs and kisses. When it was time to go to bed she would give everyone a hug goodnight. It was so cute. One night when we were all praying before dinner. She held her hands in front of her too. Not as good coming back she was tired from waking up at 6am. so we could make it to the airport on time for our flight.

We met two other CDH families while we were there. We met Ella's family and decided to go to the zoo. It was great meeting them. We have been following each other's blog. It was nice to connect and talk about our CDH experiences.

We met John's family at the park. They flew in to visit family and friends from Alaska. We were so happy to finally meet. We have been talking to each other while we were still pregnant. Our little one's played and laughed. It was a little emotional too. I thought of the babies that were born with CDH and didn't survive. I pray for those familes and think of them often.

We had a great time visiting our family and friends and having BBQ's. We wish we all lived closer. Here is a video of our trip.

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UCSF CDH Clinic

2010-06-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

On Thursday the 17th of June, we went to UCSF for our 3rd CDH Clinic. Although these appointments stress us out a bit, we look forward to meeting with the wonderful staff at UCSF. They have such a friendly professional crew of folks, and they are always very receptive to our concerns.

The meeting began by "attempting" to get Nayeli's height and weight. They measured her at around 33 inches and her weight was just under 25 lbs. We debated the weight as Nayeli had her clothing on and also was packing a pretty good size pee pee. None the less, we are always pleased by any weight gain.

We then met with the developmental psychologist so she could evaluate Nayeli to see how she is progressing in this area. Nayeli did a great job and even surprised us on a couple of the exercises, which included her pointing out items in a books, stacking blocks, and putting thin sticks into holes in a block. We don't always think this testing is a true representation of Nayeli's, and probably a lot of kids true abilities. Nayeli, like most children who are born with issues, I think get a little shy at the onset as they are not exposed to people and other kids right out of the gate. At home, Nayeli is amazing, to the point of helping us put dishes away, and remembering other complex tasks we do on a daily basis.

Last, we met with Nurse Barb, Dr Miniati, and another Dr who was visting from outside of the US. Prior to meeting with us, they reviewed Nayeli's x-rays we brought from Kaiser. Kaiser now makes us get Nayeli's xrays at a Kaiser facility prior to our UCSF appointment so they do not have to pay UCSF to do the xrays...ah yes, more budget cuts!

Overall, the staff said Nayeli is doing great. We talked about Nayeli's paraesophageal hiatel hernia amd they pretty much said it is the same. We asked them about the possibility of another surgery and they said they would just "monitor it" and watch how Nayeli does with it. Dr Miniati also discovered that Nayeli now has a "belly button hernia." Dr Miniati said that this type of hernia is usually not a problem as long as the hole is "smaller than a thumb." So far, he said they hole is smaller than a thumb and it is another thing they will just keep an eye on. As long as Nayeli eats well and continues to go to the bathroom on a pretty regular basis, they say we have nothing to be concerned about.

We know we are very blessed with our miracle girl. Each day that passes and we watch her grow, we know she is getting stronger every day. The other day, Shane was vacuuming. To keep Nayeli from getting scared of the vacuum, Shane gave her her toy vacuum and had her roll it with him next to the real vacuum. Moments later, Nayeli picked her toy vacuum up with one hand (which is at least several lbs) and walked across the room carrying it with one hand. We thank God for her strength and perseverance every day.

Psalm 29:11 "The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.

We are so happy that summer is here! We have something fun to do every weekend. Nayeli is loving the outdoors and getting out. We took Nayeli to our dachshund meetup group a couple of weeks ago. We enjoyed a nice walk along the shoreline and enjoyed the beautiful view of SF. I enrolled her in a class through this rehabilation center for wildlife. She loves animals and squeaks when she really likes one.

I decided it was time to get a new pair of running shoes and get out and run. I was afraid of running before because my Doctor told me that by running it could reduce my milk production. Nayeli will be 20 months and she is still BF. I don't think my milk supply will be a problem. I ran 1 mile the first week and 1 1/2 the second week. It's so much harder when you have to push a baby in the stroller with Molly on the bottom basket and also have Twinkie on the leash. I am going to continue running at least once then twice then three times a week. I love running! I just wish I could run like I used to.Nayeli loves pushing the stroller with Molly and Twinkie. Molly enjoying her new carseatIt's funny to see Nayeli go in to the laundry basket and read her books.

Fun in So Cal

2010-06-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how long it's been since we updated the blog. We have been having so much fun! We recently took a trip to LA. We visited lots of friends and we went to Disneyland. Nayeli loved it! The weather was so nice 80 and 90's the entire time we were there. I loved it! Shane doesn't do well in heat. We had a nice relaxed time. My parents cooked the entire time we were there so I felt like I was at a five star hotel with them. They really make us feel special. My parents took us to a nice four year anniversary dinner. It was great going out and going to a restaurant. I loved having her sleep in the same room with us. She would wake up and start talking. She is in such a good mood in the morning. My dad got this shirt for Nayeli when he was in Oaxaca earlier this year.
First time on a playground swing. Going out with friends.First time on a pony.Having fun with CDH sister Cadenne Sparky and Molly salivating over my mom's BBQ. All three cousins together.
Our Family!
Going out with friends!
A week before our vacation Shane sprained his ankle while he was playing hockey. He is recovering. I think Nayeli knows daddy doesn't feel well and gives him a harder time. She refuses to be carried by him alot and wants me to carry her or hold her. We thought we were past this. She screams and cries everytime Shane puts her in the carseat. I don't have that problem unless we are leaving a fun place. Nayeli is starting to be more vocal about what she wants. She started this habit to ask for her binkie before bedtime. She would only use the binkie during the day for naps. Now it's the first thing she asks when she is going to bed. I have given it to her but take it away as soon as she falls asleep. It actually helps her go to sleep faster. I guess the binkie is a good thing.

Her voice is so cute when she wants something. She will say juice yes, milk no, cheese yes. When she refuses to eat she will eat chips or crackers. We are ok with that as long as it's loaded with calories. I am breastfeeding three times a day. I probably average 2oz. each time. I will cotinue to BF as long as she wants. I was starting to worry when I was only pumping a couple of drops during the day at work. I am not pumping as much but will average 2oz a day. She seems to take more when she breast feeds.

We are enjoying taking her to the park and having her do regular things. We are still cautious and wipe her hands after. We are also enjoying going out to dinner. We hope we can be normal one day.

She started saying animal names and what they say. She says sheep baaaa, cow moo, horse ney, and will only make pig and lion sounds.
She is starting to say two words
*bless you after we sneeze
*thank you
*poopoo ewww yuckie
She says that each time she sees the dogs pooping or she goes outside our backyard and points to it and says that.
She mimics us alot.
Her new words are grandpa, grandma, box, fart, please, open, on.

She loves the light switches and likes to open and close anything she can get to. We are child proofing all of our drawers, cabinets and door handles. She started to unzipper her pj's in the morning.

Her favorite dance CD is Michael Jackson. As soon as she hears it she starts dancing. We are allowing her to watch 30 to 45 minutes of TV. She loves Yo Gabba Gabba.

I love when she blows goodnight kisses to me. Her favorite book is the Baby Bible. She especially likes the pictures of the animals on Noah's ark. She will try to say their name and make the sound or mimic how they move. For Giraffe she extends her head out. For elephant she will take her arm out and wave it. Her favorite one is the Lion she will roar. Everything she does is miracle in our eyes. We hope to start potty training soon. We are shopping around for a good toilet for her and a travel one too. She has always done things on her time so we will be ready for her when she tells us she ready for potty training.

18 month pics on video

2010-05-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

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18 months!

2010-04-22T22:39:00.001-07:00

It amazes us on how fast you are growing up. You are a little sponge ready to soak everything in. You love to go outide and will stand by the glass sliding door and say it in your cute way "ouside". When you are outside you ignore us and have a fun time exploring. You walk with such enthusiasm. You will tilt your head back and smile and giggle with joy. Your smile is contagious. We love watching you! You love bugs and will sit and stare at them. You are so gentle with them. You never step on them or squish them with your finger. You especially love ants and rollie pollies. Twinkie stepped on a rollie pollie by accident and squished it. It died instantly. You stared at it and wondered why it stopped moving. I said it went bye bye. I didn't know what else to say. You have shown empathy towards your plastic dog toy. I was playing with it and by accident it flipped on it's back and I was dragging it with it's leash. You quickly started to cry and ran towards your dog toy and held it. When you drop your dolly you rub it's head. Sometimes you will rock her and try to sing to her. I think you are trying to sing rock a bye baby.

You are teething again! You are chewing on everything including your hand and fingers. Sometimes even your toes. You sometimes let me clip your nails but usually you get restless and you won't let me touch your finger nails or toe nails. You love getting baths. When you are in the tub you splash water at me or daddy. You laugh and think it's funny. You love watching Barney before bath time. You love to dance to some of Barney's songs. You love the I love you song. You will say "I" and keep saying it when you want me to sing it.

We think you really like Grandma and Grandpa's dog Sparky you ask for him all of the time. You say Parky. It is so cute. When we were going for a walk with Twinkie and Molly the other day you said walk. You kiss your dolls, teddy bears, Twinkie, Molly, mommy and daddy when we ask for a kiss. You especially like to kiss John and Carter's or any pictures with babies on them.

You are sleeping through the night. If you wake up it's for a diaper change. Sometimes when we walk in you will crying and will be sitting in the corner of your crib with your teddy. You immediately suck on your finger and go back to sleep after your diaper has been changed. You go to bed at 8pm and wake up at 8am. You started to take one nap per day. You are doing well with the transisiton. You get very tired by 1pm. You nap from 130pm to 3pm. You hate diaper changes unless they are when you are in bed. You don't like getting dressed or having your hair brushed in the morning. You do like to brush your own teeth. You also like to brush your own hair with mommy or daddy's hairbrush.

We took you to your first kindermusik class last Friday. You were overwhelmed seeing all the children in the classroom you were fine towards the end. Daddy and I were a little nervous taking you. After meeting the instructor and telling her about you she was very nice and understanding. She made us feel very comfortable and said she disinfects all of the toys before any of the children touch them. She also said she sends chilren home with their parent if they are sick. That made us feel at ease.

You copy alot of the words we say. Your new words are look, outside(ouside), dos(spanish for two), No or No No No

Words you say
Mommy
Daddy
bye bye
turtle
apple
bananna(nana)
Twinkie(Twikie)
Molly(Mol)
Kitty car,
baby
eat
moon
hi
shoe
ball
more
mimis(sleep in spanish)
orchata(mexican drink)
naranja(orange in spanish)
agua(water in spanish)

You Baby sign
dog
car
duck
book
hat
wave bye bye
airplane
kitty
turtle
baby
all done
milk
eat
light
moon
sleep
book
butterfly
flower
leaf
shoe
rabbit
telephone
frog
ball
more
do the kissing sound

You can point to your head, ears, nose, eyes,toes, feet, fingers and belly when we ask you. You love having your feet tickled. You think chasing Twinkie and Max is the funniest thing. Twinkie doesn't mind and will chase you back. Max just runs away from you. You love eating dog and cat food. You love to share your food with Twinkie or your teddy bear.

You keep us busy and love every moment with you even when you have temper tantrums. You do outstanding performances. You love the simple things in life. It brings you so much happiness. We are grateful and thankful for living with a miracle.

Our friend Debbie has agreed to watch Nayeli starting in July. We are so happy! Molly's first outing since she was put on crate rest for her cervical bulging disc on January 22nd Nayeli is at her first kindermusik class with other children. Nayeli with Nana at the library during story time.Twinkie, Molly and Max celebrating Nayeli's 18 months! Nayeli touching a public slide for the first time. Don't worry I cleaned her hands.

She is WALKING!

2010-04-01T17:59:00.001-07:00

Nayeli started walking on her own Friday, March 26th. Before she started to walk on her own she would hold our hand and would pull us to walk with her where she wanted to go. If we stopped walking with her she would get upset. It is so wonderful to see her at this milestone. When she started to walk by herself she made the cutest sounds and looked so proud of herself. She was so cautious and would balance herself when she would fall. We are so proud of our little Yeli Belly.

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She has been picking up lots of words. She was eating cereal for breakfast the other morning and she said cereal out of nowhere. When she wants an orange she will say anja, naranja means orange in spanish. The cutest thing we love to hear her say is hockey. Shane will say what's your favorite sport and she says "hockey". We have it on video. She will also say squeak for a mouse sound and Moo for a cow.

She is breastfeeding 3 to 4 times a day and doesn't show any signs of stopping. I will continue to go as long as she wants. I love the bonding we have. Shane says she is always asking for me when I am at work. It's hard not to pick her up as soon as I come in the door. We have a rule to take a shower before handling her so it makes it difficult when I can't hold her. I think the fastest shower I have taken is in 3 minutes including washing my hair.

We have stopped giving her Reglan. So far it's been a five days and it's going well. We slowly started weaning her off. We are hoping she continues to do well without. She is still taking Rinitidine twice a day. We are hoping that with her weight gain and not needing Reglan anymore that this is a good sign for her not to have surgery for her hital hernia. I look back at her pictures from last year which we still need to develop. I just can't believe how much she has grown. Our little sunshine is growing so fast. I tear up just thinking about how blessed we are. Feeding the Alligator Nayeli playing with her Golf Clubs. We looked for a hockey set but this is the closest thing we found. Easter Egg Hunt in our backyard. Nayeli at our Dachshund meetup.

Angel Austin Josiah

2010-03-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

We are so sad to hear the news of another CDH baby, Austin Josiah has lost his battle to this ugly birth defect. He fought very hard for the short time he was here. We are praying for his family.

Walking in LA

2010-03-11T21:37:00.001-08:00

We decided to get out of the house and head down to So Cal for some sunshine. We left Wednesday and stayed through Sunday for my Birthday. The car ride seemed shorter than last summer. We didn't stop as much. Nayeli did not like being in the car seat and she was not a happy baby. We got out to stretch our legs twice and she hated going back in the car. She was so happy once we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Two cute ducks were in front of my parents house and didn't leave until the day before we left. We had a fun time hanging out watching them. My dad was in Mexico for a week visiting his family. His older brother is not doing well and is on dialysis three times a day. We are praying for him and his family. The day we left it was raining. As soon as we got to LA it was sunny and warm. That night it rained. The next two days were nice and then it rained all day Saturday. Shane told me to plan out whatever I wanted since it was my Birthday week. So I did! I saw old high school friends and it was fun catching up with them.

On Thursday March 5th Nayeli took her first 5 steps unassisted. We have it on video. It was the most emotional milestone. I had a few tears. Our baby is growing up! She started to walk around my parents house as long as she was holding one of our hands. The next day we went to the zoo and had so much fun. Earlier in the morning when we were checking the LA zoo website and there was a picture of a Gorilla on there, Nayeli said "Daddy". It was the funniest thing. Nayeli walked holding our hands and enjoyed the zoo. When she saw a turtle at the zoo she did the baby sign and said it for the first time. She knew exactly what it was. She also learned to say goat when she saw one at the zoo. I showed her a picture of a goat at home and she remembered what it was and said goat.

It seemed like Nayeli was waking up earlier each day while we were in LA. It first started at 730am then 7am then 630am. She slept in our room and slept through the night except for one night because of a wet diaper. We are so glad we took the drive to So Cal, it was a nice trip. The best memory is of Nayeli taking her first steps all by herself.

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We have weaned Nayeli off of her morning dosage of Reglan. She is doing very well. We hope to have the last dosage weaned off by the end of the month. She went for her RSV #5 yesterday. They told us this might be the last one for the season. They also said this might be the last year she gets it. When they weighed her today I was shocked to see the scale read 22 lbs 22oz. Just a month ago we were struggling with her weight. I was so happy to see that. When I spoke with UCSF they were happy to hear that and said thats a good sign which means the hiatel hernia is not bothering her. We are still praying that she won't need surgery.

Her new words are:
Parky for my moms dog Sparky
Goat
turtle
baby
light
New baby sign:
baby
light
Spanish words are
anga she is trying to say naranga(orange)
agua(water)

Pictures of Nayeli at her RSV appt. I think I was scared that the nurses might miss and give me the shot. Poor Nayeli had to get one on each leg. She loves to wake up Daddy! Yesterday she took more than 5 steps all by herself. Here is a video

She always sits in front of the TV at 7pm and waits for her Barney video to come on. If she is playing or doing something she will stop and crawl to the couch, sit and point to the TV. Her hair is getting long, so I put her hair in pigtails and she looks so darn cute. She sometimes pulls them out so leaving them in is a challenge. Nayeli loves to watch her Barney video. Lately she has been getting up and dancing to the music. Here is a video of her dancing.

Fever and Red Dots

2010-03-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

Nayeli woke up with a fever Friday morning. I called her nurse and she told me to give her Tylenol. She told me not to worry since there were no other symptoms and her fever was very low. She said if it gets higher than 101 to bring her in to be seen. On Saturday morning she woke up with a fever of 101.5. We made an appt to bring her in. The Doctor examined her and told us she is probably just teething. Her ears looked great, her throat was fine and her breathing was fine. We took her home and gave her more tylenol.

Monday morning she woke up and the fever was gone. Now she had red dots all over her back and chest. Her nurse told me on Friday that she could have this virus. She described exactly how it happened. Fever for three days then red dots for 2-3 days. During the entire weekend while she had her fever she was a little moody but seemed to be fighting it very well. This is the first time she has been sick since we have brought her home. We are very proud of ourselves. We also know that she can fight off a virus. She was drinking 4 oz of diluted juice with water a day plus 4 oz of whole milk plus I was breastfeeding. I felt a little dehydrated on Saturday. I think it was from her breastfeeding every two hours. I didn't think I was producing much milk. I think it helped her get better.

This is one huge milestone for us. We were wondering how long it would be until she got sick. I think I jinxed it because I kept asking myself that.

Feeling better!
Her new favorite game is hide n seek. She loves when we hide Mr. Teddy. She also likes to look for Twinkie under the covers. Today she took 5 steps. It's the most steps she has taken by herself. I think I scared her when I screamed saying YAY!

This morning as I walking down my stairs I fell down. I am glad we have carpet on the stairs. I am really sore. Shane has been wonderful. Nayeli still wants me to hold her so how can I say no. I tolerate the pain to hold her. It's worth it!

We are so happy that we found a babysitter for date nights. She is our friends daughter. Nayeli really likes her. She cried when she was leaving. We are so excited about having someone we can trust watch her.

Bye-Bye Old Shoes

2010-02-24T21:46:00.001-08:00

We have been busy bee's. We realized we haven't had time to update the blog. Last week Nayeli met Marley her new friend for a stoller walk. We enjoyed our walk with Marley and her mommy Casey. We are so glad we met them and can't wait to have them play together.

On some nights before getting Nayeli for bed we put on Barney or her Baby signs DVD. She has been doing the funniest thing when Barney says bye bye. She will hold her hands over her mouth and start to cry and then she will wave bye bye. I video taped it and took pictures. In the video she had my cell phone she loves my pink phone. We laugh each time she does it. When I was going somewhere the other day and I was saying bye bye she started to cry. I had to run back and give her a hug until she was distracted.

We have been freaking out about Nayeli climbing up by the window. She is so fast! She will stand by the window and try to say outside. She doesn't say anything when it rains which is a good thing. We went shoe shopping for her last weekend. The store we went to is really nice. They measured her foot and told us which kind of shoe would be good for her. After narrowing it down to two pairs. We decided to let Nayeli pick out her shoes. The first pair she tried on she didn't do much. The second pair she started to tap dance and was giggly. She left the store holding my hand and walked right out. We forgot our camera and video camera. Luckily Shane captured the moment on his cell camera.Our shoes!Her new words our apple, cheese, my and oh oh. Anytime she drops something she will say oh oh. She will grab something that she wants and says my. When she hears the house phone or our cell phones she will put her hand by her ear like a telephone. She learned that all by herself. She loves to dance while she is sitting down anytime she hears music. Tonight she did the cutest thing. She was looking at the picture of the baby boy on the yogurt container. I said give the boy a kiss. She grabbed the container and gave the boy a kiss. I asked her to do the same for Dora on her cup and she screamed and and didn't want to do it. Later in the evening Twinkie was sitting next to her and she was petting him and gave him a kiss on his back. They have become buddies. Twinkie will grab his toy and start playing tug of war with Nayeli. Nayeli will gigle and take the toy from him. I will try to get it on video to post it on here. I was able to get a picture of her standing for a second.

Molly has been on crate rest since January 29th. She has been to the Neuro surgeon for a CAT SCAN and follow up appts. He said her bulging disc is mild and is better off healing without surgery. She is supposed to be on crate rest for another 5 weeks. She goes in for her next check up this week. We are hoping there has been an improvement. The next step would be an MRI and surgery if it doesn't improve. She had a ruptured disc on her back two years ago and healed very well. We are praying she is strong and can heal without surgery. BTW, Max is doing well.

PEG tooth

2010-02-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

We took Nayeli to the dentist last Saturday morning. We were concerned about her bottom tooth. Her pediatrician suggested we meet with a dentist. I had an appt on Saturday morning so we took her in for our friend to see her at the same time. After examining her bottom tooth. He said it's called a PEG tooth. He said sometimes it grows like that. He said when she gets her adult teeth it shouldn't happen again. So for now she will have a PEG tooth. It's exactly what it looks like.

My parents came to visit and stayed through Tuesday. Shane and I were so excited about having a date night on Saturday night. We were planning a dinner and we had tickets for the Elton John/Billy Joel concert. We left to go to dinner kind of late. When we got to the restaurant they told us we would have to wait an hour and a half. We decided to go to a take out place and we ate our dinner in the car and on the way to the concert. We didn't mind we were just happy to be spending time together. The concert was so much fun.

We took Nayeli to the petting farm. She really liked the cows, chickens, ducks and rabbits. She didn't care for the goats. Everytime she would go near them she would cry. We took her on the steam train. My mom brought her dog Ducey along too. Ducey enjoyed the train ride. Nayeli laughed and giggled through out the train ride.

My parents have been taking Nayeli out for walks and are having her practice walking with them by holding her arms or hands. While we were waiting for the train I walked with Nayeli and was only holding her with one of her hands. This is the first time she has done this with me. We were both excited! The weather has been getting really nice. So going outside with Nayeli has been great. Everytime my dad would take her out for a walk it was a struggle to have her come back inside the house. She would say side for outside.

15 month check up

2010-02-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday we decided to get out of the house and go to our friend's super bowl party. We were a little nervous since there was going to be other families with babies there but we thought this would be a good thing for all of us. We are glad we did. Nayeli had a great time and so did we.
She loves going up and down the stairs. I get a good work out going up and down the stairs with her. Nayeli has been having more meltdowns lately. I am hoping it's just from teething and it will pass. She is so cute when she is mad. She will lay on her stomach and kick her feet.
She had her 15 month check up today. We were so relieved when we saw the scale. She weighs 20 lbs. 15oz. She is at the 25%. She is 31 inches long and at 50#. It was so funny to see her say bye bye to her nurse before she got her RSV shot. When she saw her nurse leave she was so happy. Then she saw her come back. That is when she began to cry. She gets two RSV shots now because of her weight. I called UCSF and told them her weight. They are very happy and told us to keep up the good work in feeding her the high calorie diet. We are so happy to announce that the Nayeli Faith Foundation website is LIVE. Here is the link http://www.nayelifaithfoundation.com/ Or go to the right handside under CDH info and Links and you can access it from there. Let us know what you think. We are working on the LOGO. We are still waiting to hear about the non profit status.

Just some pics

2010-02-08T20:50:00.001-08:00

We took some pictures of Nayeli with 12 month size dresses that she never got the chance to wear. Before she outgrows them I wanted to take pictures of her in them.
Claire's mom Cindy made these shirts. 50% of the proceeds went to the Parker Reese Foundation. We have a hard time setting the camera for all of us to be in it. We must have taken over 10 but only three came out with Shane's head.

Stair Master

2010-02-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

Everyday Nayeli takes out the photo albums and looks at them. She especially likes the pictures of Twinkie, Molly and Max. She will sit on the sofa and look at them over and over again. You will notice a pillow between the wall and the lamp. She scares us when she us on the sofa because she leans that direction. We are trying to prevent her from falling and having a goose egg on her forehead.

We have been praying that Nayeli has been gaining weight. She has good days and then bad days when she doesn't want to eat. I was on the phone with UCSF and they told me that when she goes in for her RSV shot next week they need to know her weight to determine what we are going to do for her to gain weight.

Over the last three weeks we have weaned Nayeli off of her 11am Reglan dose. She is now taking twice a day along with Ritidine. After finding out from another CDH mom what Reglan does after long use we decided to try to see if we can wean her off of it. We called UCSF before doing this. So far she has only vomited twice. Our goal is to wean her off of it entirely. She is still taking Ritidine twice a day.

My mom told me that on Wednesday Nayeli grabbed her diaper bag and said bye bye car. My mom said ok let's go bye bye. Nayeli was so happy going for a ride in her little car.
This past weeek Nana Victoria has been teaching Nayeli to go down the stairs. She is so cute when she puts her head against the stair and puts her foot on the stair to feel for the next step behind her.
We can't keep her away from the stairs. She loves the work out!
Molly is on crate rest for the next four weeks for her bulging disc on her neck. Twinkie and Max relaxing after sleeping all day.

Cows and Bulls Oh my!

2010-02-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

On Saturday we decided to take a nice walk on this trail we have never been on near our house. It rained the night before and it had been for two weeks off and on. We were not prepared in wearing the right shoes. Part of the trail was not dry so we had to walk through some mud. We met some nice cows along the way. There was a bull in the crowd. The signs said the cows are friendly and just walk right past them. They ignored us and we ignored them. I was a little concerned that there was a calf breast feeding off his Mama. Shane and I were prepared to run if we had to. Shane said run sideways if we get chased. I knew as long as I made us look like a wall they wouldn't come near us. They left us alone and walked away. Here are pictures and video of our adventure. Nayeli loved seeing the birds, cows and trees. It was a beautiful day!
The tiny black spots are the cows grazing.This video is funny because I corrected myself by saying shoot instead of sh*t.

Head Bump

2010-01-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

It seems like our days are going by faster. We take in every moment with Nayeli. It has been a very busy week for us. Nayeli is exploring everything she can get into. I don't think I say No to her too many times. When I do she just stares at me and is persistent to get what she wants. As for daddy, she likes to test him. We have a plant downstairs with dirt in it. When mommy tells Nayeli to leave the plant alone, she crawls away to play with something else. When daddy tells her no, she slumps down and gives him a sneaky smile. As soon as daddy looks away, she grabs a handful of dirt. When daddy gives her the "I cant believe you just did that look," she laughs and thinks its funny. We have noted the best way to get past her wanting something without her having a temper tantrum is to distract her. We do this by going to the window and saying, "LOOK outside, is that a bird?" Nayeli looks up and starts scanning the trees and sky for a bird sighting. That usually distracts her and she forgets what she wanted. We wonder how long this tactic will work for us. She is so happy when I get home from work. As soon as I take a shower she is glued to my arm or leg. One bad habit she is getting into is eating on my lap. I have to break that but for now, sometimes that is the only way she will eat. I have started to give her smoothies. She loves them and takes about 2 oz. each time. It's funny when I go grocery shopping. I look at high calories for her and low for me.

On Thursday, I had to leave for my Doctors appointment in the morning. Nayeli started to cry as I was leaving and started saying Mama. It's so hard to walk out the door when she says that to me and cries. She was so happy to see me when I got back. When it was time for her to take her morning nap she refused and was moody for the rest of the morning. I think it was a combination of teething and plain out not wanting to take her nap. I wanted to take her for a walk or to the wildlife rehab center but we never left the house. I gave her tylenol before lunch and she ate her lunch fine. She took her afternoon nap. She woke up and was alot happier. The next day she refused her norning nap so this time I got her ready and we went out for the day. She was so happy getting out. She took a two hour nap and woke up in such a good mood. I guess she is dropping her morning naps. Daddy is worried about this because he watches her all day on mondays and counts on her naps so he can sleep because he works all night monday night.

Last night Nayeli fell off the bed as she was getting down. I feel guilty. I was right next to her. It happened so fast. She lost her balance when her feet touched the ground, she slipped and fell straight back. She hit the back of her head on the carpet. When I held her, she stopped crying. I called the advice nurse at Kaiser and she told me that I needed to wake her up and check on her every two hours and ask her quesions. I told her she is on1y 15 months old. What kind of quesitons do I ask a 15 month old? She said if I can't do this, then I needed to bring her in to ER. I called Shane at work since he working OT. He came home and we took her to the ER. The Dr. checked her over and said everything was fine. I was so worried after reading what head injuries can do. The Dr. made me feel better and said it happens alot with children. After the ER visit, Shane went back to work and worked until about 7am. He is such a hard charger. Shane and I always wondered how Nayeli would act if she stayed up until 1am and now we know. She is a mess and had a temper tantrum any time a nurse or DR got near her! The intake nurse had to put Nayeli's intake bracelets on mommy because Nayeli didnt want them. She finally fell asleep at 2am and woke up at her regular time 8am. I put her down for her morning nap today and she slept for her regular 1 1/2 hours. I am sure it's from the lack of sleep from last night.

Shane was blocking Nayeli's view from the TV and this is what she did.
She loves this painting of Catalina Island. We can't wait to take her there. Her pants are so long I have to roll them up and they still fall. Our little climber. She is so fast we have to watch her like a hawk when she is on the couch.
Enjoying Molly's bed.

Our little four legged baby Molly has a bulging disc. She has been on crate rest for a week. She is on meds to see if it will heal. We are hoping it does. She has an appt with the neuro surgeon tommorow to see if surgery is in the future. It's been hard for her to be in the crate when she is such an active little dog. You would never know she is 13. We are worried about her since she had a herniated disc that she had surgery on two years ago. Max and Twinkie walk by her crate and give her little kisses through it. Very cute!

15 months!

2010-01-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

Yeli Belly is 15 months today! She sure is letting us know her dislikes. She dislikes diaper changes, being put in her carseat. When it's it's 6:45pm and her Barney or Baby sign DVD is not on she gets very moody. She will point to the TV and keep pointing until the the DVD comes on. She has two top molars that came in last week. She points to her mouth, ear, eye and belly. She added these new words to her vocabulary:
*app for apple
*car
*sleep
*mouth
*tree
Her new baby signs are:
*sleep
*car
*hat
*shoes
*tree
*milk
She is sleeping through the night again. Mommy and Daddy are very happy. If she wakes up it is just for a diaper change and she goes back to sleep. She is crusing and crawling. She stands up by herself for a few seconds. She is drinking 2 oz to 3 oz of whole milk with half and half a day. She is napping twice a day and falls asleep by 8:30pm. She wakes up at 8am. She eats breakfast, lunch and dinner. She is BF 5 times a day and snacks twice a day. She is wearing 18 month clothing. The 12 month clothing is too small and 18 months is too big. I don't understand why they don't make 15 month old clothing. This past week she has been trying to put her own shoes own she is so cute to watch. Her little personality is shining through.

Last weekend we went to a fundraiser at winery for the four fallen Police Officers that died on the line of duty last year. All the proceeds went to the Officer's families. We took Nayeli and she loved listening to the band while Daddy was wine tasting. Nayeli decided she wanted to be social and walk around. She would walk for a little bit and then when she got tired she would just try to sit on the floor. She was the band's number one fan because she would clap her hands when the band stopped playing. Everyone was watching her and smiling as she wouuld shake her head to the music. We are trying to take her to public places as long as it's outside or there is not a crowd.

We went to see Daddy play in a hockey tournaent on Thursday. We watched the game from the restaurant which is upstairs from the rink. Nayeli watched the game for a period then she got bored and wanted to walk around the restaurant. The place was empty and it was so much fun getting out of the house. We took Nayeli to our friend's house today for dinner. She loved exploring everything in their house. She loved their dog Bailey. It looks alot like her favorite stuffed animal. Everytime Bailey would get near her she would squeal and was so happy. Our freinds gave Nayeli this cute little toy dog. Nayeli loved it and wouldn't let it go for a while. We had a nice dinner and time with our friends. This was our first outing to one of our friends house this winter. It was great being social. We are still being extremely cautious. It was fun going out.

Nayeli with her new dog toy and being comfy in John's chair.
On a side note Molly woke up earlier this week very sore. She wasn't feeling any better so we took her to the vet and they took xrays and found she has a bulging disc on her right shoulder. She is on crate rest and on meds. We hope she is back to her spunky self soon. She wants alot of TLC so that is what I have been doing. Max is keeping Twinkie company while Molly is on crate rest. Max is doing ok for now. He is on a special diet. The Doctor said he has a heart condition and kidney issues. So he is on borrowed time. We are getting prepared. Nayeli loves him so it will be hard when the time comes. For now we let him do whatever he wants and give him lots of TLC

Minie-Me

2010-01-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

Thank you Carter for my Cute Tshirt. I love it! I love looking at it and touching the cupcake.

Nayeli loves playing with the remote. The funny thing is that the TV is always off. I have a little minie me. Nayeli loves to copy everything I do. When I brush my hair she always wants to use my hairbrush. So I told her this is mommy's brush. Where is Nayeli's brush? Go get your brush. So what does she do? She gets her brush out of her bassinet and starts brushing her hair. She is so darn cute!

When I am cooking in the kitchen I try to have Nayeli on her highchair or her pak n play so I don't have an accident. The dogs are always in there too. When I begin to prepare something that is not hot or danger to her. I have her in the kitchen. She is so helpful. She starts to hand me every tupperware container. She is so happy when she thinks she is helping. All I can say is Thank You and stack it up on the counter.

Shane and I use the inside of our jacket when we are grabbing door handles so we don't touch it. Nayeli tried doing the same when she was trying to grab her toy magnet on the fridge. She also uses her toes to turn the DVD on or off because that is what I do.

Everytime she wakes up from her nap she wants to play with her stuffed animals. She especially likes the Racoon. She hugs it, pokes it's eyes and wrestles with it.
On Thursday my guest speaker for Kiwanis told me she had to cancel because she has the flu. I stepped up to the plate. I spoke about CDH. It was emotional and I thought I could do it wihout crying but I was only fooling myself. I shared some tears with the group. They were great in asking questions and listening. Yesterday Nayeli received her #3 RSV shot along with her #2 H1N1. When we got off the elevator I held her hands and she took a few steps. She was so happy! My mom has been practicing with her and she loves it. When she gets tired she sits on the floor. Before her shots she was smiling at everyone walking by and saying Hi. Then her nurse Ann came out and Nayeli started to cry. She would give Ann dirty looks. Never seen Nayeli do that until now. She weighs 20 lbs. 8oz. We celebrated by having a nice take out dinner at home. Earlier during the week we took Twinkie and Molly for their geriatric vet check up. Twinkie weighs 19 lbs. 5oz. So this is big deal in our house that Nayeli finally passed Twinkie in weight. The high calorie diet is working. It has also caused for me to gain 10 lbs. Yikes! I need to stop eating what she eats. We are so thrilled about Nayeli drinking 100cc of whole milk/half & half yesterday. What a great day!She continues to surprise me with her baby signing. I was walking her earlier this week and when she saw a car she did the baby sign and said it too. She loves to watch her baby signs DVD. I also teach her baby signs from picture books. I usually think she is ignoring me and isn't looking at me but she is. Her favorite baby sign right now is Moon. When we are sitting in the kitchen and she sees the reflection of the light on the window she will say Moon and do the baby sign over and over again.

The funny thing she did today was Shane was calling out for Nayeli to come to him and she actually sounded like she said "what". It made us laugh.

The not so funny thing is she is having temper tantrums between 6-7pm every night. They usually don't last very long. Shane and I just joke about it and say the Witching hour is back with a vengance. We try ask her what she wants. Usually she will start kicking and if we pick her up she starts head butting backwards and has hit me really hard on the lip and chin. I have heard stories of babies giving their parents black eyes by doing this. I believe it! I hope this phase passes. If you have any suggestions please feel free to send them our way.

Baby Samara is doing well. She had her repair surgery earlier this week. Beverly her mom has been by her bedside the entire time. Samara's daddy Gabe has been traveling back and forth from Fresno to take care of their other children. The good news is that Beverly finally got to hold Samara on Thursday. We are praying that Samara recovers quickly and is able to home soon.

The Nayeli Faith Foundation was there to help this family with gas cards and cards for food.

I am ready for a Milkshake!

2010-01-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

Our cupboard is full of all kinds of sippy cups. We have been trying all kinds of sippy cups to get Nayeli to start drinking whole milk. We started to put half and half in it after reading a high calorie recipe. She surprised us one day when she drank 2oz. of whole milk with half and half out of her sippy cup. That was two weeks ago and she hasn't drank any since. She drinks juice diluted with water out of her sippy cup and says toot when she is thirsty. I bought some cups with straws. She saw the cup and loved it. She immediately drank out of it and didn't put it down, she loves it! I don't know why I didn't try it sooner. She drank her entire 3oz of whole milk mixed with half and half. It looks like it's easier for her to drink out of than a sippy cup. I am going to try to make her a high calorie milkshake and put it in her new straw cup. Hope she likes it. She is still drinking out of a bottle on her morning and afternoon feeds when I am not home. She is still going strong on BF and I am in no hurry to stop her from doing it. I want her to remain a baby as long as possible.
She learned how to baby sign toothbrush tonight while we were watching her baby sign DVD. She amazes me on how fast she learns the baby signs.Cindy, Claire's mommy made this cute shirt. She does wonderful work. If you are looking for the cutest gifts contact her.
No more pictures! I always pictured this while I was pregnant with Nayeli. It's funny how they all want to sit next to me all the time. Everywhere I go they follow me and want my attention. Nayeli enjoys playing in her toy box. She stood up for two seconds for me to take this picture. Here is another shirt Cindy made for Nayeli. We love it!

On a side note please pray for our friends CDH baby Samara who is at UCSF waiting to have surgery. She has reherniated for the third time and is scheduled to have surgery on Monday. Pleas pray that she gets stronger and is able to keep some nutrients down for her to get strength for her surgery. I spoke with Samara's mommy Beverly tonight and it breaks my heart that she has to go through this and that she might have to spend her 1st Birthday in the hospital.

Goodnight Moon

2010-01-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

The first Nayeli Faith Foundation charity Police vs. Fire hockey game was great. We raised over 3k. We are so grateful to everyone that helped. We couldn't of done this without you. We are planning to have the webiste go live soon and have brochures printed out.

We hope that you and your family had a great New Years. We had a nice dinner and then Shane had to go to work. So it was just Nayeli and I celebrating New Years. She went to bed at her usual time 815pm and was asleep by 830pm. I thought for sure the next door neighbors kids were going to wake her up at 9pm when they were yelling Happy New Year and banging on pots and pans for 30 minutes. She slept right through it. I was able to stay awake until 1215am. Reflecting back on 2009 We started the Nayeli Faith Foundation, I reconnected with old friends and made new friends. I cherish my old friends. We made great family memories and shared laughter and tears.

Twinkie loves to play with Nayeli. Nayeli likes to chase him with her car. She laughs so hard when he chases her back. Nayeli opening her Christmas present from Godfather Alex. She loves her dog book. My parents came up on Saturday and are leaving today. My dad wanted to come up with my mom since he hasn't seen Nayeli in a while. I love my mom coming every week, I am so glad my dad came up and stayed for the week. Nayeli calls him gram. I think she is trying to say grandpa. My dad enjoyed taking Nayeli on walks in her car. She loves going outside. It's been nice coming home from work and having dinner ready. My mom continues to come up 2 days a week. She is racking up the frequent flyer miles.

Congratulations to our friend John who retired after 28 years! He is a great candidate for babysitting Nayeli. He has his flu shot, H1N1 and never gets sick. When can you start John?
Over the weekend Shane and I got the chance to go out to our friend John's retiring party. He retired from the police department after working there for 28 years. It was so much fun getting out and dancing and being among friends. Most of all Shane and I had a date night. I felt a little better in leaving Nayeli with my mom. I called to check in a few times but was more at ease. I enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine and when I got home I pumped and dumped and didn't feel guilty. As we were leaving the party that night. John said something that I took to heart the following day. He said we need to get Shane to this point. It's important! I thought about it the next day and I had tears. I knew what he meant. John and his wife Laura
There is so much that Nayeli has been doing this past week. She started to stand on her own for a about one second and she has it down to two seconds. It is so cute to see her look so proud of herself when she does it. She first puts her head on the floor and then she sticks her butt in the air and does a squat and then slowly stands. She remains squatted for balance. The other way she does it is she sits in a squat and slowly gets up in a stand. She looks like she is ready to sumo wrestle. I have been trying to see if she will walk while holding my hands around the house but she doesn't like it. Over the weekend we were at Averi's service which was beautiful and sad. We sat in the back to stay away from everyone. Nayeli was quiet for a total of 20 minutes, I was impressed. She became restless and I had to step out with her. She got squirmy and wanted to go on the floor. I didn't feel comfortable her crawling on a dirty floor so I held both of her hands and let her feet touch the floor she started to walk. She did it for about 5 minutes and got tired. I noticed as she was getting tired she started walking on her tippy toes. Cute!

She is sleeping better at night. I don't want to jinx it so I will only say that. When it's time for bed after I read her a book and I kiss her goodnight and put her in her crib she holds me tighter and doesn't want to let go. So how can I say no. I hold her a bit longer. I would stay up holding her all night if I could but I know it's the wrong thing to do.

I received great high calorie recipres from Claire's mom and have been feeding Nayeli that. So far she is drinking 20cc of whole milk with 10 cc of half and half. I try to offer her that before juice diluted with water. I also have been giving her pizza, grilled cheese, lots of butter with all her food and tater tots. She has become a very picky eater so we offer her anything we can to get her to eat.
Last week we decided to start letting Nayeli try to feed herself. She is really good. We have allowed her to try practicing with an empty spoon before. So when it came to time to feed herself she did it like a pro. Here is a video of her feeding herself with spoon for the first time.

She baby signed eat for the first time last week when she was about to eat lunch. I sat her on her highchair and signed it. I praised her and she began to clap. Later that day while I was BF. She was done on one side and baby signed more. So I switched breast and was so happy that I understood her. This baby signing is great! I have been reading her Goodnight Moon every night and I have been teaching her the baby sign for moon. A few weeks ago when we had a full moon. She baby signed moon and said it when I showed it to her. Last week when we had a full moon she did it every time I showed her the moon. A few times during the day she would go to the window and say and baby sign it. I have been telling her the moon comes out at night and the sun is during the day. We ordered her more baby sign DVD's she loves them and gets excited each time I put them on for her. I wish I could take her to a baby sign class with other children her age. She could have full conversations with them. Last night the word DOG came out on the TV and she did the baby sign for it before it was said. We have a genius in our hands.

Everyday is a blessing with Nayeli and we are forever grateful.

Angel Averi Hope

2009-12-29T21:15:00.000-08:00

We are very sad to find out that Averi has lost her four week battle against CDH last night. Please pray for Teresa and Kevin.

Merry Little Christmas!

2009-12-26T16:57:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday night Shane and I went to our work holiday party. It was the first time leaving Nayeli without BF her before she goes to bed. I left breast milk for my mom in a bottle. It was harder to leave her than I thought it would be. I was only five minutes away and I knew she was in good hands with my mom. I called a dozen times. My mom was so understanding and kept telling me everything was fine. The first person who asked me who Nayeli was with while we were at the party just about made me cry. I got better through the night. The next morning Shane and I went to church and had a breakfast date. It was really nice having time together.

I only worked two days this past week, it was great being home with Nayeli. It amazes me how much Nayeli learns so quickly. She is a little sponge soaking everything up. This past week she has learned: Baby Signs for- Frog, turtle, fish, shoe, hat, teddy(bear). New words- fish,bye. Her favorite words are still "book" and "hi." She is fascinated by books. She can't get enought of them. When she wakes up in the morning the first thing she points at is her books, while she says "book" and baby signs book at the same time. When she wants to watch TV she always does the baby sign for hat. I guess thats because of her baby sign DVD.

Nayeli didn't want to put this hat on for her Birthday and now she wants to wear it everyday. We had a nice quiet Christmas. It was just the three of us. Shane had to work Christmas eve which was hard, but got to be home for a rare Christmas day. Shane made us a great Christmas dinner, cooking prime rib for over three hours, basting it every 20 minutes, with herb potato wedges and a salad. We had strawberry shortcake cake for desert. It was the best dinner! We were so excited to see Nayeli open her presents on Christmas morning. She got great gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Leonard and the cutest outfit from Great Grandma Leonard. She received the cutest shirt from her boyfriend Carter and a gift certificate from her boyfriend John. Thank you all for the gifts! She had so much fun opening her presents. What cracked us up is that she was more interested in her diaper bag. Funny girl! She got lots of books which is her favorite! She likes to chew and read them. We are so thankful to be spending this Christmas together. We hope you all enjoyed your Christmas Day with your family and friends.

There are so many pictures that I wanted to post so I decided to make a video instead. This is a funny video because Nayeli is baby signing and I was trying to figure out what it was. She wasn't comfortable in the position she was in. She needed to release some gas and sat up did it and sat back down. She is one gassy funny girl! She makes me laugh everyday with the cutest things she does.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Angel Briana Emily

2009-12-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

I am so sad to find out that another precioius baby has lost their battle against CDH. Briana fought so hard for 18 days. Please pray for her parents Angela and Jim and her 2 1/2 year sister Mackenzie.

Where is your ear and belly?

2009-12-17T10:45:00.000-08:00

We are so happy to announce our first ever Ice Hockey Charity Game for the Nayeli Faith Foundation. It will be on Saturday, December 26th, at 730pm at Logitech Ice, 1500 S. 10th St, San Jose, CA. We are selling tickets for $20 each, which includes entrance and 3 raffle tickets. The prizes are being donated by the San Jose Sharks Hockey Team and Hockey Xsport in Oakland. They are giving autographed pictures, autogrpahed hockey sticks, jerseys and a family pack deal to skate and have lunch at Logitech Ice, to mention a few items. We are so excited! We are sad that Nayeli won't be able to go. Our goal is to raise 2k, which is guaranteed for all intensive purposes because Shane's team (The Norcal Blue Meanies) has to rasie this amount for their upcoming SJ Sharks tourney at the end of January. We want to thank the San Jose PD Ice Hockey team for taking time out of their days to skate against in this game. The SJPD team has comitted to raising 1K from their team the the foundation. Anything more will be a pleasant bonus! Our goal for next year is to have more fundraisers, to inlcude at least two ice hockey games.

Max and Twinkie On a sad note our cat Max has not been feeling well. It all started last Saturday. We were looking all over for him in the house and couldn't find him. I finally looked under Nayeli's crib. He never goes in her room. He knows he is not allowed. So we knew something was wrong. We noticed him breathing rapidly towards the end of the night. We heard him wheezing so Shane took him to ER. They ran xrays and said he had some fluid build up around his chest, as well as scar tissue and fluid around his lungs. They told us that he could wait til Monday to be seen by regular vet. If he started to pant, then to bring him back. Shane took Maximus to see our regular vet. He is an awesome vet. If you are looking for one, his name is Franklin Utchen and he is at Bishop Ranch vet Center in San Ramon! He did major surgery on Max over 1 1/2 years ago. He did more xrays. He told us that Max has a heart problem (which he basically called heart failure) and the fluid around his chest is making matters worst. He started him on LASIX. He was on this before and so was Nayeli. We hope Lasix helps him like it did before. He is starting to eat and be more active. We are sad. Nayeli loves Max and says kitty each time he walks by. Shane talked to Dr Utchen a little bit ago, and was basically told that the days are, for a lack of better terms, now ticking because a cat, or human for that matter, with a heart problem, is bad no matter how you look at. We will continue to monitor him and see how things go, we just dont want him to be in pain or suffer.

Molly let Nayeli borrow her jacket. I can't believe she fits in it. Picnic at the Park
During dinner tonight Nayeli started to get a little moody. We usually have to distract her with a toy for her to eat the rest of her dinner. She kept extending her arms out towards the dinner table. We were trying to figure out what she was asking for. I gave her the empty container of yogurt and she was so happy when I did. There is a picture of a baby boy on it with his arm lifted up slightly. She put her two arms up and did the same motion and started to have a conversation with him. We hope we can have her have a playdate with one of our friends son soon. He doesn't go to day care, has had his flu and H1N1 so he is the perfect date for her LOL. She loves watching other kids. She has a learning video with children playing and singing she almost starts to cry when she sees the other children. She is so happy tears are coming out. I guess she is going to be sensitive like me.

We always tell Twinkie and Molly to get out of the kitchen when we sit down to eat and are feeding Nayeli. Tonight Nayeli helped us out by saying it too. She is so funny. I always thought that Nayeli was ignoring me when I am teaching her a new baby sign. Well tonight she proved me wrong. I showed her the baby sign for turtle twice today. When I was getting her ready for bed she looked at her book that had the turtle and did the baby sign for it and tried to say it.

The other night we were asking Nayeli where her ear, belly and nose are. We got is on video all except her nose. It's funny because she will stick her finger in her nose when we ask her. Her second molar came out yesterday. She doesn't seem to be bothered by it. She gets a little moody and chews on everything that is in front of her. I don't want to jinx this but I am sleeping better at night.

Please pray for baby Averi. She is on day seven of ECMO and her liver is bleeding. That can't be repaired until she is off of ECMO.

UCSF CDH Clinic and CDH Research

2009-12-11T15:09:00.001-08:00

We went to UCSF yesterday and it seemed like a long appt. We met with Dr. Slovatenick she is doing the CDH research. She talked to us about the research they are doing at UCSF for genetics on CDH. She explained that she would take a swab sample from Nayeli and test her DNA for the gene that causes CDH. The most accurate testing would be blood but for now she is doing the swab. She is also going to test us for it. She mentioned that Nayeli is the most important one for the research. She told us since it is still under research we won't be guaranteed a 100% answer.
Waiting for her swab testing. Not happy with her swab testing
After we met with the CDH research Dr. the next thing appt was for Nayeli to get xrays taken before we head over to the CDH clinic. Nayeli was not happy having her xrays taken. I am glad she didn't have to go in the tube this time.

We first met with the nurse to get her weight, height and picture. The developmental person was next. She will have to see the the developmental person every time we come to the CDH clinic for the next 5 to 6 years. She placed toys out and asked us a bunch of questions. Nayeli was moody since she skipped her morning nap. She was happy once she saw the purple teddy. She immediately hugged it and didn't let go. She had a hard time giving it back. The developmentalist said she is doing great for her age and for us to keep up the good work. The purple teddy was her favorite!Next stop was the nutrionist. She told us Nayeli is at the 10-25% percentile for her weight. She weighs 19lbs 14oz. Her height is 30 1/4 and is 90% percentile. She went over what we are feeding her. She was impressed on what we feed her. She said she is getting concerend with Nayeli's weight and wants to see her gain more. She mentioned that I should mix my breast milk with the whole milk when feeding her the the whole milk. I had another CDH mom suggest that on our blog, Thank you! They told me I can continue breastfeeding as long as I want. Since Nayeli is being more active she is burning more calories faster because she is breathing alot harder than a normal baby her age would because of the size of her lungs. If Nayeli doesn't gain weight she wants us to start giving her pediasure and other foods. Nayeli has a great appetite and it puzzles us that she is skinny.
Nayeli is getting hungry from us talking about food We met with the Doctors and Surgeons. They told us that her xrays looked good. There is no sign of reherniation but to always know it can still happen. They told us they are concerned about her hiatel hernia and they are keeping on eye on it. What this does is her stomach is close to her diaphragm and causes reflux. I posted a picture of it so you get the idea. We hope she won't need surgery. The medicine is helping so she hasn't shown any signs of it bothering her at this point. They increased her doses of Reglan to .9 ml and Ritidine to 1.2 ml. We will go back to UCSF in 6 months for another checkup.
Nayeli being examined
During our visit I spoke with Dr. Slovatenick the CDH research Dr. and asked her how they get funded and she said it's very minimal. It's enough to cover her salary and some medical supplies. I also found out that the CDH clinic is not funded at all. We started the Nayeli Faith Foundation this past summer. A week ago we mailed in our application for the 501c3 so our foundation can become non profit. We have started to help CDH families at UCSF and we are also going to help the UCSF research and CDH clinic. We are so eager to start fundraising for all of this. We hope to get your support and prayers that we succeed with this.

It was great seeing another CDH family there that we have become friends with.

Nayeli received her RSV #2 at Kaiser today. She has become familiar with her RN. Whenever she sees her she starts to cry.
Nayeli hugging me tight Pictures from earlier this week
Daddy where is mommy? I want Mama!
Pleas pray for Averi Hope who was born with CDH almost two weeks ago. She has been placed on ECMO and is having her repair surgery. To read more about her you can go to her blog located on the right side.

1 going on 13

2009-12-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

We are having a hard time moving Nayeli's bassinet out of our room. We just can't seem to depart wtih it. So it has become her storage area. She also likes to play with it alot. Here is picture of her last year and this year. She is growing up!

Last year! Now! Nayeli receieved her first H1N1 on Tuesday. I kept calling to see when they would have more in. Shane was turned away when he was there with Nayeli and then got a call when he arrived home that they were now giving it to people who only met the following critereia: pregnant, if you have an infant younger than 6 months, healthcare or emergency responders. Thank goodness for being an emergency responder. I called on Wednesday morning to make sure they still had some so I went on Wednesday morning and got it too. So we have all received the flu shot and H1N1. My mom is trying to get the H1N1 but is not able to because she doesn't meet the criteria. We hope they open it up to everyone so she can get it soon. We pray that we all continue to stay healthy this winter. We get so worried and paranoid when we see everyone around us at work sick. We also have to deal with sick people in our line of work.

During dinner on Tuesday night Nayeli was taking a sip from her sippy cup and accidently drank too fast. She started coughing and she then started to pat her back. We do that to her when she is coughing. She is too funny!

Her favorite word lately has been Hi. I love hearing her cute voice. She mumbles alot and I just act like I am having a conversation with her. We noticed her first molar coming in yesterday. She was very moody Wednesday and Thursday night. She hardly ate her dinner both nights. We wonder if her teething bothers her more in the evening because she is ok during the day. We gave her Tylenol both nights to help with the pain. She ate all of her dinner tonight and is back to her happy self.

If two is called terrible twos then one she be called independent. Nayeli is growing very independent lately. She gets moody if we try to help her with something or if we take away something. She sits and cries then throws herself on the floor and kicks her feet up in the air. The other thing she does is she will lay down flat and bury her face in the floor. We try not to laugh but she is quite the entertainer. We try to distract her with whatever we can but she goes back to whatever she wanted and keeps insisting on it. She is very persistent. We love it! She is warming us up for her teen years.

We noticed she likes to put on my shirts and any of my hair scrunchies or anything that is mine. She put on the Parker Reese tshirt all by herself. She figured out how to turn the TV on and off Nayeli loves Nana! She cries when Shane or I carry her away. Little helperRecharging her batteries! Nayeli doing the baby sign for dog

Toot

2009-11-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

We are teaching Nayeli Ah Ah Ah don't touch! Here she is trying to see what we would do. Look a her face too cute!

This past week Nayeli has been pointing alot more and saying "Toot" when she wants something. When I am giving her a bath she will say "toot" and point to every toy she sees and wants me to hand it to her. She will see something on a shelve or her sippy cup and say "toot" and point. Her appetite has decreased we are hoping it's just from teething. She will nibble on something and then point to her sippy cup and say "toot". We now have to hide her sippy cup until she is almost done eating otherwise she will stop eating. This week she started to do the baby sign for more when she wants more of something. We praise her and she starts to clap.

She is still waking up one to two times a night. I have tried to see if she will go back to sleep with just a diaper change and not BF. She actually did twice. We started to give her whole milk on Saturday. She made a funny face and spit it out the first time and has taken 5cc to 15cc since. I was afraid that she would stop BF once she tasted whole milk. I guess I don't have anything to worry about. She is BF less now that she is eating more solids. She will BF three to four times a day and doesn't stay latched on for very long.

I was lucky enough to have the last three Wednesdays off. One Wednesday was a holiday and the other two my volutary time off without pay request was granted. My dad got sick one week and my mom was exposed so we didn't want to chance her giving Nayeli a bug. I love having 4 days off with Nayeli. We have had so much fun! I have taken her out for walks and have picnics. We avoid crowds but I still take her outside where she can see other people from a distance. I am hoping this winter goes by fast.

Still no H1N1 for Nayeli. They ran out and haven't had anymore. We were told that only Nayeli would be able to get the shot. I don't understand why we can't. We are hoping that changes when the shots arrive.

I was in shock last night when Nayeli said the sh*t word. I have been very careful not to say it around her but sometimes it slips. I knew she would learn it right away since she is really good with her SH words like shoe, Shane and Shhhh. She just came out and blurted it out last night. I tried really hard not to laugh and ignored it. From this day forward I will have to be extra careful what I say. She copies everything I say.
Picnic with MommyRiding in her wheels around the blockClimbing on her bouncy chairThe escape artist! She has lots of blankies but she chooses to play with this one. It's is kinda of funny to see her play with this.

Nayeli Faith One year pictures

2009-11-20T09:07:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday we had our pictures taken by Karen. She runs a foundation called Moment by Moment and she also has her own buisness Custom Moments. She is a wonderful photographer!

Karen always captures the best Nayeli moments. We are so happy to see and compare the pictures of her last photo shoot and how much she has grown. Twinkie and Molly can't be left out. They love taking pictures too!

Karen started Moment by Moment in 2005 a non profit 501 (c) organization to take complimentary photos of children with life limiting diagnosis. Karen took pictures of us while I was pregnant at no charge. We were going to have Karen take photos of Nayeli while she was at UCSF when we didn't know what was going to be the outcome. Thank you Karen for doing what you do. Please visit her website to see the wonderful work her organization does.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Princess Chair

2009-11-17T20:47:00.000-08:00

Nayeli loves her Monkey hat! We still haven't put her Halloween costume away. She keeps playing with it.

Reflecting

2009-11-14T19:41:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here thinking about how I felt a year ago when we brought Nayeli home from the hospital after 23 days of being in the ICN. I was so scared that there wasn't a nurse nearby. I also thought I was dreaming. I didn't think that day would ever come. I was so scared I wasn't going to bring Nayeli home at all. I was afraid of coming home empty handed. My fears are realities for other CDH famiies. I am having a hard time knowing that other CDH families don't get to bring their babies home. I think of those babies and families every night. As I kiss Nayeli every night we say a prayer for all of them. It's great to see her do things everyday and then it also hurts that the babies that have lost their battle to CDH won't have their mommy's and daddy's kissing them goodnight. I feel lucky, and then also guilty. I know I shouldn't feel guilty but it's hard not to. I had a very hard time sorting my feelings over this but Shane convinced me to write them. I am probably not making much sense but I guess it's more for me to write it out.

We thank God for Nayeli everyday. Nayeli is such a blessing she is a miracle!
Reflecting back on how we felt when we brought Nayeli home a year ago has me thinking back on how I felt. It was emotional and I will never forget.

Psalm 121:1-2 I lift up my eyes to the hills where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

There is no place like home November 15, 2008Visiting Dr. Maier and his staff at OB/Gyn a year ago during Nayeli's first Pediatrician checkupA year later visiting Dr. Maier and his staff.

RSV Stew

2009-11-13T16:20:00.001-08:00

We introduced table food to Nayeli this week. I made beef stew and she loved it! While she was eating it I asked her if it was hot. She started to do the baby sign for hot and she was blowing. We also gave her Mac N Cheese later in the week. She gobbled it right up. She started to do the baby sign for all done. If we ignore it and continue to feed her she will then start to throw her food on the floor.

When I was putting Nayeli to sleep the other night, I started saying, "Shhh it's time for Mimi's." She started to say Shhhh back to me. I started to giggle so she started to laugh too. It was hard to keep a straight face at that point. She likes to copy everything I say. I will say lets put your shoes on. She will in return say "shoe." I asked her if she wanted to have cheese for lunch the other day. She said "cheese." She is soaking everything in like a sponge.

All done! Showing off her teeth Don't think about touching my Mac N Cheese
We took her to get her first set of RSV shots today. Nayeli has come to know her nurse Ann very well. I guess it's because we just saw her two weeks ago for her One year shots. As soon as Ann entered the room Nayeli began to cry. We told Ann we were concerened about one of Nayeli's teeth. She went and got Dr. Hahn. Dr. Hahn said it could be a concern but not to worry about it right now and we should see a dentist to make sure there is nothing to be concerned about. They weighed Nayeli today and she gained 2oz from two weeks ago. She weighs 19lbs 8oz.
I was hoping Ann wouldn't miss. That needle was way to close to meNayeli pointing at BOYS pictures on the wall.

Angel Lewis Anthony Moore

2009-11-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

I just read the sad news. Lewis Anthony Moore passed away. He fought so hard and lost his battle with CDH. Please keep his parents and family in your prayers.

MILK to go please!

2009-11-07T17:51:00.001-08:00

If Nayeli wants something she will point at it for us to get for her. Or she will point at it to just because it grabs her attention. She has become independent while she is playing sometimes she ignores me. When she wants me to participate she lets me know. Her new fascniation is putting things in and out of containers and getting stuff out of cabinets and drawers. Now if I can only teach her to put it back. I can watch for a while when she takes a tupperware container and puts one of her small toys in and out for a while. It's fun to watch her do this because she is learning. If I close the container with her toy in it and she can't get it open, she gets upset and throws it to the side and yells. I bring the toy back and try to teach her to open it with me. She gets so excited and grabs the toy to try to do it herself.

I have always played the game, "where is the ball, book and teddy," with Nayeli. She didn't respond until earlier this week. I asked Nayeli, "where is your ball?" She grabbed it and showed it to me. I praised her. Then, I asked her, "where is your book?" She grabbed it and I praised her. I then asked her, "where is your teddy?" She grabbed her teddy and hugged it, and I praised her again. I tried this game again later and she didn't respond. I will try to get it on video when she does it again. We were on a role and I didn't have time to get it on video.

My belly button makes Nayeli giggle. Everytime she lifts my shirt up and touches my belly button I make a funny sound. She laughs and it's so funny. She is trying to do it to Shane and he does the funny sounds too.

Earlier this week Nayeli got up in a standing postion by holding her high chair. She was so happy she did it. She held on to the top of the high chair and then, out of nowhere, she freaked out. She didn't want to let go. I helped her let go and she was so happy to be crawling afer that. Nayeli loves doggie toys! We are planning on getting Nayeli her own lounge chair. She loves to sit on her bombo chair. Last night at dinner Nayeli wanted more crackers. She was getting frustrated that she didn't have anymore on her tray. I asked her in baby sign language if she wanted more crackers. She responded by doing the baby sign for more. I praised her and I gave her more crackers and she was so happy. She was clapping and doing the baby sign for more at the same time. As soon as her tray was empty again she did the baby sign for more. What a smart girl! I truly believe in the baby sign language. I hope it helps when she gets frustrated and she is trying to tell me something. Lately, she has developed a fascination in her nostrils. Daddy asks her to stop and warns her about the nail biting snail inside of her nose. She smiles, and immediately puts her finger back into her nose. She also likes to put her fingers in her ears. We are starting to realize how hard it is to correct bad habits. At this point, we know it is just a new discovery and we hope she grows out of it. We can just see her out at a restaurant knuckle deep in her nostrils! That will be a real crowd pleaser!

We seriously need a toy bin!Nayeli and her buddies! She is so gentle with Molly. We were out doing errands today. Nayeli started to get fussy because it was close to lunch. I didn't have her food with me and we were 5 minutes away from home. I decided to BF while she was in the car seat. I leaned over and guess what? She BF from me while we were driving. It was a funny sight to see. I was leaned over in a weird position while she is eating. I am glad Shane didn't have a video camera or the digital camera because he wanted to capture the moment so badly. I am sure we got some stares from passerbys.

Sunny Sunday

2009-11-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

ONE year checkup

2009-10-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Nayeli's ONE year checkup. Shane and I were trying to guess her weight. We were both wrong. We try to compare her to Twinkie, who weighs 19lbs 15oz. We know she is not there yet. Nayeli weighs 19lbs. 6oz. and is 30 1/2 inches long now. I, as usual, cried with Nayeli when she got her shots. She got a total of 5 this time....poor little girl! She goes back for her first RSV shot in two weeks, along with her FLU booster and first H1N1 shot. Did we get this many shots when we were kids????

Doctor Hahn went over a few things with us on Nayeli's sleeping patterns and eating. He said the reason she is waking up in the middle of the night is becasue she is not taking enough calories during the day when I am at work. He suggested that when she does wake up, I let her cry it out. Dr Hahn suggested that I should go soothe her (by rubbing her tummy or whatever else we normally do to) and change her diaper, but said I shouldn't breast feed her. Dr Hahn felt this would make Nayeli eat from the bottle with my mom and Shane, and not from me at night via breast feeding. I don't think I can let her cry it out, and as of now, we dont plan on doing that. We are undecided as of this moment. Dr. Hahn said it could go away on it's own, or it could become a habit for her to wake in the middle of the night wanting to breast feed. I picture her being 5 years old and wanting to breast feed. LOL!

Nayeli getting ready to watch the Yankees game with daddy Nayeli is happy that the Yankees beat the PhilliesWe all know who Nayeli really likes

Angel Andrew

2009-10-30T20:21:00.001-07:00

We are in loss for words. It breaks our hearts to know that Andrew Weston Hobbs lost his battle against CDH today. Please keep Becky and Gene in your prayers.

ICN Reunion at UCSF

2009-10-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

We decided to go to the ICN reunion today. The reunion was held outdoors so it made us comfortable taking Nayeli. We got there before everyone started to leave. We were so happy to see Nayeli's primary nurse Mardy. I had tears of joy to see her. We also saw Gabe we love this guy, he always made us feel like we were family. Shane was happy he had the chance to see Dr. Lee and Dr. Miniati. Dr. Miniati advised for all of us get the H1N1 shot. After thinking about it we will go ahead and get the shot.

GabeMardiDr. MiniatiNayeli hugging her teddy on the way home
Before going to the reunion we put costumes on Nayeli, Twinkie and Molly. Nayeli loved being in her Monkey costume. Twinkie froze and wouldn't move. Molly didn't mind it. Here they are as Monkey, Super Dog and Hot Dog! Happy Halloweenie!

CDH Reunion at UCSF

2009-10-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

We were contacted by Barb at UCSF who asked us if our foundation would be interested in sponsoring the first ever CDH reunion. This was a no brainer, the Nayeli Faith Foundation was happy to help make this night a reality.

I was so excited to go to the first CDH reunion today at UCSF. I was sad that Shane and Nayeli couldn't go. As I was crossing the bay bridge I started to feel very emotional. A year ago Nayeli was fighting to stay alive. Not only was I thinking of that but all the times we had to cross the bridge to go to UCSF for our appoitments and not knowing what was going to happen to our little girl. I started to cry as I got closer to UCSF. All these emotions just started to come out. I walked in and I was so happy and teary eyed to see all these CDH miracles walking around. I really wish Nayeli could be there with me. The ages ranged from 5 months to 10 years of age. They are all ROCK STARS! I was so happy to see Dr. Farmer. She did Nayeli's repair surgery. Dr. Keller and Dr. Lee were also there and I was so happy to see them. I am sad I didn't get to speak with Dr. Harrison.

Dr. LeeDr. FarmerDr. KellerLast time I saw Collin was when he was in ICN and was less than one month old. Look at him now! He is 6 months old. What a cutie!

I spoke with other CDH families while I was there. Most of them are in the bay area. I was so happy to meet others near me. We exchanged phone numbers and emails. We were all so happy to meet. I hope that I can have them all over for a BBQ in the summer.

I met Luke who is 2 years old he was born with LCDH. He had a laproscopic surgery and is doing well. He is such an energetic little boy. So cute!Samara is 9 months she is so precious.
Emily is 9 years old and has had 3 rehernations. She was one of the first babies at UCSF to have a tracheal occlusion. She had her first repair surgery with pigskin, second was with gortex. She has lost hearing out of one ear and has 30% hearing out of the other. She is one strong little girl! Analisa is 10 years old. She is in the picture we all see when we go onto the UCSF website for CDH. I actually started to cry when I met her. I hugged her and thanked her for giving me hope while I was pregnant. All the CDH miracles!
Dr. Harrison is standing on the left hand side.

Happy 1st Birthday Nayeli Faith!

2009-10-22T17:39:00.001-07:00

Little Yeli Bean you amaze us each day. We knew you were a fighter from the moment you were born. We heard you cry for one second then there was silence because they quickly put you on a ventilator. You showed everyone how strong you were when you decided to extubate yourself when you were six days old. We know that you like things done on your time. You show us that everyday.

You are changing and growing so fast. We love and cherish every moment of it. I thought when I went back to work I would be tired after working all day. I surprise myself, I always have energy for you. I love spending every minute with you. Your daddy and I have become friends with people that were once strangers now they are our closest friends. God tested and trusted in us a year ago with our faith. We prasied him through it all. Everyday you remind us how precious life is. You are a miracle!

As of your First Birthday you:

-are saying Mama, Dadda,book, Kitty, Shane, Hi, Mol(Molly), qak(quack),tery(teddy),Bir(bird)
-baby sign: doggie, book, wave bye bye, duck, milk
-are pulling yourself up and crusing. You crawl all around the house and get into everything your body fits in
-you hand us stuff you find
-climbing up stairs with our supervision
-have 7 teeth and one is peeking out today!
-wake up in the middle of the night, you are thirsty for BM and want to cuddle with mama you go back to sleep til 8am
-wake up in a good mood everyday and when you want us to come in you yell "Shane"
-love eating chicken, cheese, green beans pears and apple sauce
-love going into all the drawers and cabinets even though they are childproof.
-enjoy playing with the dog bowls. You tease Molly and Twinkine by putting your hand out and making them think you are giving them food.
-like pulling Max's tail.

We are so blessed to have you in our lives Nayeli. Thank you God for giving us Nayeli Faith. She is a living miracle and are grateful for you letting us be her mommy and daddy. Happy 1st Birthday Nayeli Faith!

He fills my life with good things.
Psalm 103:5

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Flu Shot X 3

2009-10-17T17:46:00.001-07:00

We did it! On Thursday we went for our flu shot. Shane has gotten them before. It was Nayeli and my first time getting it. We decided not to give Nayeli the H1N1. It is such a new vaccine and there is not much research on it that it makes us uncomfortable. Nayeli is scheduled for her first RSV the first week of November. Her pediatrician told us she will continue to get the RSV shot until the age of 2.

Shane and I have been a little paranoid since we have noticed people at work are getting sick. We are praying we stay healthy. I carry a big gallon of antibacterial gel in my work truck and disinfect my work space. Shane does the same. If we touch something we wash or disinfect our hands with antibacterial gel. I will wear a mask and vapor rub if I need to.

My mom flew on the plane last week for the first time instead of driving. She wore her mask that the Doctor recommended and put vapor rub in her nose. We are so grateful we have my mom helping us out. We wish there was an easier way but for now this is what we have to do. Nayeli loves having Nana Victoria around. She drinks and eats great for her. She is still having Shane a hard time in eating.

We noticed since I went back to work that Nayeli is having a hard time going to sleep at night and breastdfeeding. The first week I went back to work Nayeli was refusing to take the bottle from my mom or Shane. She is now taking the bottle and this past week Nayeli is not breastfeeding at all and is taking the bottle. We are concerned since she is not taking the average 15oz to 24oz At bedtime Nayeli would immediately go to sleep at 830pm after breastfeeding or bottle feeding and after we would read her a book. Now she starts to cry a few minutes later. I go in breastfeed her and she goes to sleep. She wraps her arms around me and hugs me. I love this so I hold her a few minutes and rock her. I never want to let go. Two to three hours later she will wake up crying. I will go in soothe her but she won't stop. I will breastfeed her and change her diaper and she goes back to sleep. We used to be able to change her diaper before we would go to bed and check on her. Now it seems to wake her up. We hope that she sleeps through the night like she was or if this is her new habit then it's not such a bad one.

Molly had a birthday this past week she turned 13! We gave her a cupcake in celbrating. Twinkie was there to help. Happy Birthday Molly!
I love playing with dog bowls! Thank you Jen for my Bday present. I love it!I love Max's toy!
Thank you John for my birthday present.

We went to Baby Vincent's service today. Please keep the Serna family in your prayers.

I'm almost ONE!

2009-10-11T20:47:00.000-07:00

We decided to have Nayeli's 1st Birthday party a few weeks early. So we chose last Saturday. We were almost going to cancel the party after we started to get phone calls from alot of our friends cancelling in coming because they were sick with the flu. Shane and I are so nervous about the FLU. We are going on lockdown starting this week. We made sure all of our guests knew that they couldn't come if they had the following: felt sick, have a cough, have a sore throat, fever, have been around anyone who is sick or has these symptoms. I guess I scared alot of our friends away. We had a great time with our friends that did come. It meant so much to us that they were there sharing this special day with us. We were really happy to see our favorite ICN nurse Kim. She drove a distance to be there with us. Nayeli really enjoyed being held by Kim. Part of the decorations included purell everywhere! Thanks to Carter's mom for that idea. We also had a dedication for Nayeli the same day. We had a small little ceremony with Nayeli's godparents. It was very touching.

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