Racing Preperation

Chris is busy getting ready to go racing for the first time this year. Memorial Day weekend is always a big race weekend, and needless to say, he is super excited! It will also be Addy's first time at the race track, and although she won't be allowed anywhere near the actual track, I insisted that earmuffs be ordered for her just in case it is noisy near the trailer. We ordered the smallest pair we could find, but they are still a little big.

Here is also just a fun snapshot of Addison and I. She was a bit on the fussy side, so I started rocking her and this was the only way for her to get comfortable.

Mother's Day! and everything else!

I'd like to start by apologizing - especially to the loyal readers who check this everyday, even though it has been almost 3 weeks since I have updated this!! I'm sorry that it's been so long, and I hope that I post enough that I keep you satisfied, updated, and wanting to come back for more. This could be interesting though, because sometimes I can't remember what I did yesterday let alone three weeks ago!

Let's start with Mother's Day! I had a perfect first Mother's Day. Since Addison's 1 mo. birthday was the Tuesday before Mother's Day, I figured what better day than Mother's Day to do something I love and get some pictures taken! So we slept/layed in bed until about 10:00 before we got up and started getting around. Once we had all of our clothes and props put together, we headed out the door to do a little shopping before our photo shoot. First we tried going to the jewelery store and they were closed, then we tried going to one of our favorite baby stores and it was closed! At this point you're probably thinking, "wait - you said you had the perfect Mother's Day"... It was perfect, I am alive, I have a beautiful baby girl and a wonderful husband. After we want to the second closed store, we went to Babies R Us which was open. We found a few "necessities" or in other words anything we could call a necessity since we love buying things for our little girl. After we spent enough time at Babies R Us we were off to have our pictures taken. Loraine Davis took our pictures at her home. She did an excellent job, and all of the money she makes from taking pictures, goes to her friend's breast cancer fund! What a sweet woman! (See below for more images from our photo shoot) After we were done getting our pictures taken, we went out to the mall, where we spent more money on Addison (the photo above is of her trying on some sunglasses), and I bought three additions to one of my Mother's day gifts (the jewelery store we tried to go to in Ankeny, was open at the mall!). When we were done shopping, I splurged on my sodium restriction and we got Red Robin to go and ate it when we got home (on a side note - this was even more specially when I found out that my favorite burger wasn't going to be offered anymore :)

Chris and Addison bought me two BEAUTIFUL presents for which I am absolutely thankful! The first was a diamond pendant/necklace which was a combination "thanks for having my baby/ Mother's Day gift" it matches the beautiful diamond earrings Chris bought for me at about 15 weeks into my pregnancy. The second gift is a charm bracelet. He picked out the baby carriage and the diamond heart (Addison's birth stone), then let me pick out the rest when we went shopping on Mother's Day! The two red beads represent Chris' birthday and my birthday, along with our anniversary. The last bead is a contemporary sculpture of a mother and baby. Such a neat idea! I can't wait to fill it with charms representing all of our adventures as a family!

The following weekend, Grandma Knepper came down to visit. Saturday we went shopping. I think Addison knew we were shopping and she wanted a new outfit. We weren't in the mall more than 15 min. when Addy threw up all over herself, and of course, the extra outfit for situations like this, wasn't in the diaper bag. It took all day for me to find shoes (my feet have shrunk due to the pregnancy and losing weight) and a few new clothes.

This past weekend we went to Pratt, Kansas for a graduation party. It was an 16 hour drive (there and back). Addison did great! We had a great time at the party seeing some of Chris' family that we don't get to see enough! Addison was starting to get tired of riding in the car on the way home. She started crying shortly before an exit, so obviously we too that exit. I keep telling her dad that she is a natural born shopper, because the exit we took had a country store that had all kinds of Amish goods and tons of cute kids toys! Although we didn't buy anything, we did agree that we would have to come back before Christmas :) She even slept through the night last night after riding in the car all day - hopefully this wasn't a fluke, but rather something she is going to start doing every night - hey a girl can dream :)

Addison's developments over the last 3 weeks include: talking non-stop! (she is her mother's daughter), smiling more often, giggling, kicking her feet, pushing off (if you hold her in the standing position), playing with fabric/blankets - she likes to bunch them up and hold them in her hands, she has even started to pick up some of her larger rattles and shake them and she develops more and more faces and personality every day!

Sorry for the lack of "snapshots" we had to send my camera in for two weeks and Chris and I have been lost with out it!

As far as my health goes, they took me off another medication, they think they have stabilized my medication for my blood clot, and lifted my water restriction.

Hope this gives you all enough of an update on our lives for now and hopefully I won't wait as long next time for a post!

4 Weeks

Wow! I can't believe it has been 4 weeks already! Our little girl is growing like a weed and time sure is flying! This week Addison has started doing better with tummy time on the floor - she used to lay down and sleep once she was placed on the floor especially if we tried to prop her up on a blanket or pillow.

She has also started holding her own towns and lifting them to play with them. She has also been seen sucking on Mickey's nose once she lifts it close enough to her face :)

She continues to steal our hearts everyday, and we are so proud of her!

Katie and Al's Wedding

This past weekend we took our first trip. We left Saturday Morning and drove to Dyersville for Katie and Al's wedding! It was a beautiful day and the wedding was even more beautiful! It was great to see all of our friends and family that we hadn't seen since around Christmas and it was nice to get out of the house and go for a ride! Addison even got to stay in her first hotel room! Below are some pictures of Addison's first trip!

3 Weeks Old

Miss Addison Riley turned 3 weeks on Tuesday. Her current joys include tummy time on daddy - she can lift her head all the way up and hold it up for quite sometime. I love this picture of my two babes - it makes me smile and I see them saying "we are innocent, we swear we didn't do it!" She also enjoys kisses from her daddy and laughs/smiles when his whiskers touch her face.

Addison also enjoys listening to her Grandma Vest sing "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener" - I told grandma she may want to practice up on songs such as "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or "Humpty Dumpty" as they may be a little more appropriate when sitting in doctors office waiting rooms, etc. haha. Addison also loves her swing. I swear she could spend hours in it. She has also started watching the mobile go round. She will track one lamb from the left all the way to the right and then start over again.


She also enjoys being home - as we all do! It's hard to believe after being in the hospital for basically a week and a half, that tomorrow we will have been home for two weeks. Hopefully starting next week, I will feel good enough that Addison and I can start spending time just the two of us and Chris' mom can spend some time relaxing/traveling before she has to start babysitting in about 4 and 1/2 weeks!

A Long Road Home...

Well it has been almost 2 weeks since the birth of my baby girl and I sit here wondering where to start to update everyone on the last week and a half. I will start with what we thought would be a lovely Friday afternoon, we were discharged from the hospital around 1:00 PM on Friday. We came home and introduced everyone, and of course Mercedes was trying to mother little Addison and surprisingly Alexis was curious and seemed OK with the addition to the family. Around the 4:30 feeding Lora started to complain that she felt like she had fluid in her lungs and of course me being myself, I told Lora "go get a cough drop and I am sure that will help." She took the cough drop and didn't say much for the rest of the night. Uncle Joe and future Aunt Kendra came up from Oklahoma and Grandma and Grandpa Knepper also came down from Dyersville. Around 12:00AM we finally went to lay down and get some rest. Addison was swaddled up like a little burrito and I was falling asleep fast when Lora said she couldn't take it anymore. When she went to lay down she felt like she was drowning and was very short of breath. I looked at our discharge papers and it explained that if you are experiencing any shortness of breath to call the doctor immediately. We called the doctor and he recommended that we go directly to the emergency room. We hastily scooped up our little girl, buckled her in and got Uncle Joe to move his jelly bean racer of a car. I remembered to compile a make shift diaper bag full of formula, nipples, diapers and wipes as I realized it was Friday night in Des Moines and we were going to the ER. Once we got to the ER we were quickly checked in and given a small room. A nurse with funny shoes on put in an IV and did the initial vitals check. A short while after the initial check a tech came in the room to do a EKG of Lora's heart. Another 15 minutes passed and the doctor came in with a brace on his leg and white hair. He explained that the concern after any surgery would be a blood clot in the lung and we would need to do a CT scan and a x-ray to rule out a blood clot and fluid build up. The x-ray tech wheeled in a portable x-ray to do the chest x-ray. About 3 hours had passed and we still had not had the CT scan yet, apparently there were a lot of people needing CT scans at 4:00 AM on Saturday morning? We finally had the CT scan around 5:00 AM and were anxiously awaiting the results. The doctor received back the results and told us that Lora had a Pulmonary Embolism and had fluid around her lungs. Once we were told this we asked how much longer we would be there (the severity had not yet set in) and she told us that we would most likely be admitted to the hospital. With all of the life sucked out of the both of us we sat in the ER with tears in our eyes and wondering how we were going to take care of our beautiful little girl with her Mom in the hospital. We got a new nurse at 7:00 AM and she took great care of us. She placed us in a suite up on the cardiac floor or geriatric floor as some refer to it. The hospital provided a crib from the maternity floor and plenty of blankets for Addison. We were admitted on Saturday and did not get much information on Lora's condition until well into Monday or Tuesday. During this time Lora had received a lasix that made her drain over six liters of fluid in the mater of a few hours. As some of you may know Lora started to retain fluid in her lower extremities after week 30. We had some great nurses and some of them were referring to Lora's condition as CHF, we sat there not knowing what that stood for until one of them said Congestive Heart Failure. We both almost hit the floor. Apparently that is what they call patients with fluid on their lungs. On Monday Lora had an echo cardiogram of her heart to determine the efficiency of her heart. A cardiologist read this and determined that Lora has perinatal cardiomyopathy, which is referred to as heart failure due to pregnancy. Her heart is pumping about 28% efficient, 55-75% is normal. Needless to say we were both scared to death about what the future holds for us and our new family. Back to the pulmonary embolism, that is a something not related to the heart condition but just as serious. Lora will be on drugs to make her blood very thin for the next 6 to 12 months. This is done to ensure that the blood clot does not get bigger, move or any new ones form. The heart condition is being treated with a cocktail of meds to basically keep her heart from growing any larger and build it back up to become more efficient. To top all of this off we were told that more children would not be recommended and breast feeding needed to end. After everything we have been through in the last 2 years with cancer and a miscarriage I don't know how much more we can take. But at the end of the day all I have to do is thank whatever or whoever that I have my life, my wife and a beautiful little girl to lay on my chest and watch in amazement. Just as the tattoo says on my arm "I walked through the valley of the shadow of death and now I fear no evil..." I can truly say that after this experience I now I am ready for anything parenting has to throw at me. We would like to thank my parents, Lora's parents and everyone else who came to help us during our difficult time. I will show off now a little bit with more pictures of my baby.




Ma - This one's for you!

It's a Girl!

Addison Riley Vest has arrived. After 22 hours of labor and concerns over preeclampsia they decided to delivery Addison by cesarean last night at 4:41 PM. Lora was having trouble with the epidural not relieving the pain and after several hours of upping the pitocin and no movement from 5 CM and 2 extra doses of drugs through the epideral we were glad that the labor was over. At first I did not think that I would be allowed to be in the room with Lora during the surgery as the epidural was not working in the birthing room, but after the doctor switched to a spinal tap (not the legendary movie) she was doing much better and requested that I be in the room with her. The cesarean section was an interesting thing to be on the other side of. Addison Riley came out and screamed a big scream for all of us. She was a beautiful little girl and she let her dad hold her and sooth her in the operating room. Once we were done in the operating room they took Addison and I down to the nursery where we were checked over and foot prints taken. I don't want to brag but even people that don't think all babies are cute think my baby is cute. The doctor checked her out this morning and all is well. We will do the eye sight and hearing test today but I am sure she is perfect. Thanks to everyone who kept us in their thoughts, it has been a rough couple of months but it is all worth it. All is well with my little peanut. She is the most beautiful baby ever and I have proof.