Myles Porter Gridley

Myles Porter Gridley was born on November 12th at 12:21 pm, he weighed 4 lbs and was 16 inches long. He fought for 8 hours and was very brave. We were able to hold him, love him and say our goodbyes.

We will have a visitation on Sunday from 2 to 5 PM in Wellington at Day Funeral Home, 1030 Mission Road, Wellington KS for more information go to http://www.dayfuneralhome.info/

We request in lieu of flowers send a donation to:

Wesley Neonatal Special Nursery
550 N Hillside
Wichita KS 67214
ATTN: Cindy Harman or can be left in care of the funeral home.

We will have a private graveside service on Monday. Thanks again to everyone for your continued prayers and support.

Love

Lanny and Jenny

BPP

Sorry for being so late with this post but it's been a busy couple of days for us. We went in on Thursday afternoon for our Biophysical Profile thinking this might be the day we have the baby but hoping he would be able to stay in my tummy just a little longer. Michele (our favorite tech) came to get us, which we were pretty excited about since we think she is just so good at her job.

She took us back to do the sonogram and started the test. She checked the fluid and it was low like last week, about 3.5 cm is all we have left right now. It looked like there was one pocket of a little over 2 cm. Anyway, Michele mentioned the issue with the baby's stomach (a possible mass on his stomach) and said that maybe the issue is just bits in the amniotic fluid dead skin cells and stuff. She had me get on my side and was hoping that the "stuff" would move around and not be a mass...well guess what...it did move and we then told Michele how much we appreciate her and how hard she works to find out what she is looking at, she is the one who found the horseshoe kidney.

She checked out the rest of him, what she could see anyway. She mentioned that it is getting harder to see him clearly because his bones are calcifying and she is can't see through them anymore. His heart rate was about 135 and they had us do the non-stress test again just to make sure everything was still going well. We went in there and he was really quiet and didn't move much and then all of a sudden he started moving all around pushing on the belts and his heart rate when up to the 150's and even at one point up to 170's but then he dropped back down to the 135's and just relaxed. The nurse said, "You have such a good boy in there!" I laughed and said "Really, really...he seems pretty ornery to me." She then said, "Well, yeah but at least he performs well when you need him to." "True" I said and laughed. So for now we are just waiting and hoping things all work out for the best!

We have a full sonogram and appt. with Dr. O'Hara on Tuesday so we will see how much he is weighing and hopefully get a better look at the kidneys. Again, please keep us in your prayers! He is surprising the doctors with how well he is doing, as you know they thought we would be delivering him several weeks ago so he is already a miracle in our eyes! We just want to keep that trend continuing!

Thanks for all the encouraging comments!

Love you all!!

J, L and baby G

OB appt. & BPP

On Tuesday (the 28th) we had an OB appt with Dr. Lopez and she told us that at the last BPP we had that Dr. O'Hara was a little concerned about the baby's stomach bubble, that it looked a little larger than normal and that the baby's size was in the 15th percentile (which is lower than we would like to see). The stomach issue seemed minor and was something they were going to keep their eye on...the bigger issue was his growth, or lack there of actually.

Today we had a BPP and the baby was moving around a lot which was good because it seems like he has been sleeping or resting during the sonogram. He was kicking the technician's wand during the test. There was an issue with the amniotic fluid, it was a little low so they had us go back and do a non-stress test. During the test the baby was moving all around and kicking the fetal monitor (he is like his mom, he doesn't like tight things on him). He then got the hiccups, which was good for me to hear and feel because I had felt those for a while but wasn't sure if it was hiccups or what was going on in there. :) I also had a contraction during the test which was a weird and scary feeling, but totally normal the nurse said. After about 20 minutes the nurse came in and took me off the machine. She gave the readings to Dr. O'Hara and we heard her say, "What a good boy!!". Then the nurse came back in and said that he did a great job with how active he was being during the test.

For now we are continuing with our weekly BPP's unless we hear back from the doctor. It looks like it won't be long now before we deliver him so please keep up those prayers that he will arrive safe and sound!!

L-

Jenny, Lanny and Baby G

Full Sonogram

Yesterday Lanny and I went in for a sonogram and what we thought was an appointment with Dr. O'Hara but instead was just a normal sonogram. They did all the normal checks on the baby. They checked his heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys, measured his bones and checked out the fluid level.

Things looked good overall. His heart rate was 140, which we thought was low but Tara (our tech) said was normal because he was resting and she also said that the bigger he gets the lower his heart rate will be. He is weighing in at 2 lbs 11 oz. which is exciting...he is getting bigger it's not just me! The fluid level was about the same and the largest vertical pocket was a little over 3 cm. Tara couldn't see the kidneys too well because his leg was in the way, she wiggled my stomach all around but he just wouldn't move. She said he is just being ornery...I think that is a theme for him, he must take after his dad, can't be from my side of the family :)

We can't say enough about how much we appricate your love, support and prayers! God is good! Keep up the prayers!!!

L-

Jen

BioPhysical Profiles (BPP)

The BPP basically just checks the baby's heart rate, muscle tone, movement, breathing, and measures the amount of amniotic fluid. I didn't update the blog last week because the BPP was confusing. Last weeks sonogram was done by a tech we didn't know and she was in a hurry because the doctor needed to leave but wanted to review our sonogram before she left so there wasn't really time to ask her any questions. As she was doing the sonogram she told us that his heart rate was 151 and we saw the largest pocket of fluid was almost 5 cm wide (which is awesome!!). Other than that we didn't learn much information last week.

This week's BPP was much better! Tara was our tech (we have had her before, she isn't the one who found the horseshoe kidney but we like her anyway) and she explained much more than the other tech. She told us that she was measuring the 4 quadrants for amniotic fluid, this week the biggest pocket was almost 4 cm (still awesome!) and that his heart rate was at 148. She also showed us his diaphragm and how she could tell if he was taking in fluid, it was neat to watch it go up and down.

He wasn't moving much right then (I think he was napping) so she just shook and shook my belly until she could get him to move around. She printed off several pictures for us a profile and several face shots. He is so funny because he always has a hand up by his face and he also had a foot up there as well. My sister Jami swears she saw 6 toes in one of the sonogram pictures (because of the hand and the foot both up by his face) so she has decided to call him Six from now on...I don't see the humor in that but whatever!

Overall we are happy with the news and are praising God that things are continuing to look better each time we check on him. Thanks again for all of you who continue to check on us and pray for the three of us, we really appreciate it.

Love to all

J, L and little man

Sooner than later maybe?

Well Jen is a little tired tonight so you'll have to put up with me writing this. We had our regular meeting with Dr O'Hara, our regular specialist, along with a standard sonogram. They said everything looked pretty much like last time. Still looks like a horse-shoe kidney and fluid levels are still very low but not any worse (which in our world is good news). We will still have to deal with why the baby isn't able to urinate and if that is the kidney or a urinary tract blockage or what. As far as we know they won't know that until after birth or know it is something surgery can fix or not.

The Dr seems to have shifted plans some today though now that we are 27 weeks + along. They consider 26 weeks as being the point where a baby has a decent chance in neo natal intensive care. So the Dr recommended that Jenny get a couple of steroid shots. Steroids are what they use to help increase lung development in premature babies. Jenny taking the shots won't actually help the lungs develop at this stage but if she gives birth early having the steroids already in the blood stream gives them a jump start on treatment after birth.

We also now have weekly appointments where they measure how active the baby is and how well he is able to breathe. The have a scale of 1 to 8 that they rank it on. They are doing all this to help keep a very watchful eye to do the best to avoid stillbirth which is still a very high risk for us. We got the feeling from the doctor that she is leaning toward an early birth. She didn't come right out and say when or anything but based on some of the treatment choices we are getting the feeling that it might be coming sooner than we expected.

Well we will keep you all posted as best as we can as we continue our appointments. Thanks to everyone for all the thoughts and prayers! We still have a long battle ahead and are far from out of the woods at all but at least taking steps in the right direction still.

Fetal Echo-Sept. 23rd appt.

We went to see Dr. Battise, the fetal cardiologist today and she did a fetal echo on the baby's heart. As they were doing the echo, the Dr. and the tech thought they saw a hole but when they went over it and looked at it from several directions they decided that maybe it was just a false reading. She also said that the chambers looked equal in size which is a good sign because if there is an issue one side of the four chambers would be larger than the opposite side. Before we left the Dr. said that we should plan for a echo after the baby is born to check the heart while he is in the NICU to make sure that the heart is working well.

Our take on all this is that it is good news and that we are just continuing to pray that God will watch over our little man and keep him growing. We go to see Dr. O'Hara on the 29th because Dr. Farb had to cancel the appointment that was scheduled tomorrow.

Things seem to be going well because he is moving all around and I am hungry all the time!! The other night I just laid there and just watched my belly dance, he was moving all around. I told Lanny he must be a dancer because he was moving so much. He then asked me "what music was he listening to" and I said "the music in his head". Lanny just rolled his eyes and said "yeah, he got that from you!" I just laughed, because it's true!!

We do want to thank all of you for your support during this trying time in our lives. It is very uplifting and lets us know that we are truly lucky to have friends and family care so much about us and our son!!! We love you guys!