Jess Holding Kyle...and a couple other pics

Jess just got home from the hospital just a few minutes ago & got to hold little Kyle Nephi for a good hour or so! Yipee!!! The doctors said he's continuing to improve nicely, requiring less & less oxygen each hour. Jess fed him just a few mLs of milk (from a bottle, to start with), and he took it all (it took a long time because he was totally zonked out, but the nurse said he did really, really well). So hopefully we can continue to reduce the oxygen flow slowly over the next day or two until he's doing everything on his own, and start feeding him more & more. And then he'll hopefully be ready to come home on Tuesday!!!

Kyle Nephi...making progress...

His name is officially Kyle Nephi Hermansen. Here's an update on how he's doing...

On Thursday night the doctors pinpointed the cause for his belabored breathing & lack of sufficient oxygen. He has a mild case of pulmonary hypertension. Hypertension refers to high blood pressure. Pulmonary means "of the lungs." So basically, the arteries/vessels/tubes (whatever they are) that run near (or through) the lungs are partially "clamped down" or constricted (i.e. high blood pressure). As a result, the blood cells are having a hard time getting fully "oxygenated" (picking up oxygen from the lungs).

It's a pretty common complication at birth, and the doctors are experienced at treating it. Gratefully, once the blood pressure goes down, he should perk right up and start doing really well right away, and there are no long-term residual effects from this little hiccup. Every baby has to transition from mom breathing for him to breathing on his own... our little "wimpy white boy" is just taking his time about making that transition (I say "wimpy white boy" because a lot of the doctors and nurses often joke about white male babies being the "wimpiest" of all babies - they call it "wimpy white boy syndrome"). But once he makes the transition, he'll be good to go.

The most common cause of pulmonary hypertension is some sort of infection. Although Kyle's blood labs come back totally clean, the doctors thought it wise to start him on an antibiotic anyway, just as a precaution. The antibiotic is administered by IV, and it's a 7-day treatment, so regardless of when the pulmonary hypertension is resolved & he starts breathing easier & gets enough oxygen on his own, he'll be in the NICU until next Tuesday at the earliest.

This morning the doctors took him off the C-PAP again, and he's holding his own a lot better this time. So it looks like he'll get to keep it off this time. Tonight, Jess and I can probably hold him for a few minutes, which we're really excited about (we've only got to hold him for just a couple minutes each right after he was born). He has a nasal capula in the C-PAP's place, which provides him with a little extra oxygen. Hopefully it can go too in the next day or two, and then he'll be all on his own.

Here's a picture of him with the lovely C-PAP (or something like that) he's been hooked up to for the last day and a half. It pumps a little extra oxygen into him, and also pushes some positive air pressure down into his lungs. After 24 hours on it, they took it off for an hour or so hoping to be done with it for good (see the pic below with it off, and with just a little oxygen tube instead of it), but the little bugger started to grunt quite a bit again (indicative of not having enough air pressure in the lungs), so it's back on again. We'll try taking it off again tomorrow morning, assuming all goes well. He's requiring less oxygen than yesterday, and he's now taking a little slower, deeper breaths, which is good. We're getting there...




We greatly appreciate your continued faith and prayers for our little guy. Thank you, and please continue!

We'll keep you updated...

No-Name

No-Name Hermansen was born Tuesday morning (7/23/08) at 7:05am. He was 9 lbs. 8 oz. He has quite a bit of dark brown hair (for a Hermansen), which I'm sure will have fallen out within the next few days, and which will come in quite a bit lighter. These first 2 pics were taken just 2-3 minutes after he was born...

Hailee's creativity!

I was building a book shelf for the girls with my parents and Hailee kept collecting all the scraps and all the sudden we look over and she has written her name with them. It was so cute and very impressive! She is our little smarty pants!
She then write Rae's name too, Rae was feeling a little left out on all the fun!

Camping!

One of the many beautiful sunsets we get to enjoy here in Idaho! This is from the back porch of our house. I only wish we were a little bit more on a mountain side so we could see them better over the houses, but Idaho Falls is very flat so there aren't too many places that are elevated! Here we are camping and Hailee is nasty dirty and soaking wet, the usual for camping!
Rae is wet too but she doesn't have to be camping to get soaked! We were at our ward Bar-B-Q the other night and she found the spinklers and jumped right in. I am sure everyone wondered if I even knew where she was or what she was doing...I did. I just knew it would be an endless battle all night with her keeping her away from the water, so I just let her play and she had a blast! It's fun to see them have so much fun!
Raelyn asleep with her Uncle Brian, it was too cute to pass up taking a picture.
Hailee and Kev sleeping when we were camping. That looks pretty comfortable don't you think? I just wonder how many times Kev got kicked in the head that night.

Hanging in there!

Well, just an update...I'm just under three weeks out till my due date! Which is very exciting, yet it still seems too far away! How can that happen? It seems that the closer you get the further away it feels, it's infuriating! But everything seems to be well with the baby which is great, and I miraculously seem to survive yet another day as they come my way. I can't tell if it is because this is my third pregnancy or because it is a boy or because I have a bad attitude but this pregnancy has seemed a lot harder then either of the girls' was. I don't know.

So, when the happy day finally arrives we will let you all know and make sure to post lots of pictures! But until then we are going on a water skiing trip with Kev's family and then to Sun Valley with my family! We will see if I can survive all the fun, I'm not quite sure, but hopefully it will turn out to be a nice distraction.

That's us in a nut shell lately, soon we will have more to talk about, but until then take care and have an awesome summer!

Kev on the news

Kev did an interview with Mary Sturgill from KIDK Channel 3 News a few weeks ago, but we hadn't heard anything for a while & figured it was never going to air. But today at Church someone mentioned that they saw him on TV a couple nights ago, so we looked up the link. It's a story about the financial condition of many Gen Yers (people in their 20's and 30's). Click on the "Video" link that is a little ways down from the image on this page:

http://www.kidk.com/news/indepth/22797829.html

More June pix

Raelyn with Grandpa Johnson amidst the slip-n-sliding fun!

Little Raelyn couldn't get enough (as long as her dad went with her)!!!

Surprise retirement/welcome-home party for Mom & Dad Johnson

Here's a pic of the sign Jess (with a tiny bit of help from Kev) made for Mom & Dad's retirement party

Homeless children seen wandering about the party (where are their parents?!?)

June Pics

Raelyn and Kev! He had just gotten home from work and his girls can't get enough of him for the rest of the day, it's pretty cute, I just don't like waiting till their bed time to finally get my turn to hang out with him. But I am glad he loves to be with them so much and that they love their Daddy so much!

Oops! Rae found some mud! She wasn't quite sure what she thought about it, she would hop between crying and laughing...It was pretty funny!

Kev launching Hailee in the air!
Hailee with one of her very best friends, Brianna.

Slip-N-Slide Fun!!! Every year (if possible), Jessa's family puts together a makeshift (AKA redneck) slip-n-slide at Bartz Field in Pocatello. We had lots of fun!!!