He's here!!

Cute little Kayson John Hartle was born Thursday night.

He and Bridget are the closest cousins so far, only 20 days apart.

With this crazy month of May there have
been 3, yes THREE!! new family members added to
this large family.

That brings our total count to 40.

This is why we have Thanksgiving at a church....

Hil-ari-ous

Makes me laugh every time.

Why do I love spring?

Because it's so dang pretty!

I love love love fruit trees for a few reasons.
Fresh fruit of course, but before our peaches get
here look what we get to enjoy:

Love it.

I also love all the super cute spring outfits.

Finally.

We're home!!!

Courage

This has been hard.

Driving home last Tuesday with an empty car seat
strapped in the back was the hardest thing I have ever
had to do.

Being told I could take my baby home one day, then
the next day being told it would be later, then later, was
heartbreaking again and again.

So many wonderful, loving, supportive people tried
to tell me "things could be worse," or "it's only a short time."

I had a really, really hard time allowing these words to comfort me.
I knew we were so blessed to not have things much, much worse -
but I didn't have my baby and I was miserable.

Then my knight in shining armor read me something I really
needed to hear:

7. My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be
but a small moment;  8. And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee
on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.  9. Thy friends do stand by thee,
and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.  (D&C 121: 7-9)

 This is love.

Yeah, this whole experience has sucked.  I would never wish

it on anyone.  But, I have grown so much these past two weeks.

I have never cried so much.

I have never fallen on my knees so many times.

I have never pleaded and begged so hard.

and in the end

I have never felt so much comfort, peace, love, and courage.

Thank you all for your love, prayers, and words of encouragement.

I thought we would never make it through all of this, but
tomorrow is the big day!

9 hours and counting!!

Some more baby news.

The NICU is closed for an hour for shift changes
so I figured I would send along another update.

She is looking better and better every time we get
to see her.

Her spinal tap came back negative (woo hoo!!!) so now we are
just waiting for the rest of the blood work to rule out
a few other minor things.

I finally got to try and feed her.
We both did pretty well for being first timers.

Her oxygen levels are almost where they need to be
so hopefully very soon she can loose one of the many
cords tying her down.

The doctor was busy with another little one last
time we were down there so we don't know if plans have
changed yet for her long stay.

We will be sure and let you know when we do! :)

Bridget update

Just went down to see little Bridget in the NICU.
We finally got to hold her.

And I think she was pretty happy about it.

After having normal blood work yesterday,
today there was a little concern.

Looks like she has an infection she is working
on kicking.  Luckily they started antibiotics yesterday -
just in case. 

They are down there torturing my little girl right now.
They are doing a spinal tap to make sure she doesn't have
meningitis.

For now she has to be on IV antibiotics for 10 whole days.

That means we will be leaving the hospital all by
ourselves.

Sucks. Hard. Core.

I know she will be alright.  I am not worried.

I am just selfish and want my baby.

Thanks for the well wishes and prayers!!

The Stats

Here is a little more info on our baby girl.

Born May 7th at 4:27 am
Weighs 6 lbs 10 oz
19 inches long
And super cute!

I am sure you are all wondering what her name is...

Bridget Dawn Merkley

Baby Girl

She is finally here!!

After 9 months of pregnancy,
25 hours of labor,
and 27 minutes of pushing,
we ended up with 1 dang cute little girl.

She decided to inhale some fluid so she
has been in the NICU since they cut
her free from me.

She is slowly doing better but still not breathing
as well as the doctor would like.

We will keep ya updated on her progress and
get some more pictures soon!

Party at our house!

Logan's brother, Galen, had a birthday last
month.

We, of course took advantage of this excuse to get
together to chow down and party.

Kari decided to try out a cake she saw a picture of.

Here was the end result:

Not really sure how close she got it to the picture...

Galen sure seemed to think it looked ok though.

So did the swarm of children.

It was delicious!!  And gone very quickly!

Happy birthday Galen!!