Polk family at the hospital with Bella

Isaiah is serious about taking care of HIS sister

Eli indicates the location of his little sister, and that she is wearing a hat!

The young'ins with Mom on Mother's Day

Little Bella copes with arriving before she wanted to

Bright Eyes begins to take in her new surroundings


Dad takes a turn holding his daughter. Boys, she will not be dating until

an undetermined age.

Bella takes some time to reflect on her life




Bella has done great the past 24 hours. She is eating 15-25 ml ever 2 and a half to 3 hours. They want her to see some therapists first thing in the morning and then they are going to let us go home! We can't wait. Thanks for all of the prayers.

As the sands on the shore, so are the days Ryan and Heidi will be detained at Anshutz Inpatient Pavilion.
So "they" have decided to keep us at least until Sunday afternoon, possibly Monday. Bella is still looking amazing, but she has not shown "them" that she can eat well enough to be sustained at home. She has lost about 9% of her body weight, which is bad, and she cannot lose anymore especially since she was only 5 lbs 12 oz to begin with. Thus, "they" would like her to eat 20 mLs (in cc's that would be 20) every 3 hours and she has been having difficulty with that requirement. There could be many causes including neurological issues pertaining to the abnormalities previously discovered, the fact that she is only 36 weeks and did not have the opportunity to develop a good sucking motion whilst in the womb, but the most probable is that she is simply too tired. We have been trying to breast feed diligently at first then go to the bottle, but Bella gets way too tired to do both and cannot finish her milk. We are now, instead, using a breast pump to get the required amount and feeding her with a bottle and this has so far proved successful. If she keeps this up, we will be home Sunday night.
Upon further examination, "they" found two encephaloceles, but are so small they are of no concern. They may disappear when the soft spot goes away in 2-3 months, but if not, "they" are still not concerned about them. "They" are also watching more closely for symptoms of seizures.
Heidi is doing great as well. She is, as usual, way ahead of schedule for recovery, but will stay in the hospital as long as Bella is kept. Ryan will also be staying. He sleeps on the couch and it hurts his back yet "they" will not give him percocet. Heidi gets it. Sigh. Anywho, here are some things we would love for you to pray for
That the MRI comes back with favorable results
That Bella shows no signs of seizures
That Bella eats well and maintains weight or she will have to return to NICU and be fed through a tube

Thank you so much for praying. We have already seen God moving and pray that He continues to do so. We'll let you know what's going on with more updates via e-mail and our blog. Thanks again!
-Ryan, Heidi, Isaiah, Eli, and Bella.

Our blog address is
http://www.thefamilypolk.blogspot.com
Sorry, I (Heidi) gave the wrong address the first time, as you will see from the sight it has not been updated since Isaiah started walking. Oh and hopefully we will get pictures

He's Finally Walking!!!

Isaiah is finally walking! We have been waiting for this day for a long time, and now that it is here I'm a little overwhelmed.

When Scott and Cari were out here over Christmas Scott worked with Isaiah a lot on his walking. Wouldn't you know that two days after they leave Isaiah would start walking on his own. Now he is everywhere, he has actually attemted running a few times. He has not been very successful at that yet though. We're just pretty excited that he has finally overcome his fears and took his first steps!

It's Been Too Long!!

Okay, so it has been way too long since I have updated this! A lot has happened since September. First of all I don't really like Halloween, but it was Isaiah's first and boy was he ever cute! He was a little horse, and when he crawled around he looked like a little stuffed horse that could move. Not very well though, he ran into a lot of stuff that night. He loved being in his costume, I don't think he ever complained.

The next big thing that happened was Isaiah's first birthday. That was pretty fun too. I don't know if there has ever been a little boy who got so many toys! He had a blast with his cake too. We had two parties on his birthday so he got two pieces of cake. Can anyone say sugar high! Anyway he dug in with both hands, picked up the whole piece of cake and went to town. It was awesome!

The biggest news of the year is on December 12, at 2:45 am we had little Eli Andrew. He is awesome. He weighed 7lbs 9oz, was 20 1/2 inches long, and is beautiful. A lot of people think he looks like Isaiah, and in some ways he does. He will make facial expressions that remind me of Isaiah, but overall he has a completely different look. He is a really good baby, not a lot of crying, sleeps well, eats well (my dad thinks he will be a chunk, I'm not so sure), just an overall good baby! Isaiah loves him most of the time, unless he feels a little left out at feeding time. Most of the time he is trying to give him kisses or pat his head. I think they will make great friends in the next year!

Our Christmas was great, Scott and Cari came out to visit. Everytime I see them it makes me miss them more, and wish that they lived here. There visit seemed too short, but it was awesome to hang out with them even though there was over two feet of snow on the ground the whole time. It was the first time in like six years that the whole family was here for Christmas, what could be better!

My last news is how Isaiah vocabulary has grown, I think he has around twenty words now. I am pretty impressed with him. He can communicate most things to us now such as when he wants food he says "bite", for drink it is "ruck" or "uice", he says bye, hi, please, thankyou, and much more. Probably the funniest thing he says is vacuum, and boy does he say it well! He got two of them for Christmas, they are his favorite toys and he lets us know! He is still not completely walking yet, although my brother Scott helped him out a lot in this area. He is up to about ten steps now! Hopefully soon he will be brave enough to just take off! I'll let you know.

I guess that is most of the major stuff, here goes a new year. Last year was really hard, but really good in the end. Who knows what 2007 will bring!!!!!

Wow It's Been a While!

Wow, I can't believe that it has been two months since I blogged last. That's pretty bad, especially when we have a baby that is changing everyday!
I Guess that is a good place to start. It is offical, Isaiah has said his first words. Bye-Bye, which is followed by a big wave! He also say more please, kind of. It sounds more like ba blease, but he has the please down. Lets see what else...He has not actually started to crawl yet according to most peoples definition but he has the army crawl down, and boy is he speedy. He is pulling himself up to the standing position and loves to stand on the love seat and look out the window. He is still too chicken to let go though, when he does it scares him a lot. It's pretty cute. I guess the last thing to share about him is that he no longer eats baby food but has moved onto the real stuff, and boy does he love it. He can't get enough flavor!
Ryan and I have started working with the high school youth group at Christ Community. It is going pretty well. We are currently the freshman leaders. That is always a challenge I think, but we do have a really good group of kids. We also had a Navagators Missionary move into our basement. That is another challange when your used to having your own space. Dustin is really nice though, and it's been good for us to use our house for ministry. Well I think I hit all the major points!

It's a Boy, We Think!

We went to have an ultrasound done today, it was pretty exciting! It always seems to make the baby more real to me when I can actually see it.
I do have to admit though that this one was a bit of a disapointment after Isaiah's, I didn't realize it at the time but the lady who did his was really good. We got great pictures of him, that wasn't really the case this time.
I'll start with the picture on the top, as you can probably see by the lable it is the baby's face. That alien looking thing in the middle of the picture is our little baby! In the picture in the middle we have a picture of the babies arm and hand in a fist. I think he is getting ready to hit me! The bottom picture is of the baby with his legs crossed. In the top right of the picture you can see his knees, then there is a V shape which is his legs crossed. I thought this one was pretty cute.
In case you have not figured it out yet by all of the "his" remarks, we think this baby is a little boy. I feel a little more uneasy about stating that as fact this time though because the girl who did the ultrasound sounded like she was trying to convince herself of it more than us. I would really like another one at some point, just to be sure! If it is a boy like for now we are planning on we will name him Eli Andrew. We are really excited to have a boy again though because Isaiah will have a playmate close to his age, not to mention we already have a ton of boys clothing for all the right seasons since they will be born right at a year apart!

Doughnuts

Isaiah had a taste of his first finger food on the 4th. Our family has a tradition of going to the Stampede Parade every year. This was Isaiah's first year, obviously. Anyway, while a few people save a spot on the sidewalk the rest of us go to Safeway a few blocks away to get doughnuts and chocolate milk. Then we sit and watch the parade while we eat.

It was pretty hot this year so we only watched the parade for about 45 minutes or so before I got sick and deceided that we should probably go home. Well Isaiah is pretty into drumming on anythings these days, so Dad gave Isaiah the box of doughnuts to drum on while we walked the six blocks to our house. Isaiah sat silently the whole walk home. We actually thought that he might be asleep. When we reached our house and looked at him he had opened the box and smashed up all the doughnuts inside. He had also dumped about half the box in his stroller. He was a mess, but he never ate any because he still had his pacifier in his mouth. We were cleaning up doughnuts all day. It was pretty awesome. I have a feeling we have a mischievious little guy on our hands!!