Carousel

Its been two weeks since Lilly and I went to Lafreniere Park in Metairie with our mommy group, but its better late than never to post pictures. We had 2 firsts that day, first time on a carousel and first time swinging!  We had a great time and it was such a beautiful day!

Jump Jump Jump!!

 

Lilly finally got the hang of her jumperoo today!  We were not allowed to put her in it after the surgery until today, and of course the first time we put her in it she’s just jumping away!! She had a blast.

Paparazzi

It was so beautiful outside last Sunday, Lilly and I decided to play paparazzi.  We took a blanket outside and took tons of pictures! 

Look at that profile, luck duck didn’t get Momma or Daddy’s nose!

It is not easy to take a picture of momma and baby together!

 

Happy Baby!

 

 

That is a talking face..I’m not sure what she was saying but she was talking.

It’s a bird, a plane, nope its a Lilly Pie!!

 

Lilly loves her Doc Dog

I couldn’t get either one of their attention

 

My Gerber Baby!

Half Birthdays Vacation and Lilly’s Recovery

We celebrated Lilly’s half birthday on Oct. 8th.  Here’s proof..

Mike and I loved Lilly’s Strawberry cake

 

And Lilly kind of did too!

She enjoyed smashing it between her fingers more than anything

Over Columbus Day weekend our little family took a drive to Clarksville, TN to introduce our Lilly to her “Framily”.  And on top of that she needed to meet her godparents!  Yes Ms. April and Mr.. Adam agreed that Lilly is cute enough to be her godparents :)  We started driving late Thursday night and Lilly slept the majority of the way, then we made it to TN around 9:00am Friday.  We had a wonderful time seeing all of our old friends, it made me miss them even more!  But Mike and I now know that we can make a 10 hour drive with Lilly and she remains pretty happy :) 

Lilly on her first of many trips to visit her godparents! Oh and the Steelers were playing too!

 

We even got to celebrate Tala and Kaya’s Birthday, Lilly was gearing up for more cake :)

This is an obligatory Katie and April Picture!

 

Lilly also got her first driving lesson, while momma was eating Taco Bell in the car.

 

As for Lilly’s recovery, she is doing great!  You would never guess she had major abdominal surgery!  She is sitting up rolling over and scooting all over the place.  This past Monday we took a trip to Children’s Hospital in NOLA to have her drain removed..she didn’t even flinch!  And that booger was about 7 inches long. 

I’m sure some people are wondering what her scar looks like, here it is with the drain on the left of it.  Right now her scar is hidden in a fat wrinkle, but its only about 2 1/2 inches long. 

Happy Halloween!

We have not gone trick or treating yet, but here are some pictures of Lilly in her costume. She had to try it on :)Last Saturday we carved our pumpkins! This is the first of what I hope will become a family tradition. Lilly enjoyed watching us play in pumpkin guts, I loved making baked pumpkin seeds and Daddy enjoyed making a skull in his pumpkin, this holiday really suits Mike with his love of the color black and skulls :)

Lilly's surgery...done!!!!

Good morning all I wanted to give a not so quick update on Lilly's surgery and how she's recovering.

Tuesday morning, we went to the hospital at 8:30 to get checked in to wait for her surgery. We got a room in "short stay" to wait for the doctors. Lilly took a nice little nap, this made Momma and Daddy very happy because it made her forget how hungry she was :) Around 10:15 Amaw, Grandma, Mimi and Papa Jay showed up to visit. Lilly was awake for them and she didn't hesitate to let anyone know that she was starving! Papa Jay walked her around the room and tapped on the wall and the window to keep her occupied.

Finally around 11:30 we walked my sweet baby down to surgery. They let us walk her to the doors before we had to play the waiting game. Children's Hospital in NOLA is the best! They won't even start an IV in a baby until they have given her nitrous gas. So I'm sure Lilly was a happy camper the whole time. We got an update from the doctor around 12:30, they did the cystoscopy and found some good news. Lilly does have a duplicated collecting system, meaning she has one kidney on her right that is drained by two ureters, one of which was healthy and went into the bladder in the correct place and the other, which was very swollen, skipped the bladder and went into the urethra (this was the one causing all of the reflux and infections). The urologist said that instead of reimplanting the swollen ureter into the bladder (the original plan) that he was just going to take it and splice it into the good ureter in the bladder. This procedure would be a shorter and less painful recovery. Which meant less inpatient hospital time, no stints and a happier baby! But he said that he wasn't sure that this would be possible until he actually did the incision and got a look with his own eyes.

So we waited and waited, then around 3:30 we got the new from the doctor, that he was able to splice the two ureters together!! He said they were doing the nerve block (like an epidural) to keep Lilly pain free for a couple hours after she woke up, then they would take her to recovery and we could go and get her when she started waking up. Around 4:30 we went back to recovery to get my baby! She was so loopy and groggy, the expression on her face did not change when she saw Mike and I. The nurses showed us the incision and drain, the incision matcher my c-section scar and the drain should come out next Monday. She was pretty numb from the waist down so she was like a lump when we picked her up. She nursed a little then we were off to our room.

Here's my little lump of a baby, just starring into space

Once in our room, Lilly threw up from the anesthesia and then she slept with her eyes partly open for a couple of hours! And then around 7:30 she woke up, we think it was because the block wore off and she was screaming her head off! She couldn't get any more pain med for another hour so we gave her some mylicon for the gas and just held her and cuddled until she settled down. After getting some pain meds my buggie did great! She nursed two more times without throwing up before she went to sleep around 9:00. She slept pretty much all night except for when the nurses came into her room to take her blood pressure or give her more medicine. Lilly woke up HAPPY at 6:00am and nursed and played with us. Her urologist said she was doing great and we could go home that afternoon! We got one last pain med infusion around 11:30 then waited to leave the hospital. I think it was around 1:15 when we left for good. We made sure to get a note from each of her nurses and the doctors on her pink poodle so she can have it as a souvenir.

She was happy as a lark and pain free enough to play with her catheter :)

Here she is IV and catheter free!!!

So right now Lilly is off of all narcotic pain meds, she has an rx for them for breakthrough pain but right now she is doing great on infant motrin. She is sitting up, rolling over, eating, nursing and playing like there is nothing wrong. She seems a little sore when I pick her up and change positions but aside from that she is fantastic!

**As you can see "Stern" was a big hit at the hospital, thank you Miss April and Mr. Adam!!

Halloween Festivities

Since I refuse to let Lilly miss any “firsts” I decided to do some Halloween stuff before her surgery.  We don’t really know how long the recovery is and I had to make use of the cute Halloween onesies.  Yesterday, Lilly and I went out to Metairie with our mommy group to a pumpkin patch.  Momma went camera crazy, she couldn’t help herself, with all of the beautiful fall colors!!

Lilly with her Daddy and Baby pumpkin

 

 

This is a typical “mom, I’m so totally done with this picture stuff” picture

She loved the scarecrow’s foot!

As you can tell “Stern” her elephant is never very far away :)

My buggy really liked the stems of the pumpkins

 

Today Lilly and I meet up with Jennifer, Stevie and Brody for another pumpkin patch adventure.  This time it was a real pumpkin patch, the pumpkins were actually growing on vines!  We took a tractor-like hayride out to the patch and then picked our pumpkins and took a tractor ride back to wash them and then head out.  Both of the kiddo’s did amazing, keeping in mind they both missed a nap! We were amazed at how many people came out to this little place off of River Rd past LaPlace! 

 

Her onesie says, “Baby’s 1st Halloween”

 

We were missing Daddy, too bad he had to work

Brody, Jennifer and Stevie, it was all of our first real pumpkin patch experience!

It was so muddy that Lilly and I got back to the wagon and played paparazzi! Here is Brody and Family in action, looking for their pumpkin!

Dumping some super cute videos

Here's buggy humming away..you'll have to turn your volume up all the way to hear it.

"Kisses"

"DADA" Daddy Loves this one!

DMSA…done

Well the DMSA was a little painful, not so much for Lilly but for Momma and Mimi. Mike had to work today so he could be off of work for the surgery. We go to the hospital around 10:30 and went to “Nuclear Medicine” to get Lilly's injection. That was a struggle in and of itself. My little chunky monkey has no easy access veins. They tried her hands..too chubby, her feet..too chubby, so as a last resort they did the injection in her wrist. And of course she screamed her little head off the whole time. After the injection, we went to child life services and got a tour of the hospital so I know where to go and what to expect of the day or her surgery. I highly suggest to anyone with a child of any age having surgery. Check to see if they have a Child Life Services and use it! At Children's Hospital in NOLA they have a whole DVD library for you to check out, they do activities for all ages, they explain procedures and surgeries to children in a child friendly language and they will come and help distract babies and toddlers during procedures. They are so nice and now know Lilly very well and we plan on talking to them a lot while we are at the hospital. Then around 1:00 we went back to the nuclear medicine and had to get Lilly sedated. That was by far the hardest part, again not for her but for me. I was unable to stay with her while they put her under and unable to stay with her for the scan. They give kids nitrous (laughing gas) before poking them with any needle so I know she was calm and happy until she fell asleep. We waited about 45 minutes after giving her to the sedation team, before they called us back to recovery. Lilly was not happy when we go to her but she was very very ready to eat! She nursed and was a little happier after that. She stayed groggy for about an hour afterwards. We made an emergency trip to Babies R' Us afterwards to get a present for my sweet pea. She totally deserved it!!!! She is home and happily asleep now

And on another note, Lilly is infection free again!! We have now had two urine cultures in a row come back negative.  For the first time in her life she is infection free!  I honestly can’t explain how happy that makes me. 

Surgery Scheduled

Alright we scheduled Lilly's surgery for October 20th. I'm not looking forward to it but I know this will make her all better! We will be going in for testing again before the surgery. They will do a DMSA Nuclear Scan, to get the total anatomy, shape, size, location and check to see if there is possible scaring in Lilly's kidneys. This will help us and the doctor know for sure where her ureters are and if she does actually have a duplex kidney. They will give Lilly an IV and inject something in and then we'll hang out for 2 hours or so then they will take "pictures" of her kidneys. We'll also get some blood work and another urine culture. Of course we have not scheudle these tests yet, I'm waiting on the doctors office to call me to make the appointment.

We are going out of town this Thursday to go to Tennessee to see our Framily!! I am so excited to go, I miss everyone so much! And of course Lilly needs to meet everyone.

Lilly got her first "sink bath" tonight..she liked it alot!