The final hurdle...hopefully!

The next phase of of Laney's first year has begun. Last Thursday the 24th of September she had surgery on her hip. Every instinct you have fights you when you have to turn her over to a stranger that you know is going to put her to sleep and mess with her bones. I can't even think about it anymore. Handing her over was the hardest part. Everything turned out just fine though. The surgery took about an hour, which was much faster than we expected. We checked in about 5:30 am. At 6:00 they took us to pre-op. We got her in a little gown and she played around on a crib, rolling and playing with her feet. We talked to the nurse, anasthesiologist, and the doctor. At 7:30 they came and took her away. We also ran into one of the clergy staff, Carla. She came and prayed with us for Laney when she was in the NICU. She came and we said a prayer before her surgery. Then the nurse came. When I handed her over she just looked at me like, "what are you doing?" It was awful. About an hour later Dr.Shea came out to the wating room at 8:39 and told us she was fine and things went well. "Thank God" We went back in to the pediatric recovery room to see her. She was awake but still a little groggy you could tell. She had the most pitiful look on her face. It was beautiful but sad. The nurse picked her up and handed her to me to feed. It seemed like it hurt because she screamed. It took us about 20 minutes to calm her down. Even then the only reason she stopped is because she puked. Poor kid. I put her back in bed and we all just held hand with her and kissed her. It seemed mostly like she was just scared from the whole ordeal. Luckily we brought her purple singing elephant. That seemed to do the trick. Originally we had planned on having to stay the night in the hospital with her. Dr. Shea said it went so well and the hip went in easily so we could take her home. We hung out with her in recovery for a while and finally took her home around 12:30.

"That sounds great" you might say. Well until we got to the car and tried to put her in her car seat. As you can see from the photos she is cast straight up and down which is not conducive to being strapped in a car seat. She was screaming at us so we took our chances and just drove her home. Horrible, I know. Sometimes you do what you have to do.

Since we brought her home she is doing well. I think we have the changing of the diaper figured out. We are only allowed to give her sponge baths for then entire ordeal, but she does love them.

We gave her "the last bath" Wednesday night before we took her in. She was in her tub for about an hour. We had to refill the water 4 times from all the splashing! It was great. After 6 towels and mom's soaked pajamas we called it good and took her out. I miss those splashing legs.

Anyway, she has been pretty cranky. It is hard to tell if it is from pain or frustration. We have decided it is mostly frustration. We have bought her some new toys to accomodate her inability to move. She really likes some of them and is annoyed by others but we do what we can. Mostly she just wants to be held all day. We are hoping she adjusts a little better in the coming weeks. It is all an adventure and we are learning so much from this experience. We are mostly just grateful that she is

a part of our lives.

The Meyer's

Long Overdue Update!

Time gets away from you. I can't believe that it has been a month since we have posted an update. I am hoping you all are thinking that no news is good news. In this case it has been. We are all doing great. There have been a few changes though. Lets see..Laney had a follow up appointment with the pediatric cardiologist. They saw some very minor defects in her heart when she was in the hospital. It often happens to babies born so early. Theirs hearts are just not ready to be out in the world. The good news is, that she is fine. She has a minor defect in the way the blood flows through her heart that apparently is very common in kids. They think it will just resolve on its own and if it doesn't she will never notice because it is so minor. Yeah!! Next we took her to the orthopedic surgeon for her final appointment before surgery. She is doing fine but the hip is still dislocated. So we have surgery scheduled for September 24th. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. The surgery is minor but it makes me nervous for her to go under anasthesia. It is a mom's job to worry right?

The other major change we have made is the fact that I have gone back to work. I started the 21st of August. I have only spent 2 weeks doing actual nursing but I really like it. It is definately challenging and hard work. I have enjoyed my patients and the staff has been great. Being away from Kevin and Laney is a different story. They have been doing great! After much work with an occupational therapist that specializes in cranio-saccral therapy we finally got Laney to eat from the bottle. She even took a pacifier a few times! Now she switches back and forth most of the time without much effort. However, she has regressed a little and is back to waking up 2 times during the night. I have a theory that as she is growing she is using more calories but not really taking enough in with just the milk so this week we are going to try a little bit of real food and see how that goes.

As far as other advances that she has made...she has great head control, she is rolling over both ways (it is more common when she is mad) she is almost sitting up, and she is chewing on everything. It is amazing because she has never beena drooler but about a week ago the drool started flowing and now all she wants to do is chew on my fingers. Poor thing. I don't feel any teeth yet but I know they are there. We'll see how long it takes them to poke out.

Last but not least for our big news update...Kevin turned 40! August 30 was his birthday. We had some friends over and had a BBQ with some games and lots of drinking. (I think alot of them realized it is alot more difficult to recover at 40!) A few people stayed the night. We got up the next day (some of them more slowly than others) and Kevin went rafting and fishing with some of the boys. All in all I think he had a good time.

I think that is about it for now. I hope everyone is well!

The Meyer's