I took a few more pictures of this little ham with her LAST month sticker!
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Leah 1 Year!
Leah Joy is 1 year old! The year seems to have gone so fast; I feel like it was just a few months ago we were bringing her home from the hospital and prepping for Christmas. Now this year she is a very active/busy 1 year old, making it rather difficult to prep for Christmas!
Most of Leah's time is spent walking around the house from one thing to the next, usually with a plug in her mouth. She loves to check out what Brie is doing, and often times tries to take what Brie is doing. She plays very well though, she often times will be playing independently in the toy room; and for this I am very thankful! She loves to climb up on things, or I should say try and climb up on them.....she falls often. Leah is a bit dramatic! If you have to take something away, or if she falls, or just generally doesn't get her way she does a very dramatic cry. This is fairly new, and Alec and I just are shocked! She was such a passive kid.....then the drama factor hit, haha!
Sleep has gone down hill a little bit. Naps have been a huge struggle. She seems to be starting to move towards 1 nap, which I would love because then she and Brie would nap together! But she can't make it past 11am without completely melting and needing a nap. But even if she takes an earlier morning nap, it is like pulling teeth to get her take an afternoon nap. But as you can imagine with no afternoon nap, she can hardly make it to 7pm for bedtime! Her wake up time in the morning is different every day; sometimes it is closer to 6/6:30, and other times it is closer to 7/7:30 (obviously this is a much more preferable time!). She goes down pretty easy though; sometimes a little bit of crying, but usually none. She has a little light up thing in her crib that lights up when she pushes the button and she loves it. Sometimes we hear her playing with that in the monitor for a while before letting us know she is ready for us to come get her.
No words yet; she does all the normal 'babababa, dadadada, mamama' but not appropriately referring to one of us. Brie talks enough for the both of them.....so it works out :) Lots of pointing though, her pointy finger gets quite the daily workout. She loves to hand stuff to you, it is so cute; she usually wants what she handed you back right away though. We do a lot of labeling of things when she does this, hopefully she is soaking it all in and learning!
Another signature Leah move is to take her shoes and socks off; she won't leave socks on for more than a few minutes. Most days I don't even bother with socks. I have one pair of little shoes (pink moccasins) that she can't get off; so if she wears those than her feet stay covered. I think she just takes them off because she can, it is a demonstration of her abilities!
Leah loves to play with books; she will sit and look at them on the floor by herself, but she isn't to the point of letting you read them to her....no patience for that yet! She also really likes baby dolls, which is super cute, she will feed them bottles and give them kisses. It is amazing what she picks up on without us teaching her. When she plays with the toy kitchen she knows how to stir things, and feed people things, drink out of a cup.
She isn't much of a snuggler; she will if she is really tired sometimes, or when she just wakes up. But otherwise she just wants to be on the go! She will give hugs (which is just a lean in) and she will give kisses (open mouth slobber kisses!).
Hard to believe this baby is an entire year old! We love watching her personality develop! The interaction between Brie and Leah is absolutely adorable, Leah loves her big sister and gets so so so excited when she sees her. Brie is so good with Leah; very patient and tolerant. I love our little family so much, and can't believe it will be growing in 4 months!
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Praising God for a good report
I had my 20 week ultrasound on November 23; the next day I saw that the office was calling my phone and assumed it was just the nurse calling to let me know the ultrasound looked ok. I answered the call and when I realized it was my doctor I knew right away we had a problem, my stomach sank.
He explained that the baby has a choroid plexus cyst, which by itself is not a huge concern and typically resolves on its own before 30weeks pregnant. The ultrasound report also noted that my AFI (amniotic fluid around the baby) was low, in the 3rd percentile. My doctor explained that when he sees these two things occurring together it makes him want to verify there is nothing else going on with the baby, he thought they could indicate a potential genetic problem. He gave some specific examples....none of which were a good thing to say the least. VERY difficult phone call to take, I was sent into immediate panic and nauseating worry. The doctor made a referral to a maternal fetal medicine specialist. I made an appointment with them, but that appointment wasn't for another 2 weeks. 2 weeks of wondering what was going on and if my baby was going to be ok!!!!
Thank the Lord I have numerous medical people around me! I called my doctor back a week later and got more specifics, after getting my head on straight and talking to people that know a thing or two about this all. I was able to ask more specific questions regarding the original scan. I was then actually able to talk to a maternal fetal medicine doctor (my very good friend's dad); he assured me this was not a huge concern and a false alarm. Obviously that helped IMMENSELY!
On December 8 I have my appointment with the specialist. I felt pretty good and was just hoping and praying this appointment confirmed what we thought we already knew, that really everything was ok. Alec was able to come with me to the appointment thankfully. They started by doing an ultrasound right away; before she started the tech asked me "so tell me why they referred you to us." I explained they saw the choroid plexus cyst and thought I had low amniotic fluid levels. She put the wand on my abdomen to take a look and immediately said "Well I can tell you right now you have enough amniotic fluid, actually I would say you have a generous amount." WOW! Ok, well that is a huge relief and great start to the appointment. As she was scanning she also pointed out the choroid plexus cyst in the brain; she said she hardly could see it and by the look of it it appeared to be resolving. Which they expect these to do; they are considered a normal variant especially with no other indications of problems with the baby.
We then talked with the doctor after the ultrasound. She reviewed both the most recent ultrasound and the previous one done at my doctor's office. She was so kind and took time chatting with us about her findings. Bottom line, she did not even know why we were referred. She said looking at the previous ultrasound she did NOT see how they could have thought I had low amniotic fluid; she actually seemed quite irritated with their office and wanted to know more specifics of who performed the test and was going to follow up with them and give feedback. She said she was so happy to give us good news and said from what we can see everything with baby boy looks great. Wow, wow, wow.
After the appointment I cried tears of absolute joy. Praise the Lord for answered prayers; so many prayers. Pregnancy is such a challenging thing, there is so much anxiety associated with it. I am beyond thankful for a good report, and give all thanks and praise to God. There are no guarantees with any pregnancy; you could have great scans and no abnormal findings through an entire pregnancy and there are still a whole host of potential complications that can occur. Everything is in the hands of the Lord.
I am thankful for the support of family and friends that were praying during those couple weeks; the power of prayer really is amazing! I was reminded by a couple different people of the verse in Psalm 139:
Alec and I are both glad to be past this and just continue to pray for this little boy growing inside me! We pray he grows healthy and strong, (I'd be ok with less than 9lbs however...) and as he grows up becomes a man of God. We still have no idea on names for this kiddo, I did buy a name book recently so just need to go through that and see if anything jumps out at me!
He explained that the baby has a choroid plexus cyst, which by itself is not a huge concern and typically resolves on its own before 30weeks pregnant. The ultrasound report also noted that my AFI (amniotic fluid around the baby) was low, in the 3rd percentile. My doctor explained that when he sees these two things occurring together it makes him want to verify there is nothing else going on with the baby, he thought they could indicate a potential genetic problem. He gave some specific examples....none of which were a good thing to say the least. VERY difficult phone call to take, I was sent into immediate panic and nauseating worry. The doctor made a referral to a maternal fetal medicine specialist. I made an appointment with them, but that appointment wasn't for another 2 weeks. 2 weeks of wondering what was going on and if my baby was going to be ok!!!!
Thank the Lord I have numerous medical people around me! I called my doctor back a week later and got more specifics, after getting my head on straight and talking to people that know a thing or two about this all. I was able to ask more specific questions regarding the original scan. I was then actually able to talk to a maternal fetal medicine doctor (my very good friend's dad); he assured me this was not a huge concern and a false alarm. Obviously that helped IMMENSELY!
On December 8 I have my appointment with the specialist. I felt pretty good and was just hoping and praying this appointment confirmed what we thought we already knew, that really everything was ok. Alec was able to come with me to the appointment thankfully. They started by doing an ultrasound right away; before she started the tech asked me "so tell me why they referred you to us." I explained they saw the choroid plexus cyst and thought I had low amniotic fluid levels. She put the wand on my abdomen to take a look and immediately said "Well I can tell you right now you have enough amniotic fluid, actually I would say you have a generous amount." WOW! Ok, well that is a huge relief and great start to the appointment. As she was scanning she also pointed out the choroid plexus cyst in the brain; she said she hardly could see it and by the look of it it appeared to be resolving. Which they expect these to do; they are considered a normal variant especially with no other indications of problems with the baby.
We then talked with the doctor after the ultrasound. She reviewed both the most recent ultrasound and the previous one done at my doctor's office. She was so kind and took time chatting with us about her findings. Bottom line, she did not even know why we were referred. She said looking at the previous ultrasound she did NOT see how they could have thought I had low amniotic fluid; she actually seemed quite irritated with their office and wanted to know more specifics of who performed the test and was going to follow up with them and give feedback. She said she was so happy to give us good news and said from what we can see everything with baby boy looks great. Wow, wow, wow.
After the appointment I cried tears of absolute joy. Praise the Lord for answered prayers; so many prayers. Pregnancy is such a challenging thing, there is so much anxiety associated with it. I am beyond thankful for a good report, and give all thanks and praise to God. There are no guarantees with any pregnancy; you could have great scans and no abnormal findings through an entire pregnancy and there are still a whole host of potential complications that can occur. Everything is in the hands of the Lord.
I am thankful for the support of family and friends that were praying during those couple weeks; the power of prayer really is amazing! I was reminded by a couple different people of the verse in Psalm 139:
"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well"
Alec and I are both glad to be past this and just continue to pray for this little boy growing inside me! We pray he grows healthy and strong, (I'd be ok with less than 9lbs however...) and as he grows up becomes a man of God. We still have no idea on names for this kiddo, I did buy a name book recently so just need to go through that and see if anything jumps out at me!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)