Bela Girl: September and lately..

Friday, October 5, 2007

September and lately..

There's been lots of good things happening to us lately. First of all, apparently a lot of people didn't know that I was pregnant when I posted my last blogs. I had already told most people that I talk to regularly or that live by me, so I guess I just assumed most everyone knew. My last two posts weren't really intended to 'announce' that I was pregnant, but I guess they did for lot's of people. I realize it was kind of a funny way to tell people. I was writing it as if it was already common knowledge. So anyway, yes...I am pregnant with number 2! 17 weeks pregnant, and the first of the good things that have happened to us lately is that I am completley rid of all nausia and vomiting. Yeah! It's such a wonderful thing to wake up one day and feel like you again. I feel great. I don't really even feel all that 'chubby' as I said in my last post either. Something different must definately happen the second time around and your body immediatley starts preparing to change and grow for the baby. Around 12 weeks I already felt like I was starting to pop out, but since then I've pretty much just stayed the same. It was making me a little nervous for awhile... but I'm sure I'll start popping more soon. I can already feel he/she moving around and I forgot how cool that it.
Anyway, enough about how I feel... Good thing #2 is that it is cooling down out there!! Yeah! We have been able to resume our wagon walks which makes benson extremeley happy..

Isn't he cute?! I love my little (almost) 2 year old. He's my little buddy. Latley he's been really into picking out what he wants to wear. I didn't think this would happen so soon, well, I didn't think this would ever happen since he's a boy, but it has. It's not too bad yet. If he dosn't see what he wants to wear then he'll wear whatever, but if he sees one of his favorite things (monkey jammies, football shirt, choo choo jacket, anything with something he loves on it) he wants to wear them. This was one such day...

They're blurry for some reason, but you get the point. His monkey jammie bottoms, car shirt, and diamondbacks hat, backwards only.
He's also talking like crazy now and is our little parrot. He repeats the last word of every sentence, and sometimes will even finish them for us. The other day I said 'oh my' and before i could finish it bens yelled 'gosh'! He's obsessed with animals and can name most for you including sting ray, otter, and bison. We've had to move on from cow and duck. He's a happy kid. He loves his Daddy, binkey, and blankie more than anything else. We're still working on getting rid of the binkey...it's not going too great. Neither is potty training. Not that we've really tried yet, but he'll sit on his potty and make the 'potty noise', but hasn't actually gone yet. We did put on some big boy spiderman undies to see if that would spark some excitment. Not really.. but he sure was cute in them.

Another good thing last month was our trip to California to see Grandma and Grandpa. We got to see a lot more people than just them though. Manda, the bishoffs, my grandma's, Aunt Beth, Chels and Ash, Shelly and Carter, Erin and her family, and La and Eden to name a few. It was so nice to see everyone! Just Bens and I went this time and we had so much fun, but we missed Tan.

He loves his grandma and grandpa Woffinden. But I think his most favorite person just might have been his great grandma Woffinden, who after all these years knows exactly what to do to make kids so happy.

Isn't she the cutest Grandma ever? She was the greatest grandma growing up and she still is to my kids. She had Benson rolling with laughter and attached to her. I think he wore her out..

I have the greatest Grandmas. Here's my other cute and tiny grandma.. Four generations...

Benson and Eden's reunion was cute.

Bens, Sade, Lex, and Coop

Grandma and Bens at the beach

Benson fell and cut his lip open pretty bad while we were there...you can kind of see it in this picture. He split it open on my parents stone fireplace. It was a hard fall and almost sent us to the emergency room for stitches, but after we cleaned it up we thought it would heal, and it since has.

Other than that, Tanner is happy with his new job, and things are starting to pick up there. We're still loving our new house, and so happy that this time of year is finally here! I love the holidays...
...This post is long enough and that's the update... Hope everyone else is doing great!

8 comments:

Becky Freestone said...: those are great pictures and a wonderful update on your life. do you know what you are having yet? post some pictures of you. i want to see what you look like pregnant and all. it is kind of wierd to think avery, my little sister's friend, is having her second child. i hear you are a great mom. i miss being your next door neighbors and playing dodgeball on the trampoline. good times!!; October 6, 2007 at 1:28 AM
Dana said...: Love the update!! Those photos of Benson with his Great Grandma are so adorable. I'm glad you had such a great trip to CA and LV.; October 6, 2007 at 8:19 PM
Meggan said...: Ave! You look great and looks like you had so much fun! Your Benson is the cutest.

Can't wait to find out what you're having.; October 7, 2007 at 8:42 AM
La said...: so when is your appt again? soon right? you must call us as soon as you can. probably after you tell debi. but i want to get the news from you not through the grapevine, ta?; October 16, 2007 at 3:10 PM
brooke martin said...: These pics are adorable. Congrats on being prego and your home is BEAUTIFUL! Where is that?; October 17, 2007 at 8:16 AM
Jillian said...: hey I need your email...I am starting a play group and I need everyones emails.!! thanks!; October 18, 2007 at 11:09 PM
La said...: HUGE HUG! Wish I was there right now. We love you guys. Hope Tuesday goes well.; October 19, 2007 at 2:53 PM
Carol Fighr said...: ei Ave, voce esta linda demais menina! Seu filho é um fofo e seus pais nao mudaram nada!!! adorei as fotos de suas avós! nao as via desde quando fui embora da california!
muita saudade de vc!!!
Parabens pelo bebe n°2!; October 22, 2007 at 3:22 AM

From the beginning:

When I was 18 weeks pregnant I was ecstatic to find out that I was having a little girl. We would call her Bela. Just two hours later my OB called to tell me they suspected a problem with her heart, most likely a VSD. After researching that, although I was terrified I knew she had great chances of living a very normal life. So I was sent to get a level3 ultrasound to get a clearer picture. After an extremeley long ultrasound, 4 doctors came in to deliver the news that it was not a hole in her heart, but rather a severly underdepeloped heart. It was called hypoplastic left heart syndrome and she literally had half a heart, the weaker half. It was the most complex and severe heart defect an infant could have. They then told us that her femer bones were measuring 2-3 weeks behind and that she most likely had a chromosome issue as well. They told us that things did not look good for our baby and her chances of living were slim to none. They spoke of abortion. We were going to lose her. It was devastating news and I felt like someone had ripped my heart out. As I struggled to get my body to stop shaking, they performed an amniocentesis. 3 days later we found out she had Classic Turner Syndrome. The first reactions from doctors were not positive. 99% of babies diagnosed with Turner syndrome in the womb spontaneously aborted by 24 weeks. No one we met with had ever heard of a survivor with these two conditions together and could offer very little hope or support. We met with a NICU doctor who suggested abortion. Finally we met with the heart team at St. Joe's. Dr. John Nigro, her surgeon, told me that my baby would be fine. Those were his exact words, I will ALWAYS remember them. It was my first glimpse of hope. I continued to see them regularly as well as my high risk obgyn, and little Bela was not going anywhere..

Bela was born on February 29th 2008, leap day, and was beautifully pink. I was in love, but so scared. She was whisked away and given medication to keep her alive. That night she started to have periods where she would stop breathing so a breathing tube was placed in her throat. I wanted to be by her side every second, I didn't know how many I would get. I was in awe that she was surviving, even if it was just a few hours or days. Her first big hurdle to jump was her first open heart surgery, the hybrid procedure. She was the 3rd baby to ever receive that procedure at St. Joe's, and the first to survive it. She came through with flying colors. Her body got stronger, she fought hard. We took her home two weeks later, another miracle. We had two crazy but beautiful weeks with her at home, then she came down with a horrible infection in her inscision. She was taken back into the OR and opened up to clean out all the infection. After a month, she came back home. Three weeks later, she developed double pneumonia and upon assessing her after she was admitted to the hospital, it was determined that she was in full heart failure. It was another miracle that she was still alive. It took Bela another month to pull through and get better. Then we had one month to get as much weight on her until her next surgery. All we did was feed her, all day long. She reached her goal weight of 11 pounds the day before her surgery. On Aug. 27th she underwent the Norwood and Glen procedures together. We were told that it would be a tough surgery and would be a very difficult recovery. 8 very long hours later, she finally came back to us. She was puffy and blue and did not look like my baby. I felt so weak. During the critical recovery time she had severe hypertention and clamped down several times and had to be bagged to get her heart and breathing going again. It was the scariest week of my life. I felt like I couldn't shut my eyes or something could happen. She slowly made improvements and was finally able to come home a month later, when she was 7 months old. She was on a month long weaning schedule to get her off Ativan and morphine, and it was a very tough time going through withdrawals. By about 9 months she was finally starting to live her life. She continued to struggle with eating so we were still using the NG tube. It was also at about 9 months that she decided she didn't want that tube in her nose. From 9 months to 12 months we reinserted her NG tube several times and day and by the end of those 4 months I was ready to check myself into a mental institution. I'm not sure what was more difficult, inserting the NG tube on a daily basis, or going through open heart surgery. It was that bad for us. It was finally determined that she was NOT going to eat, so I drove her to a GI surgeon and with giant tears, literally begged her to put in a G-tube NOW, that I could not put the NG tube back in one more time. She set up the surgery for the next morning and we said GOODBYE to those darn NG tubes after 12 longs months. Her eating has greatly improved, she loves to snack on most anything, but still depends on her g-tube (mickey button) for most of her nutrition.
We are grateful beyond explanation for the last 2 wonderfully challenging years that our miracle has been with us.