Our monthly surgeon appointment.. #17

Yesterday we had our monthly appointment with Isaac's surgeon. He weighs 17 pounds 12 ounces and is nearly 27 inches long! He is getting so big. He has been saying da da da, da da, daa dee for the last 2 days. It is so cute. Tonight he even said DAD, which I am sure is just him expanding his motor skills but nevertheless so cute. He is babbling so much.. He has also been sitting up unassisted for about 2 weeks.

But back to his surgeon appointment.. She said he looks good and talked to us a little about our big step in 2 weeks which is starting solids. We are excited but really nervous. We see our GI on the 10th of April and he is the one that will give us a menu for Isaac. This is a new and exciting chapter in our lives!! Isaac will be 6 months old soon.. Well 6 months on Easter!! :) Speaking of, last week we took him to see the Easter Bunny...

Our trip to the aquarium! #16

We celebrated my birthday early - Monday the 19th - and went up to the Seattle Aquarium. It was supposed to be the only "nice" day (40 degrees and cloudy) this week so we wanted to take advantage of it. I have never been to the aquarium and it was so cool! We weren't really sure how Isaac would do in the car because it was the longest car trip we had taken with him. Seattle is about 40 minutes or so from where we live. But he did so great!!! He is such a good baby.. Barely ever fusses. He just does not like to be restrained in the car seat. He is still in an infant seat but a convertible seat is in the near future. I have a feeling he will like that idea.

We were at the aquarium a little over an hour. Isaac was SO interested in the fishes and all the bright colors. It was so cute seeing the smile on his face and him wiggle around with excitement. It was definitely a great time. Every time I ask him if we went to see the fishies, he gets this big smile on his face. So cute. I think we will be getting him his own fish here soon.. :)

We had lunch at a little mexican restaurant between the aquarium and  Pike Place Market called El Puerco Lloron. It was authentic mexican food and was delicious!!!! Isaac wanted to sit on my lap the whole time and look out the window. He was so interested. He also was amazed by the ceiling fan. LOL. We have one in our dining room and he always looks at it.. Even though it is never on. It was so cute.

We walked from lunch to Pike Place Market. We had spent a majority of our day at the aquarium and checking out a few shops along the way so when we got there booths were already packing up. Bummer. We did manage to get some flowers and a hat for Isaac. We also had to get some baklava and cheesecake! My 2 favorite desserts. I can't seem to find baklava ANYWHERE in our area. I need to do a little bit of research because I can't go to Seattle every time I have a sweet tooth. :) There has to be a bakery or a Greek deli that sells it around here.. We ended our adventure by stopping at World Market. I could shop all day in that store. Didn't find much to buy though.. We don't have any room in our house for anything else. It is overrun with baby stuff! Go figure!!!

Isaac's first video..

Where are we now? #15

Finally I am all caught up to date! It took me almost 2 months to tell our entire story up until now. So all the postings from here on out will be in real time! :) After his last little exam under anesthesia things have been going great. We are currently seeing our surgeon only ONCE a month now. And our pediatrician and GI at regular intervals... 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, ect.

Isaac has been doing great! He is hitting so many milestones.. It is crazy! He sat up for the first time unassisted on the 10th of this month. He is currently working on getting on his hands and knees. He is definitely on the go and likes being active. Next month Isaac will be 6 months old.. I can't believe it. Time has really gone by so fast. We also get to start solids next month. We are so excited but also nervous. This is another big step for him. We hope that his system can handle it and he keeps pooping and adjusts well. I started getting his little dishes and spoons ready. I cleaned off his highchair and put it up to our table. I had to dust it off! It was sitting in the corner of our dining room. Since he is sitting up unassisted now he can finally sit in it!

I wish the weather would get a little better so we could start going out more. We are supposed to get SNOW tomorrow!! I love snow, but I am so over it for this year. I want some warm weather and sun! Isaac loves going outside but it's so darn cold out we can't really do much outside. We have had a couple nice days and I've taken Isaac down to the duck pond. He loves being outside. I hope summer starts a little earlier this year than last. It didn't really start getting nice until almost July! In July of this year we will be looking for a new house. We have outgrown our 2 bedroom apartment. Isaac needs more room... WE need more room. :)

On another note, we finally got Isaac's birth announcements done! FIVE months late :) Oh well! Better late than never.

Here's some pictures of us!

Taken March 3rd 2012

Taken March 16th, 2012

Another big day.. #14

January 9th, 2012 - Exam under anesthesia day. I barely slept the night before. Actually we only slept 30 minutes. Partially from nerves and partially because Isaac was ANGRY he couldn't eat past 1am. He was up and down most of the night. I almost broke down and fed him. He was so upset. This got me thinking again and asking God why did this happen to us? Why my baby? When would this hardship end? But then instead of asking why, I asked God to comfort my baby and protect him. After we got Isaac to sleep we tried to catch a little snooze, well a 30 minute cat nap.

We arrived at the hospital at 7am. Did all the standard "surgery" type stuff. Checked in. Got admitted. Got to our pre-op room. The nurse spent at least 45 minutes going through information and vitals and all that required stuff. Then we waited for the anesthesiologist to come by and talk to us. When he did come by he was very brief and very nice. We seemed like old pros at this. We really didn't have any questions. Just basically like that last time.

When our surgeon came by she answered any questions we had. I always felt more comfortable asking her questions. She is not only an amazing surgeon but a mom as well so she knows how I am feeling. I started crying, like usual. She told me he would be ok and she wouldn't let anything happen to him. She always knew how to comfort me. She told me I had to stop crying or she was going to cry. LOL. I was a hot mess!!!

When the nurse came by to take him to the OR, it was Shannon from his first big surgery. She was one of the OR nurses. And she remembered us! I instantly felt a little better. Isaac had a team that knew him and that made me feel better. We gave Isaac all the kisses and hugs we could. I told him I would be waiting for him with a bottle when he was done. I felt so bad, again. Like I did before his first surgery. He was older now. He knew a little more about what was going on. And some strange lady was going to take him away. I really hoped he wouldn't be scared. I have never left him since the day he was born. I felt so terrible. Shannon picked him up and carried him off to the OR. We knew the routine. Go upstairs to surgery waiting and WAIT.

We checked in upstairs at the desk. Walked over to our table we had sat at during his first surgery. We waited for our surgeons name to come up on the screen to see the progress. It flashed from in progress to done really fast. We kinda of looked at each other like what the heck is going on?? Was it like that because something happened? Or did it show that because it wasn't an actual surgery? We were so confused! Then the phone rang and one of the desk ladies came over and said they were finished and the surgeon would be up to talk to us. She escorted us to a room and we waited. We were really nervous because it was literally not even 10 minutes from when they took him away.

When she came in she told us that it was a 5 minute from start to finish procedure. FAST! She said that the area looked wonderful and she had no concerns after seeing it. She said that the inflammation was probably from his allergy and also from the surgery. She said it is pretty common for some swelling and inflammation to linger for awhile after surgery and that the allergy probably just irritated it even more. SUCCESS! His initial surgery worked! Nothing was wrong. No more surgeries at this point. Now I just wanted to get to my baby.

Our surgeon walked us down to the recovery room. Isaac was crying his head off. He was so hungry and so out of it. But they told us it should wear off within minutes because he was only under for less than 5 minutes. So he had barely any anesthetic. We fed him. Got him dressed and the discharged us within 10 minutes. We left the hospital around 10am. His procedure was at 9. The pre-op stuff took longer than the surgery and recovery! We couldn't get out of there fast enough!!

We were so happy that we could finally put this part of the journey behind us.. And hopefully wouldn't be back at the hospital any time soon. We just wanted some normalcy in our lives.. 

Good & Bad news.. #13

January 3rd, 2012 - Today Isaac had his barium xray done. Which is a contrast xray, similar to a CT scan. The xray shows the large intestine, the colon and rectum. He had one when he was first diagnosed in the NICU. And it was absolute HELL. They have to strap him down to a board with his arms above his head.. He screamed the whole entire time. It was so hard for me to watch or listen to. I stood right next to him even though there was nothing I could do to calm him. The surgeon ordered this procedure so she could see why they were seeing inflammation and a stricture in the area where he had his surgery.  They wanted to see if the the inflammation had decreased since he was released from the hospital a couple weeks ago. They didn't know if there was a kink or twist in the bowel or if there was some abnormality from the surgery so she wanted to make sure the inflammation was allergy related.

It took about 30 minutes. As soon as they were done taking the pictures we unstrapped him and picked him up. He was so upset. He was like hyperventilating almost. I was so upset I was crying myself. You know when you cry so hard you start doing involuntary sniffing and whimpering. Well he did that for about 20 minutes. It broke my heart! After the radiologist reviews the films, we packed up and headed across the street to his surgeons office. Luckily we had an appointment with her an hour after his procedure so we would know the results right away. I hated waiting. And I think she knew that. So she scheduled us to see her right after.

We waited in the room for the doctor to come in. I was pacing the floor. The rooms are incredibly tiny so I pretty much did 2 steps and then turn, did 2 steps, and kept repeating that over and over. My heart was pounding, my hands were sweaty, and I was shaky. When the door opened I wanted to just open my mouth and start asking questions. But I sat down and tried to remain calm so I could  understand what she was saying.

Good news or bad news first, she asked. My heart sank. Bad news? There's bad news? She told us the good news was he did not have any abnormalities from the surgery or any other serious complications, BUT the area she was concerned about was still a little narrower than her liking. So what did that mean? She said that she wanted to go in with a little scope and take a look at the area to make sure no scar tissue was forming causing the stricture or that there was not a pocket of infection that can sometimes form. Sometimes scar tissue can form which requires a cosmetic type surgery to fix. She said she also felt better that she would know exactly what was going on. So she wanted to do an exam under anesthesia next Monday the 9th. It was like a day surgery. But he did have to be put under anesthesia.. Again?

So I guess all in all, it came out in a way we were hoping for. Nothing too serious was going on and after next week we know for SURE what we were dealing with. Until then, be nervous as HELL.

The days after the hospital.. #12

Christmas was great to us! We had our baby home and healthy. We were so thankful for that. We got to spend our first Christmas together happy and healthy. That was all we could have asked for. Isaac was SPOILED! He got so many great gifts. We had gotten our tree earlier in December and by Christmas it was ready to be tossed out. Lol. I love the holidays. It was truly a special one for us. However, we didn't have to time to do last minute shopping for anyone in our family. But they understood. They knew how hard it was for us being in the hospital so close to Christmas. We really didn't get to do all of the traditional holiday things but there was always next year. Just when you start planning things, they go in another direction. Here is some family photo's over the holidays!

Isaac and his tree

The calendar we made in the hospital

Visiting Santa