15 Months & counting

. 29in . 22lbs .

.milestones.
lots of words - my fav's are: dirt . amen . night night . good girl . oh cool
walks on tippy toes
wore her first pigtails
has first 2 canine teeth
uses a spoon with help
had her first peanut butter & jelly sandwich
has her own camelbak water bottle and knows how to drink from it {very talented I know}
first BIG face plant
2nd surgery

. picture highlights .
{piggy tails}
{spoon self-feeding}
{face plant aftermath}
{my first Los Angeles snow}
{modeling shot . just need to photoshop out the scabs}
{watching construction with the daddio}
we also went to the Huntington Library for a free day again with Clover's pal Ellisyn
{back in November 2010}
{and now . they've grown so much!}

enjoy <3

Surgery #2

we made it! no illness prevented us, praise the Lord!

okay, Im still a little exhausted so I'll do this in a "quick to the point" setting
now in these pictures Clover's face is all scratched up, this is NOT from the surgery. She just decided to take a nose dive in the backyard and land face first on the pavement 2 days before surgery.
yeah, we're great parents :)
Wednesday
check in 5:30am ... eaaarly
incl. physical exam, health history, blah blah blah, waiting, doctors telling us what they're going to do which kind of sounded like "wah wah wah" {charlie brown adult-like talk}, more blah blah blah

happy juice!
since Clover is the at the age of stranger anxiety they gave her this stuff they nick-named happy juice and it was HILARIOUS! She was seriously like a drunk baby, laughing at everything and moving reeeeal slow and looking at her hand like "whoooa, I didn't know that was there"
fortunately since she was "going under", they didn't have to give her an IV or catheter until after she was asleep ... AWESOME!
so they took her away on a gurney, still drunk so she didn't cry. but we almost did

surgery lasted about 3 hours

fun fact: Our urologist couldn't do the surgery last time because he was on vacay, so his boss did, who has done so many more of these. But we never met him or saw him. Only his interns came and talked to us. So this time, the boss did it again, otherwise we would've had to wait a month for surgery with our dr. Again, we never saw the guy.

Does he exist? We thought it'd be funny if it was just a made up name, so they could blame there mistakes on "no one". Later we actually caught a glimpse of him down the hall, but we still have never met the guy. weird.

Surgery outcome:
SUCCESS!
everything looks great! they reattached the kidney's ureter to the bladder, and while they were in there they also detached the other ureter and re-implanted it so that it was a better connection. so she has a drain in her side to drain all the yummy fluids from the surgery ... um gross ... that will come out Wednesday ... have I touched it yet? yeeeeah...NO!
Praise the Lord for His power over all things, and for allowing Yo Gabba Gabba to be created! Seriously, life saver. Although I've watched so much of it that now I want to hit my head against a wall.
Somehow {God, really} Clover stayed laying down ALL DAY wednesday and ALL DAY thursday. We couldn't pick her up at all {well we did like 2 times, but she really wanted us to!}. She didn't play with her IV, she didn't play with her catheter. She just kind of laid there, slept, watched 48 hours worth of Yo Gabba Gabba and chillaxed while I hand fed her food. {I think she enjoyed that a little too much}
We somehow got a 2 patient room with a window bed. The dr. asked me how much we donated to the hospital to get such a nice room. AND usually they only let one parent spend the night, but we had THE BEST nurses who let us both stayed. Not that we both slept, we took turns throughout the night to be with Clover who would wake up randomly and frantically search for us. I only had one "delirious" moment, those are weird. probably kind of like happy juice.
Thursday
we got to stay in our "luxury" room until the afternoon, then we had to get switched to a 4 patient room. Not so fun, lots of noise, but we still had a window bed.
more yo gabba gabba
brian and I switched taking naps throughout the day and night
elyse and my mom brought us Sharky's .. whoo!
more yo gabba gabba ... again
elyse found out she's having a girl
Friday
Dr. came in 6am gave us the "okay"
catheter out
IV out
pain medicine IN
and we're out of there by 9:30M

Now if someone could just explain to Clover in her language, telling her she needs to calm down, she just had surgery that'd be great. This kid acts like she doesn't have a cut across her lower abdomen! She came home ready to play, I don't blame her, we were pent up in the hospital room a long time. So we're working on sitting still and yes we even put on Yo Gabba Gabba, Im taking one for the team.

so we are home with antibiotics, stool softener, pain meds, gauze and tape ... I feel like I could be a nurse! Except that I get the heebie jeebies when I see her incision and stuff ... I wouldn't be a good nurse, I'd probably make everyone else nervous too!

now...
who wants to know my schedule for next week? if you don't, too bad I want sympathy!
Monday: my ob-gyn check up
Tuesday: my only day of complete rest
Wednesday: Clover's drain comes out at urology doctors
Thursday: Clover's pediatrician check up
Friday: my pregnancy specialist check up

phew ... now give me a pity party! :)

thank you all for the prayers, facebooks, texts, email etc etc....The Lord is so good, it only through Him that Clover was able to lay down for 2 days straight. It is only because of Him that she is able to come home and not need to take pain medication! Thank You Lord for this precious gift of a girl, thank You for this trial to bring us closer to You and to make us more like You!

so, we meet again ... MagScan

as Dora the Explorer {explor-ah} would say:

WE DID IT! WE DID IT, YEAH WE DID IT! HOORAY!
yet our experience wasn't quite as fun as watching Dora, but it was a lot smoother than it probably could have been.

I would like to start off by thanking everyone for their prayers, and encouraging email, facebooks and texts. the Lord is SO good. I am so thankful we have a Sovereign God who controls all things, great and small.

So Clover woke up at 5am but finally went back to sleep till 6am which is 2 hours earlier than normal. I wasn't too thrilled at the time but later you'll see how the Lord worked that out.

We had a Mag3 scan first. { Click here to get the full story of what it is and our first experience with it. } First I asked them if they would be sedating her, "no". Um okay how are you going to get a 1 year old to lay still on a table for an hour? "we're going to papoose her", I knew that but that means she'd be strapped down for an hour AWAKE! ah!

Then I informed them that I was 21 weeks pregnant, she asked me if that meant I was in my first trimester .... um no more like half way there { but thats okay this is a younger nurse who works with kids, NOT pregnant women, obviously }
So because I am pregnant and they are doing an x-ray I have to stand 6 ft away from Clover, okay thats doable. Brian is with me, he can stand next to her.

IV and catheter .... um didn't appreciate that too much
being papoosed .... nope not too much either
she kept saying "all done" in sign language

Praise the Lord because Clover had woken up so early, she was exhausted and after much crying even more so. So she fell asleep for the last 45 minutes of the test! wahoo!
but
while I was in the restroom Brian was told that because Clover was being injected with nuclear medicine, I couldn't come within 6 ft of her THE REST OF THE DAY!
what?!
ok that makes sense, but my baby! who is going to comfort her? yes Brian is there, but Im the mom! we JOKED {keyword} that maybe I should get near Clover to see if her radioactiveness would give the next baby special powers.
But we didn't test it out to see, it just didn't seem safe
what a good daddy
this is Maggie the Renal Bear, a gift from the nurses during her test
this little block was hiding in Clovers sweater and we didn't find it till after she laid on it for the hour, maybe THAT'S why she was crying!?
So the rest of the day, through ultrasound and meeting with our urologist, I had to walk/sit/stand 6 ft from Clover. We were joking later that people probably thought I was a very detached mom. Or a bad nanny? Clover kept looking at me and saying "please" with a look that said "why don't you love me" .... ugh it killed me not to be able to comfort her, but Brian did good

Urologists Report:
We are doing surgery next Wednesday March 16th to REATTACH the ureter to the bladder.
NO MORE HOLE IN THE STOMACH! she will finally get to pee normally and run around naked like a normal kid without leaking urine everywhere! like a real Irby ;)

the kidney hasn't increased much but it also hasn't shriveled up and died. So they are going to reattach it and we'll just have follow ups every so often for who knows how long, the rest of her life? The kidney might not last forever but it does give her that chance to have 2 kidneys for who knows how long, a couple months - a few years? we'll see. But its a high success rate and he sees no reason why we should get bladder infections again.
Praise God!

so now we are home, I'm sanctioned off in my bedroom away from radioactive baby with her radioactive powers and diapers filling in all my fans with our news {that would be you}
keep the prayers coming, our gracious God hears and answers!

me staying far far away with a pained look
and clover, not caring
side note: its amazing how kidney beans DO look like actual kidneys! I guess that's why they were named kidney beans, or maybe kidney's were named after the bean? hmmm. ;)

MONDAY! MONDAY! MONDAY!

MONDAY
is the big day
Clover has her Mag3 scan and ultrasound at 8:30am and then a meeting with her urologist at 11:00am and hopefully we will decide if and when to do surgery

please be a praying for Clover because she will be getting poked
pray for wisdom for the doctors and for us and we make some decisions
pray that we honor the Lord in our attitudes no matter what the outcome may be

so excited to be seeing the light at the end of tunnel
{Lord willing it's the end}

<3