So Close To Crawling...

Keep praying for Mia to crawl, we are so close! She'll get up on her knees and go forward once or twice, but then she'll stop...this is great though because we've always had to help her move her knees forward and she's beginning to figure it out. Praise God!!!!

Today Mia had her check up with her pediatrician as part of her pre-surgery stuff that needs to get done, everything went fine. Everyone knows her and stops by to say hi when we are there because we end up being there so much...they love the little blonde towhead!

After that we went and had her blood drawn from Mike and he did another great job...it was over fairly quickly and there were just a few tears during the process. Thank you for praying for that!!!

So, aside from that, we now just wait for the surgery date, as long as her blood work comes back fine and she remains healthy, we should be set for April 9th.

We were going to get blood drawn today, but Mike was unavailable, so we are hoping to get it done tomorrow. Pray that we'd be able to find a time to make it work and that it would go smoothly and easily. Thanks for praying!

Today Mia had a visitor all the way from London, England! My dear friend Rachel from college was in LA and made a special trip up to Bakoland to see me and of course Mia! We had a great time catching up. It was a really nice day for us.

Tomorrow Mia will get her blood drawn to make sure all of her levels are ok for her next surgery, April 9th. We will be seeing Mike, who did a phenomenal job last time with her. Pray that he would again be able to draw her blood easily and quickly.

Facing Forward

Today we switched out Mia's car seat to her new big girl car seat and she's officially facing forward! In California the law is 1 year AND 20 pounds and while Mia has been 1 year for awhile she finally reached 20 pounds, so we were excited to install her new car seat. Well, I looked at the directions and it said 1 year and 22 pounds...you can imagine my heart sinking as I read that. So, Brad told me to call the manufacturer and find out more information about their ratings and I did...and I found out that the reason they put 22 pounds is because some states are going to 22 pounds as their standard and they were trying to be proactive in that. They told me that the car seat was tested at 20 pounds and is just fine for 20 pounds and in fact, a few years ago it said 1 year and 20 pounds, so that was enough for me to be ok with it. She's just too long these days in her other car seat, so here she is in her new car seat.

We also went for a trip facing forward and she was in awe...it's a totally different experience riding in this direction. She definitely liked it. :)

A Surgery Date

Mia's next surgery is scheduled for Thursday, April 9th, a little less than 3 weeks away. Next week we'll be going to get her blood drawn, hopefully with the same guy who did a wonderful job last time. Pray that the blood draw would go smoothly and easily. I'll keep you posted as we know more.

20!!

It's official, as of today, Mia weighed in at 20 pounds!!! Yippee Skippy...that's what daddy always says anyways. :)

Another Surgery

Yesterday Brad when with us to LA for a visit to Mia's intestinal surgeon to discuss her next surgery. It looks like it will happen at the beginning of April, we should have a specific date in the near future. This surgery will be to create her anal opening. We should be in the hospital for 3-4 days and then several weeks after we will have to begin stretching her opening. When the doctor creates the opening he makes it smaller than it should be and we end up stretching it at home for several months. Once that is finished there will be a final surgery to reconnect her intestines and take down the colostomy. Please pray for the following:

1. That the surgery would be successful and that even now everything would be prepared according to God's plan.
2. There is still an unknown of where her intestine actually connected and the lower down it connected, the better chance of her controlling her bowel movements, so pray that it did connect lower down and that she will be able to control her bowel movements.
3. And just pray for peace for us, even though this isn't heart surgery, it's still surgery, and that in itself always has alot of unknowns, so pray that everything would go well and we would be at peace as we prepare for that day.


After our appointment, we ended up going to the Skirball Cultural Center, it is very close to UCLA off the 405. When Mia was born, there was another baby born, Levi, whose mother works at the Skirball Center, anyway, we've kept in touch and they are sweet friends to us and she had sent Mia tickets to see the Noah's Ark exhibit at their center. We don't particularly like driving to LA for fun and Daddy normally doesn't come to all of our doctor appointments (Snooky Great Grandparents usually come along and help me!), so we thought today would be a perfect day to stop by and have some fun before we came home. It was really neat! Although Mia isn't walking or crawling yet, she did have alot of fun...but I would highly recommend the exhibit to anyone with children who are walking, there is so much to touch and see, it is very hands on and fun! Here are some pictures from our trip.

Mia has become fairly good at getting into sitting alone. It's really nice because sometimes when I put her in sitting I don't know if she really wants to be there, so this has been a great change. She'll get out of sitting and into it when it pleases her.

Today Mia got into crawling from sitting for the first time. Her elusive Baby Tad was too far away to reach, so she got into crawling to be able to reach a bit further and then pulled him in and got back into sitting. That was real neat to watch.

Today Mia's teacher came to visit and brought along a walker. This walker is special because it only lets them move forward, not backward, so Mia was a bit frustrated at times because she likes to move both directions in her walker (and moving forward just started yesterday by the way!). Anyway, she doesn't walk in it, she pushes with both feet to move herself forward, but it's a start and we continue to be awed at how far she has come! God is so good to her!

On a side note, I was talking with her teacher about things that her classroom needs and one thing is those Bumbo chairs. So, any Bakersfield families who aren't in need of theirs anymore and would like to donate them, that would be so appreciated. Just send me an email or leave a note on this blog and I'll get in touch with you.

Yesterday we went to LA for a helmet adjustment for Mia. There were some tight spots they had to give her more room for, which is a great thing because it means her head is still growing! Yay, thank you God! The front of her head continues to look better also, so keep praying that the front will grow forward and the ridge will completely disappear.

Mia also got weighed last night and she's 19 pounds 13 ounces!

She's also getting better at pushing up on her knees and then getting into sitting! Praise God for that also!!!

Today we went to LA to have Mia's heart checked out again...just a routine followup visit. She had an echo done and everything looked great! That's the news we love to hear. She's Ok for surgery and our next meeting will be with her intestinal doctor to schedule her anal opening surgery, so pray that everything would go smoothly as we get ready for that.

Mia did alot of firsts today, it was so exciting! Her teacher, Miss Carmen, comes on Thursday and today we were writing new goals for Mia. It's like Mia needs to hear it from her teacher or her therapist and then she decides to do it. So, I said, I'd like one of her goals to be to get up on her knees and a little while later, Mia pushes up onto her knees all by herself, goal accomplished! I also said I wanted one of her goals to be able to get from lying into sitting and a little bit after the pushing up on her knees, she was on the ground and got up into sitting all by herself! I was so excited. Mia continues to make great strides and we are continually encouraged. We know that it is a God thing, she's come so far from when they told us she would only "eat, breath, smile and laugh..." and we are continually grateful. Thank you for always praying!

Today we went to LA to check Mia's hearing. Since she hasn't been saying as many sounds since her skull surgery, the thought was to give her another hearing test, just to be on the safe side, to make sure she's not missing any particular range of hearing. We know she hears, we just wanted to make sure all of her hearing was there.

Good news, she's got all of her hearing. They put us in this soundproof room with two large speakers on either side. We sat in the middle on a chair, (I was told not to make any movement, so as not to discredit the results...) and then they played different sounds at different levels. If Mia looked in the direction that the sounds were coming from, a toy popped out of the speaker (either Minnie Mouse or SpongeBob!) and lights flashed and she was told, "good job!". Then there was a duck that would light up in front to get her to focus again before they tried another sound. She missed some of the really soft ones, but that could be because she was distracted with what was in front of her...but, she got all of them at some point, so they were pretty convinced she has all levels of hearing...it may not be in both ears, they can't check that at this point because she can't vocalize what ear she hears it in, but it may be that both ears are completely normal also.

On a side note, they asked if she had ever been jaundiced and put under the lights, which happened right after she was born for a few days, and they told me that sometimes there is a link between hearing loss and kids with jaundice. They are still studying this to understand it better...and they also asked if she's ever had a blood transfusion, which she has, and that also can contribute somehow...

They checked if her inner ears had any fluid in them, they were clear, so that was good news also. They said to come back in 6-12 months if there is still more concern at that time.

It was a good report overall.

This morning, Mia said "bye". Daddy heard it very clearly. She might not understand what she says, but that was encouraging to hear a new sound/word. We'll keep you posted.

Oh, and Synagis...supposedly Wednesday, please pray that everything would go smoothly with her last Synagis shot.

Mia was supposed to get her final Synagis shot today, but it didn't happen. My mommy intuition told me to call in advance just to make sure it was actually there because that's happened once before where we drive all the way over there and they don't have the shot, so I called and sure enough...we don't know where Mia's Synagis is...so, maybe another day this week...Mia was ok with not getting a shot!

She got weighed this morning and is now 19 pounds 6 ounces, Praise God! It's a slow uphill battle, but we are grateful she continues to gain.

Our physical therapist saw her this morning and said that Mia's close to crawling. Yay! She tries real hard to get up on her knees, but isn't quite there yet, but once in the crawling position, she's close...she's inched forward a couple of centimeters at the moment, but we'll continue to work on it and see. Thank you for continuing to pray for her!