Today was another really great day for Mia at church. She stayed in the nursery by herself and I finally got to go to church myself. It's this amazingly huge turning point and we were very excited. They did end up playing some Baby Einstein Animals video several times, but she did it, she made it all by herself. Thank you God! It seems like we've been working on this forever, I'm sure we'll have some good times and not so good, but I feel like it's such major progress for this little girl. Yay!

Mia had her second dentist appointment today and it went great. She has all of her teeth except for the one she is missing up front, tooth "D". There were alot of tears, but they were quick to end too. No cavities which is great news! After she got to help her dentist feed the fish in their aquarium, how fun!

Mia got weighed today and she is 20 pounds 8 ounces, I wish I had weighed her on our scale last week to have a comparison number. Well, at least I will have a number for next week. :)

Eating has been so so, it's a struggle to get the calories in, so please continue to pray for us.

Twins?

I found these pictures on Aunt Rachel's Flickr site and had to add it to the blog, this was one of the attempts to dress the cousins up like twins over the Christmas break. I love how Joy is making such an attempt to love on Mia, but Mia is being her usual bashful self.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

It appears our daughter is just like Jekyll and Hyde. At night she only wants her Mama, she cries and cries if Daddy holds her or puts her to bed. She's ok if Mama isn't in the room, but she is a Mama's girl at night. On the other hand, in the morning, she only wants her Daddy. She'll cry and cry if Mama holds her, we find this all rather amusing because it happens like clockwork every day. Go figure.

On a different note, my blood work from the diabetes test came back normal, so that is great news! In a couple of days they are drawing more blood to do a first test to check for anything abnormal with the baby, so please be praying for us and that.

I'm checking Mia's weight for the first time after a week tomorrow, so I will post you with news on how that is going, hopefully we are inching our way up the scale. She has been eating better, I'm just not sure if it's been enough. We'll see!

Progress

Yesterday we went back to school for the first time in a few weeks because we hadn't been able to with all of our doctor visits. Well, there was a guest speaker who I wanted to hear, but it was going to be out of the classroom, so I knew that would be difficult for Mia since she is so attached to her Mommy. But I thought, let's just give it a try and see what happens, they can always call me and have me come back if she has a major meltdown. I was probably just as scared as she was, maybe even a bit more...my heart was racing, my hands were getting sweaty, I just wanted it to be ok for her. Well, after 30 minutes of no phone calls, I thought, hey, this might work, that would be amazing! It did, 2 hours later I came back and she was just fine, so happy to see me, but just fine. They said she did great! She cried right away, for about 10 minutes, and was getting close to making herself throw-up, but they distracted her with something and she got through that and was fine the rest of the time. So, praise God! I feel like that is a major accomplishment for us. And I'm going to try to take more of a hands off approach at school, even go out for a walk outside and just let her get adjusted to being there by herself or with other people. Eventually when she is 3, I can't go to school with her anymore, so now is the time to start working on it. Baby steps...

Peanut and I are at the doctor's office, I just drank the orange glucose drink and I have an hour to wait until they draw my blood to check for diabetes. So now I have plenty of time to update the blog. :)

Yesterday we went to LA to see Mia's surgeon and to follow up with the NICU clinic (they will follow Mia until she is at least 3). Mia's surgeon was very pleased with how everything looked, we will follow up in another couple of months with him. We continue to stretch her bottom every couple of days and hopefully we will be able to lessen that in the near future. Mia still doesn't control her bowels, but we will keep giving her time because this is still very new for her, so we will continue to pray for full control with that.

After that visit we followed up with the NICU staff, that's always alot of fun because they enjoy seeing her so much. There was an immediate concern about her weight (which I was thankful for because I needed advice). So, they called up the dietician and we made a game plan to get Mia back on the growth curve in the next 3 months. Her goal is 1200 calories a day, around 250 calories for each meal/snack. We are going to go back to mostly pureed foods with lots of extra fat in them. The dietician said it's much easier to eat pureed foods and chewing tires kids out, so let's work on beefing her up over the next 3 months and make it easy for her, then we will go back to working on regular foods. So, lots of pureed meet and gravy and oil...and veggies that have higher calories, a meat and potatoes girl she will be. Please pray that this would work.

They told me that delays in development are linked with poor weight gain, so hopefully beefing her up will also help her to progress more developmentally.

Overall they thought that Mia was doing great, we will follow up in 3 more months with them. Our goal is to gain 5 pounds between now and then. Thanks for praying!

Sick

Somehow we all managed to get a cold at the same time. It hasn't been very much fun at our house this weekend. I hope we get over it very soon, I am supposed to take Mia to LA tomorrow.

On a side note, Mia's bottom looks great, Praise God and thank you for praying!

Today we went to LA to see Mia's neurologist. He was so impressed with how well she is doing, he said he never imagined her looking this good when we left the hospital back in the end of May 2008. What a testimony to God's healing power! Praise God! Anyway, we are going to do another EEG of Mia's brain when she is awake and asleep and then depending on how that looks we might start weening her from her seizure medicine, which is so awesome to me! We don't have a date yet for the study, but I will let you know when I know.

Yesterday was Peanut's first doctor visit. Everything looks great so far. Since Mia had so many complications, I'm considered "high risk", which means that they'll have the specialist actually do all of my ultrasounds because he knows exactly what he's looking for. And we've opted to have early blood work done to see if there are any indicators of complications with Peanut. We didn't do that with Mia because in my mind, I felt it didn't matter because we were keeping her regardless (likewise with Peanut), but looking back, it might have been helpful to prepare myself beforehand with knowledge rather than right before and after delivery. So, that's why we are opting to do some more blood work with this little one. We would love a healthy baby, that's what we keep praying for, but ultimately, we trust God to form this baby, just as He pleases, and ultimately for His will, but we'll keep praying for that healthy baby! I was 8 weeks yesterday, which puts my due date at August 25th.

Since I had a C-section with Mia, depending on how it was performed (we have to look at the surgery notes), I may have an option to have a normal delivery with this one instead of a C-section...but like everything there are risks with that and there are risks with a C-section, so pray that we'd have wisdom on what direction I should go. I have mixed reservations toward both options. :) Maybe the stork can just drop off this new baby instead???

We went to LA today to see Mia's opthamologist. It was just a routine check up and she didn't have anything new to report. While we were waiting for the doctor Mia was getting quite brave walking between the stool and doctor table, and tonight she did a couple steps on her own for daddy. So, it's only a matter of time. :)

Mia hasn't had any reaction to her MMR shot, so we are grateful for that. Her diaper rash continues to flare up, so you can continue to pray for that.

A super praise is that Mia has begun saying "do", which are two totally new sounds for her. It happened in church on Sunday, we were in the front row and Mia decided the best time to talk is when the sermon is happening. On one hand we were overjoyed at the new sounds, while on the other hand we kept thinking, "oh no, not church!". But praise God for this new little miracle!

Happy Friday?

Today we had our first visit with our new pediatrician. I think it will be a good fit. My only major concern at the moment is Mia's poor weight gain, he wants me to give her Pediasure (which I already do) and mix in eggs as much as possible into her food. So, we will see, but in the mean time, I'm going to get some other high calorie food ideas from a friend who battles an even bigger problem than this with her daughter. Pray for Mia's weight gain, right now we are hovering at 20 pounds.

Mia got her first MMR shot today, please pray for no adverse reactions. We just have a few shots left, so that is a very good thing!

Mia took 2 steps today, yay! And then toppled like a tree, but I see her wanting to try more, which is a great thing! Praise God for all her progress.

A Step!

Mia took her first step by herself today! How awesome is that, Praise God! I had her sit on a stool and stand up to put a block in a box, but I held the box a little bit further away than she could reach and I told her, you're going to have to take a step, and she did! All by herself! It was very wobbly and shaky, but it happened, and it was so encouraging...I saw a glimmer of what might happen sooner than I have imagined. So, we'll keep on working on it.

School!

So, today we are back to school again, we weren't quite ready for the early adjustment because we had been staying up later and getting up later, but Mia did pretty well overall. It was like day 1 again though because we hadn't been for a couple of weeks, so there were alot of tears throughout the day. :( It will just take us a little bit of time to get adjusted to being back at school.

I think we finally have a system that is going to work for Mia's bottom. It still isn't completely healed and her system isn't normal yet, so I'm unsure how long this will last before things normal out. So, you can keep praying for her bottom! And for the whole bowel system.

Mia is talking quite a bit more, she's not making any significant new sounds, but she is verbalizing alot more, which is great, thank you God! We are encouraged that the rest of the sounds will come along in their own time, just like walking. :)

As for Peanut, Mia's little brother or sister, I have my first doctor visit next week. I'm mostly just nauseous (the same as last time) and just really tired this time, so I tend to go to bed early and nap when Mia does, that seems to help. We'll let you know more about Peanut as we do! Thanks for praying for Peanut too!

Very Cute Baby

Bashful Dwarf and her frog bow















Happy New Year! Love, Mia