Leah's First Surgery

Leah had her first surgery , it went well only I didn't really know what to expect . I was led to believe that she would be nursing her bottle again in a couple of days , so I would like to share my experience with others so they will know what to expect just in case you don't want any surprises . First off this is painful Leah screamed and cried a lot , she was on Ibuprofen and Tylenol but your not supposed to give babies Ibuprofen under the age of 6 months so after the second day I had to stop giving her that but I had to keep her on the Tylenol for a while because the latham after a day or two can cause sores on the throat and tongue which makes babies feel like they have the strep throat , I also didn't know I was going to have to force feed her , I have never had to force feed before it can be emotionally stressful , you have to try to keep your baby from getting dehydrated , Leah would fight me every second when I would try to feed her so I couldn't get 3 ounces in her like the doctor wanted me to do so I came up with a plan to give her an ounce every hour and it worked . Another thing is I did not know that I was going to have to tighten the screw in this thing two times a day , this was a bigger shock than the force feeding but I am doing it , someone told my mom that they didn't think they could do that to their child , well that thought crossed my mind to but a mother will do what she has to do for her child , when I first started I didn't know what I was doing I just did it because I had to , I guess lately I have done a lot of things I never thought I would be doing , but it's really not as bad as it may seem , the first 3 days are the worst , I think by the 8th day Leah was starting to get back to her normal happy self and I am getting used to cleaning and tightening the screw even though I will never like doing it , I was not looking forward to the next surgery but I can't wait until this latham is taken out , even though Leah is already used to it now , I don't think I will ever be , when Leah first started taking her bottle again voluntarily I still had to squeeze it and help her , but after she got used to it now she is taking a 4 ounce bottle on her own so no force feeding or squeezing now :) . Most babies only have to wear a lathem for 3 weeks but in Leah's case it's going to be about 8 to 10 weeks but it will probably fly by , I will put a picture of the latham on here after her next visit to have it cleaned , I did however manage to take her for her 3 month picture before her surgery , Leah smiles most all the time , whenever I see her beautiful smile it makes me smile no matter what kind of day we are having , she actually smiled once right after her surgery but that was before the anesthesia wore off . GOD BLESS everybody and thank you for your prayers ......Dawn.

Happy Mothers Day

Our Easter Sunday

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday , we started our day by reading the Easter story of course and after that we listened to a sermon ( The hoax of good Friday : by Pastor Anderson ) one of my favorites . We still have not found a church yet , after the sermon we sung hymns and then went to my parents house for dinner . We had such beautiful weather , Riley and I played on the swing set together and spent most of the day playing with caterpillars one of Riley's favorite bugs :) . Update on Leah - we went for our first visit to the hospital in Chattanooga , they have some of the best surgeons in the world there and people go there from all over the world , when I looked at some of our surgeons work that he had done I was amazed , he is not a people person , he doesn't talk much but he is serious about his work and very good at what he does and that's all that matters . I liked it there , Everybody was so nice . I am very thankful that they pay for our motel room and gas , Leah's first visit was just to plan what they are going to do , we found out that her cleft / palate is unique and she is not going to have her 4 front teeth , but they can fix that when she is a lot older , she also has to have a lathem which will pull her gums together and line her jaw up before the surgery . I love Leah's face , I will probably cry after her face changes , they say a lot of parents do . I hope everybody had a good Easter as well . I am not able to leave comments on blogs right now , either my computer is messed up or my Internet , I don't know what the problem is . Leah has been such a blessing , she is such a good baby , when she does not have a belly ache she just smiles and laughs all the time , sometimes when we are in bed she just looks up at me and smiles before she goes to sleep , I really get behind on the house a lot where I sit and hold her , I lose all track of time , Riley loves being a big sister , she wants to help give Leah her bottle and change diapers and she loves to help give her a bath , well here's some Easter pics and God Bless .....

Leah Is Finally Here .....

I am sorry it took me so long to post , I have been resting when I can and busy when I can't . Leah was born on Feb. 24th , I had woke up that morning with a fever and aches and pains , I knew I had come down with something , I told my mom that I hoped I didn't go into labor that day because I was so sick , but Leah had been pushing down all that day . By the time evening came I was in so much pain , I didn't know if it was labor pains or pains from whatever sickness I had , I couldn't decide whether to go to the hospital or not . I believe it was around 9:00 that night when I realized that the pains I was having were about 5 minutes apart , I said a prayer before leaving the house , hoping that this was the real thing .

My contractions were not that bad on the way to the hospital , I was thankful for that because my husband always obeys the laws of the road , even when a woman is in labor :) . When I got admitted into the hospital , they said I was definitely contracting , I couldn't believe how mild my contractions were , but the next thing I knew the nurse came in and said the Dr. wanted to get things rolling and to get this done , she said they were going to break my water and give me pitocin , I had never had this done and couldn't understand why they were going to do it , unless it was because I was sick , well to make a long story short Leah was out in under 3 hours , I was so relieved , and I just fell in love when I saw that face .

I had to stay in the hospital an extra day , to make sure Leah was eating enough , she could not latch on to nurse so I have to pump and give it to her in a special bottle , it takes her a while to take a bottle because she has to take breaks , she gets tired . Here are some pics of her first day at home , I will post some more soon ....Thank you for all your prayers and God Bless .

Almost Time .....

My last ob appt. was on valentine's day , everything is great , she said hopefully I will go before my next appt.
I  hope so , I'm actually ready because I am to the point where I can't get around very good or do much of anything .
She said I didn't have to have the surgery after my delivery , she wants to wait til later and see if the cyst will go away after my delivery , so I was glad to hear that , I didn't want that to interfere with me breastfeeding Leah .
I have 10 days to go I think , I weigh 150 pounds now , I was 158 when I had Riley . I really can't believe how many comments I have had about how big I am with this pregnancy , (not on my blog ) but in person , I usually don't pay attention to it , I figure most people just say things without thinking and maybe some people just don't have compassion , but I received 1 comment even from my specialist that I thought was rude and not very professional .
Which reminded me of the website (my ob said what ? ) I have only been there one time and read a little of things that have been said and I can believe it .
I hope my hospital visit will be a good one this time , last time I got an I.V. infection , and we had to ask them to clean my room and bring me clean sheets , I will be going to the same hospital , I don't have much choice , my doctor wants me to go there , probably because they are supposed to have the best staff .
I pray that things will go well , I just don't like staying in the hospital , usually by the second day I am begging them to let me go home :) , but I know that God is with me and watching over me , so I'm not to worried this time .  

I know this post is not exciting , but I thought I would update , hope to do more post soon if I can find the time , Here is a picture and I hope everybody is doing good :) God Bless !!!!

Recent Scrap Pages !

Here are a few scrap pages I've finished lately ...

My scanner is not working to good right now , it's messing up all my pics , I think it's time for a new one , so these might be a little blurry . This is Riley's tree frog we found last year in our yard over the summer ...

This one is an older picture of Dallas , I am usually behind on my scrap pages because sometimes I don't get to do it that often , but lately I've had a chance to catch up on a few ...( Dallas says some of my scrapbook pages are cheesie)...

This was my birthday last year and I'm just finishing it and its almost my birthday again , I make a scrapbook page of myself every once in a while , because I'm making it for the kids , I know kids like scrapbooks about them but I think when they get older they would love one of there mom or dad to , or other family members as well . God Bless ....

Getting Ready !!!!

Well just an update to let everyone know that I'm still here . I have been having contractions off and on for a while now , I am moving so slow lately . I get so emotional during my last trimester , I have been so stressed and short fused , I have even caught myself complaining lately which is not like me at all , I have been praying about this , and today was a lot better , I think just getting to go outside made me feel a lot better , GOD gave us a beautiful day today , I finally got fresh air . This winter has been so cold and snowy . Dallas has helped me out so much , I'm so glad that she has had a lot of snow days because I have needed her , today she cooked supper and baked a cake all on her own , she did a great job . Took the kids to the dentist the other day , Riley's teeth are great but Dallas has to have braces . I checked out a book on breast feeding at the library , It was helpful but not a lot of info on babies like Leah , so I called the health dept and talked with a really nice lady and she was kind enough to mail me a booklet which was very helpful , it seems that babies with cleft lips or palates need mothers milk more than ever because it keeps them from getting sick the first year and it can keep them from getting middle ear infections which they are prone to and it can keep them from getting an illness when they go into the hospital for surgery , also it may take a lot longer to get them to breast feed and you have to be patient , but there is a lot of different positions to try and hopefully I will get a good lactation specialist that will help me even after I leave the hospital . If for some reason she can't nurse I am still going to try to give her breast milk , sometimes they have to make them a special bottle . I don't know why I have waited so long to try to find a breast pump , it seems this pregnancy has gone by so fast , I'm behind on a lot of things . Also update on diapers , since the all in one diapers are so expensive in our country I ordered some from china off of eBay , they are called babyland and I did not research them until after I got them , but most people said that these diapers do not fit newborns and probably won't fit your baby for a while unless you have a big baby , and after they do fit they seem to have a problem with the sides coming out , which I think I could fix that with Velcro , which is what they should have done when they made them , but after researching all the diapers I had already decided to go with prefolds , but I will keep the all in one's for later . I really like prefolds from what I have learned , they are cheaper and you can afford them on any budget , and from what I have read if you do laundry everyday you can get by with 3 covers and 2 dozen prefolds per child . Another thing I like about prefolds , you can choose your size , I went with the Bummis super whisper wrap , they are very thin and not bulky and very tough . Just make sure when you buy your prefolds that you get diaper service quality , the prefolds at the dept. stores are to thin like Gerber brand , I ordered my DSQ prefolds from Zoolikins and I researched it and believe that they are the cheapest , you can also get your Snappies from them, and the Bummis covers are only 11 dollars for white and almost 13 for a design . I have been practicing putting the diapers on a teddy bear , I know it sounds silly but it's all I have right now . I tried to practice with the teddy bear on my moby to but gave up on that til later my stomach is just way to big for that now . I already have my bags packed , I've never had a baby to come early yet but you never know , Riley has had a cough lately , I gave her homemade cough syrup which helped her through the day but not at night , I don't understand why it won't go away during the night , sometimes it chokes her so bad I have to set her up and shake her arm and pat her back to get her to breath , it scares me , I hope it goes away soon , I gave Dallas a break and let her go to my mom and dads to spend the night . Well post more later .......GOD BLESS .