Turning 30

Well, I am now officially in the 30 club. You might be thinking that I think this is depressing. On the contrary...I am one of those strange folks who love getting older, and have been excited to hit 30 for a long time! I think my 30's are truly going to be the best years of my life... We are starting our family, we are more settled in our careers, I am more confident in my own skin, the list goes on and on. Basically I'm stoked about turning 30, and am thinking...bring it on life! (How corny do I sound?) :)

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We spread out the celebrations over a few days. On my actual birthday (the 11th) we spent the whole day eating great food and doing things I love. We went to breakfast at one of my favorite spots, La Provence, which is an amazing French restaurant....and while there they gave me a free pastry to celebrate, and my favorite part of the morning...the waitress told us that all the wait staff were in the back talking about how cute Emilyn is! Every mom loves to hear that! After breakfast we went to church, then out to lunch with two of the pastoral staff at church. We followed up lunch by going out to a movie and coffee, and then ate some of the best birthday cake I've ever had! It was poppy seed cake, with banana custard filling, iced with ganache. You might not understand how delicious this cake was...but trust me when I say, it was like heaven in cake form!

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We also had a little birthday party last weekend, on the 17th, which was themed, "grandparents." It was super fun. We dressed up, played bingo, ate lots of yummy food and had delicious sangria...among other things. Here are some pics of the birthday celebrations. Enjoy!

This is our little family dressed up!

This is Emilyn as a granny! I call them: Grumpy Granny.....

And, Curious Granny.

This is me blowing out my home-made raspberry cake, made by the lovely Julie.

This is my friend Erin, who would've won "best dressed!"

These are some pretty amazing children!

This is the necklace my mother-in-law bought for me, that I've been wanting so bad!!!

The Norm...

Times like these are becoming the norm for us. Emilyn is one happy little camper, and falls asleep babbling and smiling. She plays babbling and smiling. She wakes up babbling and smiling. She's just a pleasant little baby, and we are so very lucky!

This is Emilyn falling asleep...? She is so cute like this, and then eventually falls silent and asleep.

Emilyn playing. She's so funny! I say that, and wonder...how can my baby be funny...but oh man, she cracks me up!

The Rolling Queen!

At 4 Months...

Warning: This blog is full of pics and videos!

Emilyn is now 4 months old...can you believe it?!! I know I certainly can't. It seems like only a month ago I could barely make the walk to our local coffee shop, only to have J.D. walk home and drive to pick me up because my stomach was so HUGE. Now, we make that walk all the time (almost 2 miles), and last weekend we did a five mile walk.

At four months Emilyn has really started coming to "life." That sounds silly, because of course she's alive, but she is now babbling up a storm, rolling over, playing with more toys, trying to eat everything, teething, and so much more! I'm fairly certain she's going to be quite a talker...and a bit of a spitfire like her mama was...and her daddy (on the talking front).

Emi is the sweetest little baby. She has been sleeping through the night since seven weeks, and continues to be a rockstar in that area. Now, we are either awoken by babbling or big smiles. Waking up in the morning to her little noises is one of the best gifts. She also smiles at practically everyone. If you catch her eyes and she focuses on your face, she's bound to give you a huge grin. Emi loves to bounce and sing, and the Maroon 5/Gym Class Heroes song, "Stereo Hearts," has become our song! (JUST the chorus) It's quite humorous...I had the song stuck in my head and was singing it one day, and she started smiling. After really thinking about the words in the chorus, I decided it was a really sweet little "lullaby" and now, when she's crying, if I start singing the chorus she calms down pretty quick! (If you don't know the song, google the lyrics...and look at the chorus.)

We also had her four month check-up. She is now 14.1 lbs and 24.4 inches which puts her in the 60% for weight and 55% for height. (And her head is 43%) :) She's our perfectly average little love bug! Her kidney reflux is well under control with her daily antibiotic, but is causing some serious skin issues, so we now have some prescriptions for yeast and eczema that we have to use. She has very sensitive skin, and with the antibiotic cutting back some of her bad and good bacteria it makes her more susceptible for these things. BUT, because of her super sensitive, pale skin, her little cheeks are so adorable and rosy! She always seems to be perfectly flushed. Her eyes are getting bluer and bluer, so they are a total combination of J.D. and me. His shape, my color.

I hope you enjoy all the videos and pictures! We LOVE being parents, and feel so so so blessed by our little nugget! Some of them have no sound due to some technical errors, but they are still cute!

Mommy throwing Emi. Watch her huge smiles!

Emilyn rolling over like a champ!

Emi babbling and eating her fingers.

Mommy and Emi swinging away!

Emi holding her bottle!

3 Months...

Well, Emilyn in now 3 months, and a lot has happened in this last month of her life! Emilyn experienced her first snow fall....

Emilyn had her first beach trip and wore sunglasses for the first time...

We brought Emi up to the mountain for the first time...

She also started discovering toys for the first time...

The final, and slightly scary, thing that happened is we found out more about Emilyn's Urinary Tract Infections...which were actually kidney infections. After having two UTI's in her short little life, Emilyn had to have a VCUG test (have no idea what that stands for...) to determine if she has Kidney Reflux. (The generic term for what the real name is)

Here is how I understand and explain Kidney Reflux in my simple terms: Basically our bodies have tubes that go from the kidneys to the bladder. There is supposed to be a one-way door on these tubes to allow the urine into the bladder, which then gets peed out. With Kidney Reflux, these tubes have a two-way, swinging door which allows urine to go back up into the kidneys. There are 5 grades of this problem, with 5 being the worst possible reflux. This problem can cause continual infections and permanent kidney damage...or failure. ...Now back to Emi.

Last Thursday Emilyn had her test, and her results came back as grade 3 and 4. Because they were such high grades, we had to see a urologist which we did today. Dr. Lashley is supposed to be one of the best in the Northwest from my understanding, and we feel very lucky that we are able to have him work with us. After our appointment today, Emilyn is on a permanent, low-dose, antibiotic to prevent infections from happening. She will have another ultra-sound in May (the first one was in the hospital over Christmas) to determine how her kidneys are growing and what, if any, damage has already been done. If there is too much damage (not too likely) Emilyn will need surgery soon. Otherwise we wait to see if the antibiotics and her growing a bit will make this problem go away. Dr. Lashley told us that she has an 80% chance of needing surgery at some point between the ages of one and four because her reflux is such a high grade. However, things could be worse, and she could definitely need surgery now. Thankfully that is not the case.

Emi is mommy and daddy's little trooper. Regardless of her medicine and the testing, she is happy as ever! During the VCUG test she laid there smiling at the doctors and nurses...even after they inserted her catheter. Not one tear. She also continues to sleep 8 to 10 hours every night, without even crying when she wakes up. I go to get her when my alarm goes off at 7am and she is usually wide awake and smiling. We feel so lucky to have such a little angel, and I can't imagine my life without her. She is growing fast and I had to pack up some of her newborn clothes this month...even though her newborn pants still fit her little chicken legs. (She seriously has one and a half tiny rolls on her legs and about three under her chin! I love her chubby little cheeks, and finally understand why people used to always say that about me!) Here's one more pic to make you chuckle. Emilyn in her swimsuit for this coming summer! I can't wait to go swimming with her. She LOVES her baths...and I think she might just be a water baby.

At Two Months Old...

Emilyn is now two months old! I can't believe it's already been that long...yet at the same time it's strange to think that two months ago she wasn't in our lives. She's added so much joy and love to our little family! I love being a mom, and J.D. is a great daddy.

Lately Emi is really starting to explore her facial mechanics and hands. She is smiling a lot more, playing with her tongue, widening her eyes and making the funniest faces. She plays with her hands all the time and loves to suck on anything and everything! Sometimes I hear this strange/loud slurping noise and look over and she's basically eating her hand. She's also starting to respond to our voices...which is one of the coolest things! We'll be heading to AZ in March so that Emi can meet our Phoenix family and friends, and we're so excited for the trip!

Below are some recent video's and pictures of Emilyn's latest developments. Enjoy!

Emi responding to Mama's voice.

Emi's 2 month birthday.

Emi just looking cute in her styling outfit!

Snow suit from Great Aunt Debbie.

Smile big!

Emi crying, but one of the first times in her bumbo chair! She's even cute when she's crying!

Holidays in the Hospital

Well, as promised, here is the information about our recent hospital stay. I must say, I've been dreading the first sickness for Emilyn...stressing about what I'd do, what she'd get, how we'd know she was sick, etc, etc. For this being a pretty intense scenario, I feel pretty good about how I handled my emotions, which tend to be panicky, and how JD and I both responded, held up and managed our first crazy experience with sickness. (Warning, this blog is a little long, and there's lots of pics and video's so make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom!)

Christmas was a great day, but throughout the day I noticed Emilyn hadn't eaten as well as usual, her diapers were a bit runny and when we got home from celebrating, I noticed she seemed a bit warm. After taking her temperature (100.5) and calling the pediatrician, we were told that we needed to head in to the ER because anything over 100.4 could be serious with an infant Emi's age. (7 weeks) We rushed out the door, to the closest hospital that our insurance covers, and were immediately checked in to a room. The Dr. and nurses took her temp and it had climbed to 102, so they told us they'd have to do a complete check of her little body. Infants are still formulating their guts and immune systems, so a cold could appear to be something worse, and a serious illness could appear to be something less. This complete check-up included an IV (had to go in her head because they didn't have any small enough for her little arms), a blood draw, a catheter for a urine sample and a spinal tap! When I found all this out I, of course, started crying and was so sad that my little nugget would have to be put through all that trauma. Not to mention, they had to try to insert her IV three different times and her catheter about 10 times because she's so small, and the team was not specialized for children. ugh.... We did have a fantastic ER doc though, with wonderful bedside manner. (A rarity for ER docs, it seems.) ANYWAY, turned out that bacteria showed up in her urine and we had to transfer over to the children's hospital...which meant an ambulance ride for Emi and me.

We arrived at Emmanuel Children's Hospital and were ushered straight up to a room. By this time, it was about 6am and Emilyn was pretty pissed about being poked and stuck since 12am. She was exhausted, cranky and running a fever. Poor baby girl! The Dr's all examined her again and started giving her Tylenol and antibiotics, and then we were finally able to sleep for a few hours. (I think I got 3 hours of sleep within that 36ish hours.) I was running on so much adrenaline and anticipation about what was happening that I absolutely couldn't de-focus enough for sleep. (De-focus...not a word)

Monday, the 26th, we found out that we'd be in the hospital most of the week because of the bacteria found in Emi's urine, and the possible bacteria in her blood. Because of this, and the medicine, we basically spent the last four days zoned out in the hospital, watching TV, reading, hanging out on our computers and taking care of our sick baby...who slept and cried a lot. Emmanuel is a fabulous hospital and provided great staff, including an amazing Dr who specializes in infectious diseases (great for us!), women who came by to offer music therapy for Emi, movie night with popcorn and candy, and much more. We really appreciate the care we received.

After a couple days of meds, lots of sleep and lots of love, Emilyn started getting back to her old self. I started pumping because she seemed to eat better from a bottle while she was feeling yucky, and JD was able to feed her for the first time! We even managed to get a few smiles out of her! Our little chubby-face was obviously feeling much better, which helped us feel much better!

After waiting and waiting for the cultures to come back from her urine and blood, it turned out that she only had ecoli in her urine, which had come from her own little body. She didn't contract the illness from any outside source, and because we caught the infection so early, she hardly had any complications. Her little left kidney was swollen, but that is to be expected. She also didn't have any bacteria in her blood which was a huge relief!

Because Emilyn had to have 72 hours of IV antibiotics, we had to stay in the hospital until this afternoon. Now, in order to keep her infection away, she'll be on oral antibiotics for the next 11 days. We are so glad that we caught this sickness early, and that we have such an amazing hospital close by. As I type this, we are home on our couch drinking a glass of wine while Emilyn sleeps in her swing. (She sure missed that thing!) We are so glad to be home, and I can positively say that we will NEVER forget her first Christmas. It was an eventful one for sure!

Below are some other cute shots we got of Emilyn while we were there! Directly below is a shot of her zoned out...she stayed like that for about five minutes.
Here's Emi giving a little smile, even after they had to give her a new IV.


This is Emi using her super strong, skinny (but finally getting a little chub) legs to stand up straight!