My baby is getting SOO BIG! (the second one that is!)

We visited the OBGYN again and got some more pictures of our little addition! :) They measured the length and the heartbeat of him/her. It's crazy to me that we can see the beginnings of the arms and legs already! This is the link that you can see Brooke's 8 week sonogram, and as you can clearly see, this baby seems way more developed! Looks like we have an overachiever! (or maybe that's how big of a difference 1 week makes, as this one is 9 weeks!)




This is the sonogram that shows the heartbeat at the bottom! Strong and fast! So good!

Ear Infection Follow Up...

Well when we last visited the ENT, they were satisfied with letting Brooke wait on tubes because her ears were draining slowly, but surely, and she hadn't gotten an ear infection for a month. But then just a week later (two weeks ago) Brookelynne got diagnosed with yet another ear infection! :( So we set up our follow up appointment with her ENT instead of her pediatrician because they wanted to be involved and were pretty sure they would do tubes and her neck thing if she got another ear infection.

Today was that follow up appointment with the nurse practitioner. She came in and cleaned out the wax in Brooke's ears (which she HATED) and she saw that there was still liquid in her middle ear. So she got Dr Maddern to come in and look at her ears, and neck and to talk to me about the surgery. He definitely wanted to do the surgery as soon as possible, because as he put it, "Her ears aren't infected but they are 'dirty' and will get infected again". So we went to the surgery coordinator to schedule the surgery. The tubes only take about 5 minutes, but the neck will take another 15 to 20, making the total time in the OR about 30 minutes. Since their average surgery time is 5 minutes, they don't have a lot of 30 minute blocks of time available in the OR. Therefore the earliest that they could do it is August 18th. We won't know the time until the day before at 4. That's when they will call me to give me details about when to be there, what Brooke can eat and where to go (exactly, we know it will be at Wolfsons).

The details that you may we wondering about... What exactly will they be doing? What are the affects? How long will she need to rest/recover? etc?

Well the tubes is what he'll do first, so they will go in and put her under general anesthesia with a gas mask. He'll go in through her ear, cut a hole in her ear drum, and insert a tube that is literally 2 mm long. They will do this in both ears. Her ears will probably hurt for a couple days, which can be handled with Tylonal. They will then change focus (and instruments) and begin to remove her Bronchial Cyst Tract. This will involve them cutting into her neck a quarter to half inch, to the muscle that is between her collar bone. They will remove the cyst that is in there, as well as the tract (which is kind of like a straw made of skin going from the cyst out of her body) They will have to do 2 stitches and then derma-glue the outside opening. This procedure will take approx 15 to 20 minutes. They will then take off the mask, give her medicine for the discomfort and bring her out of the anesthesia.

They will send her home with me as soon as she is completely out of the anesthesia and responding well. She will need to be watched for the rest of the day, but is then free to return to any normal routine. They will put cotton in her ears to soak up any drainage (which may continue for up to 3 days) and they ask that we keep a band aid on the neck to keep her from scratching of the derma glue, but after a few days she'll be set and the stitches will dissolve in a couple of weeks. We'll have a follow up appointment 3 weeks later. (Already scheduled for Sept 7th).

The tubes will stay in her ears for 6-24 months, giving her natural tubes the chance to mature and do their job. At that time, the hole in her ear drum will close up on its own. In the very unlikely chance that it doesn't, they would need to go back in and patch the hole. The purpose of the tubes are to give the middle ear another way of draining, since the tube that drains them into the sinuses is either collapsed or too horizontal to allow it to drain while Brooke is still so small. It allows the fluid to drain out of the ear instead of into the head, and also allows ear drops to be used to fight any possible infection (instead of antibiotics) because the drops would be able to actually get to the infection with the tubes in. The neck will close up and as long as we don't let it get infected, should be invisible to the naked eye as she grows up.

Those are the facts as I know them! :) Thank you all for caring enough to read and pray! We want to make a praise at this time, once again that Brooke's neck thing is not a sinus tract, and while still requires surgery, it is a much less intense or risky surgery. We are confident that the Lord will take care of her! These are very routine procedures and we have confidence in Dr Maddern as an expert in his field, as well as complete confidence in our Lord who "works all things together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." :)

Party People!

So tonight I went to a Pampered Chef party at my friend Angela's house. It was very fun. Mitch was really tired so I dropped Brooke off at my mom's house and then headed to Angela's house. I cranked up the radio and rocked out all the way over there. :)

The party was very nice and fun, even if we had to put the pudding in the freezer to get it done faster! :) We didn't mind, we just liked having no babies! :) WE made a very good dessert while Stacy showed us some of her products and then put in any orders we wanted. I headed home around 9:30 and it was so nice outside that I rolled down the windows and turned up the radio and it felt SOOOO nice to just enjoy driving with out being quiet so Brooke can sleep or singing to her because she's upset!

I picked up Brooke and headed home, so glad to have had just those few hours to enjoy myself and relax a little bit! :) I definitely need a little more time like that!

Sick and Tired...literally!

Well this pregnancy is going along swimmingly with two little exceptions. I am tired ALL. THE. TIME. Today I took 2 naps, and am still tired. I slept 16 hours a day in my first trimester with Brooke, and this isn't as bad, but it isn't much better either! Especially since I have a little girl crawling all over the place who I'm constantly running after and picking up. That obviously doesn't help! But more frustrating than the exhaustion is the sick feeling I almost always have. My stomach feels queasy almost all the time. Especially when I drink anything with splenda in it! :( I haven't thrown up and it doesn't even get to the point where I think I might most days, but its bad enough that I want to lay down or at least sit, which pretty much gets in the way of getting up or doing anything! My house is a wreck and that alone is driving me crazy! If only I could get it done it wouldn't be so hard to keep up!

And our Brookelynne is doing so good with the crawling and standing that everytime I turn around she's standing up or has crawled to another room! She's developed an attachment to her daddy which I find very cute, because she wants him anytime he's home! She even crawled all the way into the spare room to get to him and then stood up next to his chair and reached for him! :) It was sooo cute! A negative thing is that she isn't eating very well today! She's taking her bottles fine, but she's not even eating half of the baby food she normally finishes. She ate most of her breakfast, none of her lunch and then only a few bites of her dinner. If she keeps it up tomorrow then I'm going to call the doctor. Her ear follow up is on the 22nd, so we might have to move that up or something if they associate it with that. We'll see. Hope everyone has a great night!

5 weeks, 6 days....

So we had our first doctor's appointment for this pregnancy this afternoon! :) They did a sonogram and found out that I am only 5 weeks and 6 days pregnant. :) While they were able to see the heartbeat, we couldn't quite hear it, but that's okay! :) Some pregnancies don't even register a heartbeat at an 8 weeks sonogram, so I'm thrilled that there was one at all! :) I've got a strong one that's for sure!

They seemed to be content with just knowing how far along I was, but I was like 'Um, can you tell me my due date please?" and she pulled out the wheel and said, "Well it looks like its going to be, uhhhh, February 4th." Which is super cool because that's Mitch's birthday!! :) So we are both really happy and very excited! :) Looks like the two months from Dec 24th to Feb 17th are going to be even busier with one more birthday in there! :)

And even better? I get another sonogram in like 3 weeks! I LOVE not knowing when I got pregnant, because I LOVE sonograms and I get an extra one!! :)

Brookelynne is 8 Months Old!!!

Hard to believe? I think soo!!! It is so much fun watching my baby girl grow up right before my eyes, but it just happens so quickly that sometime I think if I were to blink I would miss it! She's such a sweet girl with a great attitude and spirit about her! I'm so glad of that! She definitely gets that from her daddy who always has a smile regardless of what's going on around him! She's beautiful and smart and I really don't know what I would do without her. I told someone just today that it is like she's an extension of my body, a little piece of my heart beating in my hands instead of my chest. And every day I thank the Lord for giving her to me!

Well, let me get down to the facts so that you know exactly what's changed in the past month!

~She is 17 lbs, 5 oz buck naked at the doctor's office today! (Last week at the ENT with clothes, she was 18 lbs 12 oz, so she's either lost a lot of weight or was wearing super heavy clothes! lol) Still 28 inches tall!
~She is standing on her own (as I have mentioned and is pictured below). She has even started doing it on her own without us standing her up and then taking our hands away, she just crawls over to me or something else, pulls up and lets go. :) Today she even leaned over and picked something up off the floor without losing her balance or putting any weight on the floor!
~She can walk the length of the house if you're holding her hands. She thinks this is fun and occasionally when she's standing by herself will start to twitch her foot. I'm pretty sure she's gonna be trying that soon enough!
~She's eating 2 jars of food for breakfast, followed by a bottle before her nap. Then about a jar and half at lunch. She then gets a bottle around 2:30 as a 'snack' or 'prelude to naptime'. :) Dinner will consist of anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 jars of baby food and a bottle. And then she gets another bottle right before bed. :)
~She's crawling really well now and really fast! (She crawls better with out anything on her legs, if she's in pants or a long dress she has problems, but if her legs are on the floor, she's all over the place!)
~She's found the dog food bowls.... :) She found them about 3 weeks ago, so Mitchell moved the food, food bowl and water bowl to the corner by the back door in the kitchen, thinking that Brooke would not find it very easily, and that it would be easier to keep her from it because it's at the other side of the house. While the second is true, the first is not! She found it in like a week!

She went over to it, sat down, pulled the water bowl toward her and then splashed in it! :) Tama took it very well and just waited for me to move her so that Tama could eat her food!

~She loves all of her toys and I've started putting her small toys into the bucket she got at Collin's birthday party, and she thinks it is soooo much fun to dump it out and find the toys! :) (That's a little trick that Collin taught her a few weeks ago! haha)
~Her new favorite toy, now that she can crawl around and find them herself is her baby monitor! On nights when she sleeps in her swing or during the day if I want to take a nap while she is, I'll put her baby monitor in the hall so I can hear her. Well the other day I didn't pick it up immediately and about 8:30 or so, she found it! She searches it out now and LOVES it! :)

(Don't worry, I'm aware there is a cord, and I was watching her!)
~Still in size 3 diapers and is still wearing mostly 9 month clothes!

She stood up all by herself, and then stood there for a couple of minutes so that Mommy could get some pictures of her!

~Still the apple of Mommy and Daddy's eyes! :)


She loves pulling herself up on the table and then chewing on it!

We're bad at keeping secrets....

We'll we SAID we weren't going to tell anyone until Wednesday, but as it turns out, we're really bad at keeping this kind of news quiet! lol :) Thursday Mitch called me from work and told me that we could tell our moms. I was like "What? I saw my mom last night and was barely able to keep my mouth shut and now you want me to call her up and be like 'Oh yeah, I'm pregnant'?" That's not cool, but whatever, so we called our moms and told them! :)

Then we discussed waiting until Father's Day to tell the rest of the family but that was too long to wait so we've been telling them as we can get a hold of them! :) We told my dad, Josh and Amy, Tricia and Jennifer Saturday night. But we couldn't get a hold of Wayne until last night (Sunday). Seriously though, my favorite person to tell so far this time was Amy because she was HILARIOUS! We were in the garage at her parent's house and I was like "Do you want to know a secret?" To which she replied "yes" while starting to bounce up and down. So I said "We're pregnant!" and her face was priceless!! She literally jumped up and down and hugged me and was like "No way! That's awesome!!!" :) It was really cute! <3 her!

Now if we can just make it to Wednesday! :)