Ready to be Done

Ivy had her catheterization yesterday, and we are so glad its over. We were stuck at the hospital for over 12 hours yesterday for what was supposed to be a relatively short procedure. The doctors told us that the procedure itself would be 2 or 3 hours, and then of course there is prep time, recovery time etc. All leading us to a discharge time of about 5:30 pm. Well they were a little off on their estimates. The procedure ended up taking 5 hours and the recovery time was SUPER long. Apparently they couldn't get her to stop bleeding, which happened with her very first surgery as well. They had to spend an extra hour getting it to stop.

Meanwhile, Scott and I are in the waiting room expecting the doc to come out and speak to us any minute (we'd recieved a call in the waiting room saying he would be out momentarily), but he never came out. I had such a horrible feeling of dread waiting there for him. Where could he be? What is going on? Is she okay? Finally, after about an hour Scott asked the receptionist to find out what was happening, so she did. That's when we found out about the bleeding, but she said that they just got it to stop and that the doc would definately be out in a moment. I was SO RELIEVED.

So Dr. Womack finally came out and explained everything that went on, and said things had gone well (up until the excessive bleeding), and they got all the information that they needed to be able to proceed to the next step (surgery). Hooray! We then headed to recovery to be re-united with our little trooper. She was swollen, tired, and quite grumpy, but she looked good. We waited and waited to be released, and waited some more. Ivy couldn't pee.........we tried scaring it out of her by saying we wouldn't be able to go home.........she finally wet, and I mean WET! Then the doc had to do another quick echo, followed by another LONG discussion. More waiting......and finally at 8:15 or so we signed the release papers and walked out the door. Thankful to be done!

So thanks again Russell and Collette, you guys are amazing. Seriously, we owe you big time!

Anyway, it looks like surgery will be taking place sometime in early to mid june. I know it sounds wierd, but we can hardly wait. I am nervous of course, but I am so sick of this looming over head. I just want to be finished (for a while anyway). Finished with the nurses, physical therapists, dietitions, social workers, doctors, doctors appointments, endless paperwork, and most of all, the mountain of bills. After this surgery, we will still have all those things for about a month, but then most of them will either diminish substantially, or go away all together. I will have no problem giving them up!

Ivy's MRI

So Ivy had her pre-op MRI today, and she is a little champ. She wasn't allowed to eat after 7 am, and refused to eat since 4:45am, so by the time everything was done at about 2 pm, she was pretty hungry! We went into the hospital super early this morning where they made her cry several times for various reasons like, poking her arm for an IV, checking her oxygen sats, taking her blood pressure, or just bugging her in general. They finally got us in for the MRI at about 11:30 am, after hours of waiting. They had to give her some anesthesia since for an MRI you need to be perfectly still. It was weird because I was holding her and they pushed the button to start the medication, and said, "it works pretty fast" and she instantly went limp in my arms, before her eyes even closed. They grabbed her from me and laid her down and she was out cold! They took pics of her heart for about an hour and a half and then we were allowed to see her again. They kept the anesthesia on for a few more minutes while they also did an echo (more heart pics), and then turned it off. She woke back up within 5 minutes, crazy.

We don't yet know what they found in the MRI, but should have the results in just a couple of days. She has her cath procedure on Monday, and that will give us more information also.

I also want to say thanks to Russell and Collette for taking our boys overnight and watching them for SO LONG while all this went on. Our boys had a great time, they love you guys, You're the best! And thank you in advance for Monday as well!

A Cath, by-the-way, is a procedure where they take very small catheters into either the jugular or an artery near the groin area, and maneuver it to the heart and then they are able to check things like size, pressure, flow, etc. All of these things will bring us closer to surgery which, due to oxygen saturation's, will most likely be sometime in June.
Good job today Ivy, you are such a good sport! We love you!

Oxygen baby

A normal person's blood oxygen level is approximately 98-100%. Since Ivy is a "mixer" (meaning her oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood mixes together), her blood oxygen level is usually between 75 and 85%. Over the past several weeks her levels have been slowly declining (which is normal with her condition). About two weeks ago they dropped quite a bit, and then dropped even more this week. She is now between 62 and 68%, which isn't good. Since her surgery has not yet been scheduled, her cardiologist decided to put her on oxygen to see if that will help get her levels back up (and keep them up). So here she is with her little nose cannula. She's still beautiful, but I feel bad for her because it's never fun have stuff up your nose. She brings back memories of my little niece Ryan when she was on oxygen years ago.


We are wishing little Ives luck to get the oxygen she needs to be able to last a while longer until her surgery, which sounds like it is getting close. I can't wait until we don't have play this waiting game anymore. Her MRI is on May 5th so hopefully then we will have a better idea of a surgery date, we're crossing our fingers for June.

Easter Blessings

So this weekend was THE weekend for us. We had a lot of people come to Boise and stay with us for Ivy's blessing on Easter Sunday. We had tons of fun and it was so good to see everybody. Of course, Ivy looked beautiful in her easter/blessing dress, and loved being the center of attention. Scott gave her an amazing blessing (did you have any doubt, he always gives great blessings) and then we had a fun brunch at our community clubhouse. We can't wait to do it again. Well, actually we can, we aren't going to be having any more babies any time soon!

Besides Ivy's blessing we also did average Easter stuff, like coloring eggs,

Playing in our new Curious George jammies (thanks Heidi, they love them),

Playing on jumping stilts,

And putting bubbles in Russell and Collettes fountain,

You know, all very boring stuff!

4 Month Check up

Today was Miss Ivy's 4 month checkup. It's hard for me to believe that it's already been 4 months, she still feels like a newborn to me. The doctor thinks that she is doing very well developmentally, but he is a little concerned about her weight, surprise, surprise. Here are her stats:

Weight: 10 lbs (3rd percentile)

Height: 23 inches(10th percentile)

So yeah, she's small, still very close to newborn size, which probably explains my feeling like she's still a newborn. Anyway, to get her weight up the doc recommended we start giving her rice cereal once a day. I really hope that works, cause I'm getting sick of this weight issue!! Other than that all is well.

So since Ivy is now 4 months, I just thought I'd give an update on other stuff, besides stupid weight.

Ivy is very happy, she is always smiling and silly, and is hardly ever in a bad mood. She is holding her head up like a champ, and is working on getting used to laying on her side rather than her back. She hates tummy time, it makes her cry until she turns blue. Her favorite toy is her little monkey mat with its dangling monkey, zebra, and mirror. She likes to grab hold of the zebra, and gets frustrated when she can't get him. She still enjoys spending time with her pacifier, only now she gets mad because she can pull it out of her mouth, but can't put it back in. Her favorite person in the house is, of course, her mommy. She actually cries when I leave the room sometimes. She is fascinated by her crazy, out of control brothers. She could stare at them for hours while they play, fight and cry with one another. She is always happy to see daddy when he gets home from work, and loves for him to hold her for hours on end.

She is one sweet girl and we are happy to have her in our family!!

Time for an angry rant

Ok, so I know that nobody else thinks this is quite as annoying as I do, but I need to get it off my chest.
As you probably already know, Ivy has a nurse that comes to our house once a week to weigh her and check her oxygen levels to make sure she progresses well before her next surgery. Every week Ivy is supposed to have gained 5 to 7 ounces and her oxygen level needs to be between 75 and 85 to be considered thriving. Her oxygen level is always great, but for the last month or so she hasn't gained enough weight, it's always between 1 and 4 ounces. The nurse made me put her feeding tube back in about a month ago, the first week she didn't gain 5 ounces. I took it back out about 10 days later because I disagreed with her (Ivy didn't gain more weight with it in). It is known that kids get oral aversions when they have a feeding tube for too long, and I think the nurse didn't know what else to do, the tube was the easy solution. It turned out not be a solution, just a giant pain in the butt.
Last week when the nurse tried to tell me to put the tube back in I refused. I told her that it wouldn't help, and we needed to find a better solution. I suggested that one of the reasons she failed to gain weight could be that she spits up quite a bit. The nurse agreed and sent us to our pediatrician to see if he could prescribe her a second reflux medication (she is already on zantac). Our pediatrician decided to look at her overall progress instead of week to week. He said she is still within her growing curve and sees no reason to be concerned. She has gained about 2 1/2 pounds in just under 2 months, and that is fine. So he didn't prescribe the other reflux med because he thought the risks outweighed the benefits. He suggested we feed her less formula(45mL), every hour and a half, instead of the full amount(70mL) every three hours to cut down on her spitting up. So that is what we have done (except at night, because really, every hour and a half, I would probably murder someone).
Nurse Nancy came yesterday and again Ivy gained only one ounce. I have really come to dread the days that she comes because I know Ivy didn't gain enough (I weigh her myself), and Nancy is going to give me that look, like your not doing enough to make her gain weight. She asks every time, "How much are you feeding her, and how often?" Even though she knows the answer already, and then she looks at me like she doesn't believe me. It's so frustrating, I'm not lying, I feed my child, all the time it seems like. I can't do anything else, because I am always feeding her!
So now I ask you, (those of you with children)how much did your babies weigh at 4 months? Do you think your kids gained 5 to 7 ounces EVERY week? Is it possible that Ivy is just small, like my boys who are both in the 10th percentile for weight. They weren't like that when they were babies, but they are now.....does that matter.....I don't know what to do. I'm frustrated and feel like I've tried everything. If you have any suggestions please let me know, I could really use some good advice.
And FYI - In other areas Ivy is right on schedule, she smiles, coos, and laughs. She is becoming an expert holding her head up, she swats at toys dangling above her, etc. I can't imagine that anything is really wrong when she is doing so well in all other aspects!

Random Pictures and Stuff

So I haven't really posted many recent pictures in a while, so I thought I would update with a few random photos.
Here are a couple of Ivy, I was messing around with the camera and trying to get a good pic for her baby announcement, neither of these ended up being the winner, but they are super cute!

Here is Corbin teaching Dex the names of the items in this book, it is just so cute when they aren't fighting and actually enjoy each others company!

Here they are again playing nicely. They had built a "fort" using the coffee table, blankets, couch cushions and pillows.

Here is proud papa with his baby girl.....He loves her so much!

Here are the kids being silly. Dexter (as mentioned in a previous post) is obsessed with his belly button, so whenever he wears his footed jammies we have to leave the zipper partially down so he can still get to it. We thought it would be funny to do it with the others also.

Here is Dex again, he put like three pairs of shoes into his open jammies.

And again with his crazy rooster hair, this is how he wakes up each morning.

Here is sweet little Ivy at her first Cardiology appointment here in Boise, she did pretty well for the first 5 minutes of the echo, then cried for the next 10.

And one more of Ivy all dressed up for Valentines day (I realize it's tomorrow, but we celebrated today). Notice her tube is out again, but that is only because she ripped it out this morning, tape and all. If you look closely on her right cheek you can see some red splotches from the tape being ripped off, poor thing! I thought I would give her a break before putting it back in.