Happy 2nd Birthday Lauren

These past two years have been the hardest and the most rewarding two years of our lives. Lauren came into this world fighting for her life and us not knowing what tomorrow would bring. I remember a time when I didn't think we would get two minutes with her. Now, two years later she has grown and accomplished so much more than we ever expected. She has developed her own strong-willed personality. She is walking and talking. Instead of just a few words, she is now attempting to say everything. The best gift God has given us is to hear her say "I love you." She loves her big sister and will try to copy anything Kristen does. She likes: dancing to The Wiggles, blueberry cereal bars, chocolate, getting into my purse and chap stick no matter how many times I say no, climbing the stairs, putting diapers on her baby dolls, books, shoes, bath time, and brushing her hair. She brings so much joy and so many smiles to our family. We are so blessed to have her in our lives and we thank God for every day He has given us with her.

Released!!

Lauren went to see Dr. Monasterio (her developmental doctor) today and was released from services! This has been a good week and we praise God for all of the good news. It was a very short visit. He watched her walk, although she was very upset. She doesn't like strangers, so as soon as I put her down away from me, she just started crying. She finally walked, well actually partially ran to me and buried her head. That was it for her. She wasn't going to participate in the appointment at all after that. He said he was very pleased with her progress and felt good with letting early intervention and her pediatrician to continue monitoring her progress. We have occupational therapy tomorrow and a GI appointment on Thursday. Still lots to do to get ready for the party.

ENT Check-up

So this week is going to be a very busy week for us. Lauren has 3 doctors appointments, occupational therapy. On top of that I have lots to do to get ready for the BIG party on Saturday. Grocery shopping, house cleaning, cake baking and decorating and throw in Wednesday night prayer meeting at church along with a dinner at church tonight, laundry and trying to get in a few hours of work. Whew! I get tired just thinking about it. All I can do is set goals for each day and hope to have them all accomplished by the time I go to bed.

Our first doctors appointment of the week was with Dr. Johnson, Lauren's Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. I had thought prior to taking her that this appointment might just be a waste of time. We knew her vocal cord was paralyzed. We knew surgery could be done but not for several more years and other than getting him to look at her upper lip frenulum, I thought there really wasn't much point in going and seeing him. For some reason (a God reason) I kept the appointment. When the doctor was checking her, of course Lauren was crying. He said that he wanted to check her vocal cords again, because she seemed to sound a lot better than last time. When she went last time she would only make a little noise when she started crying, after that she was crying her eyes out but you couldn't hear anything. God just amazes me. How undeserving we are of such blessings and He still keeps blessing my family immensely. I can't thank Him enough. The doctor said that Lauren's vocal cord was still paralyzed, but that her other vocal cord was overcompensating and actually going all the way across and bouncing off of the paralyzed one. While he has seen this, he doesn't see it very often. He said that as her laraynx grows, her sound will become clearer and as long as that one vocal cord keeps overcompensating there will be no need for the surgery when she gets older. PRAISE GOD!! He did check her upper lip frenulum and said that since it isn't causing her any problems he didn't see any need for doing anything right now. If it was causing any sort of problems with feeding he would. He said it would be something that would be done when she got older and mostly for cosmetic purposes. I already figured this, because my peditrician had said much of the same. It isn't bothering her and even if we were given the option of doing it, I don't know if we would have.

Tomorrow we see Dr. Monasterio, her developmental doctor. We should be released from his services tomorrow since she is walking.

Pictures

We took Kristen and Lauren today to get pictures taken for Lauren's birthday. They turned out very good considering Lauren cried most of the time. Here are some of the 102 pictures they took. I love Portrait Innovations. They really do a good job.

Cutest Little Toes

Are these not the cutest little painted toes!

Ear Infection #2

Last night was horrible! Poor Lauren didn't sleep good at all. She slept for 5 minute intervals up until 3:30 this morning. She then dozed off for longer periods, but it was still very restless. Once I was finally certain she was down for at least an hour I went upstairs to bed only to be awaken by Kristen. She wanted to watch T.V. and was very stuffy and coughing. At this point I could barely breath and had an annoying tickling in the back of my throat, so I just figured I would give up on getting any sleep for the night. I did doze on an off on the couch while Kristen watched T.V. I figured at some point during the night that Lauren must have an ear infection. I thought back to the one other time she had one and the symptoms were similar and that was the only reason I could think of that she wasn't sleeping well. So, I made an appointment with the doctor. We saw a doctor in the practice who actually had preemie twins who were in Johnston-Willis. How neat. She talked to me about feeding issues, because she had been through the same thing, although her girls never had to have the g-tube placed. She also said that preemies, especially those who are on the ventilator longer, typically have problems with ear infections because any cold they get is harder for them to clear out the mucus. Therefore it just sits there causing more problems. She was a really nice helpful doctor. Lauren started her round of antibiotics. She said what she feels works best is Tylenol during the day and Motrin at night. Lauren was very fussy this evening. I think most of it was because she was in pain, but also very exhausted. I am hoping to get in bed early tonight, as the girls are sleeping now. I figured I better get some rest while I can, because I have no idea what tonight holds. Also, Paul is getting sick. By the end of the day he felt pretty bad and told his work he wouldn't be in tomorrow. I am feeling better, just very tired so prayers are definitely working.

P.S. I edited this before posting. The grammatical errors were hilarious (sleep deprivation). I almost posted it like that, but then thought you probably wouldn't understand a thing I was saying.

August Illness

My prayer while Lauren was in the NICU was that God would protect me from any illness that might prevent me from visiting her everyday. Then, when she came home, I prayed that He would protect me while she was still very fragile so that I could take care of her and not pass on any sickness to her. God has been good because I have not been sick since before I was pregnant with Lauren. There have been a couple times I thought I was getting something, but it passed without anything. Kristen started getting a runny nose on Wednesday, but I wasn't too concerned because I just thought it was allergies. On Thursday Kristen just layed around, but I thought it was a combination of allergies and the whole VBS thing tiring her out. Still not concerned. Then on Friday Lauren started with a clear runny nose and was taking on similar symptoms that Kristen had so I figured it was some type of cold. Nothing serious, it just would need to run it's course. Last night she didn't rest well at all. I think it was mostly because she wanted her pacifier in, but then couldn't breath when it was in and she really wasn't up to making a sacrifice of sleeping with out her pacifier. Kristen had one night where she was up a couple of times, but that was it. So, by the fifth time being up, I just brought Lauren to sleep with us. This morning I felt really bad. I had a sore throat and just felt drained. I think most of it was from being up all night and not getting a good nights sleep. So, I took advantage of Paul being here and went back to sleep after breakfast. I am starting to feel better, but still have a headache and sore throat. My nose is starting to get stopped up, so I figure by tomorrow the floods will start running and I will be in the same boat as Kristen and Lauren and will need to be in search of any extra tissue boxes in the house. Kristen is already feeling better and is developing a little cough. Lauren still felt pretty bad today at times, but I think she is on the mend. It might take her a few extra days than Kristen to feel better. For those of you out there that have lifted us up in prayer, please pray we will start feeling better soon. We have to kick this cold because we have a birthday right around the corner.