Sunday, August 17, 2008

My sister-in-law has inspired me to post about my beautiful little girl and, of course, the amazingly handsome man who helped me make her possible. LOL. What a great idea she has! I have a lot of ground to cover if I am to emulate her blog. She started from the day she got married! For memory sake, I'd like to do the same. I hope to be as committed, but as you can see, my last blog only lasted 3 days. I am more of a pen to paper kind of person. Most of my thoughts and memories are captured that way. In my last blog, I decided not to share what I had started out to share. In fact, I am hiding it. This past year has been quite difficult. Our beautiful heaven-sent gift was born with dysplasia in both hips. She was in a brace from day one. Though the surgeon said she felt no pain, my heart broke for her. She couldn't sleep at night. It seemed as though it was uncomfortable to sleep on the backstrap of her pavlik harness. Also, she was terribly colicky. The pediatrician told us this was largely caused by her inability to draw up her legs in the harness. Her first two weeks in this world, she ran a fever that put her in the hospital for a week. It was terrible to see a 2 week old get a spinal tap. I am so thankful it was just a little virus and not something worse. Angelina's closed hip reduction in November was the hardest thing of all to see her endure. We were so extremely thankful and praised God that the surgery was successful. Her surgeon had not had much faith since he said her dysplasia was the worse he had seen in almost 20years. After the surgery, her Daddy and I went to recovery to see her. I did not know what to do or how to hold her once they had put her in the body cast. This made me feel so inadequate as a mother, that I did not know how to comfort my own child. The nurses told me I could pick her up. We fed her some watered down formula and a little pedialyte as she began to come out of her anaesthesia. Though the surgeon, Dr. Crawford, did not expect her to be in pain, the anesthesiologist insisted she stay in the hospital over night. We were so glad he did! She was monitored all night long. Every time she tried to go to sleep, her little arms would fly into the air and she would let out a blood curdling scream. At one point, her heart rate was so high, a worried nurse came in to check her out and then called her surgeon. She was in severe pain, mostly because her muscles were not used to her hips being in place. All of those muscles were going into spasms. We had to give her codeine and eventually another muscle relaxer. I am so blessed that my dear Momma was able to stay with us for so long after this surgery. Dr. Crawford told me not to drive anywhere with Angelina....only between home and the hospital. There were no car seats available to fit the body cast. On-line, they cost over $500. The first week Angelina was in the cast, she had two huge bouts of diarrhea. It was a 2 person job to clean her! Mom held her while I ran towels and wipes in and out of little places in the cast. Mom would hold her on her side so her body fell away from the cast. We did this for over 2 ours each time. What a mess. I have to laugh at it now. My poor baby was not happy, though. About every 30 minutes we hadd to wrap her in an underpad and feed her a little more of her bottle to console her. Diaper changing was a huge process....and expensive! First, I hadd to insert a Ddepends pad into her cast to capture most of the moisture. Then, a smaller size 1 or 2 diaper was place on top of that and inserted into the cast. A size 4 diaper was secured around the entire cast to keep everything in place. By the time her cast was removed, we were all thrilled....except Angelina. She had gotten used to it and was unsure of her new freedom. (must go to bed....more to post on this subject later.)