A picture post

These pictures are in reverse order due to my inability to understand Blogger well enough to do anything about it. :)

Daddy holding a sleeping Lucy the evening of 11/22/10. Notice she is wearing a onesie now! We happen to own one onesie that snaps all the way down the front instead of having to pull it over her head. I imagine we will have to buy several more of those until Mommy feels comfortable enough to pull things over the scar.

We said, "Smile for the camera, Lucy!" but it's kinda hard to do that if you don't know where the camera is. (sad)

Lucy playing with Gigi.

My baby girl on the afternoon of 11/21/10.

Sleeping all propped up.

With her daddy -- I think this was taken on Sunday 11/20 maybe...

Covered by the beautiful healing quilt made by the amazing Corinne Cramer.

Covered by her blanket from CappsKids.org -- a wonderful organization that provided so much information and support for me through this whole ordeal!

Listening to Nana and PopPop.

Playing with Mommy on Saturday morning 11/20/10.

I was busy loving my baby.

Sorry I haven't posted more today. Lucy has been super needy, which I don't mind, but it has meant either me holding her or me letting someone else hold her while I eat and use the restroom, so there was no time to blog. Or take pictures apparently because I think we only took two pictures today after Wesley asked me if I had taken any and I realized I didn't.

Lucy slept great (relatively) last night. She was waking up about every three hours and she obviously either didn't make a peep in between those times or I was super tired because I got to sleep during those three hours, too. It seems like the only reason one or both of us woke up was because someone was coming in the room. So I felt refreshed today.

Her swelling has gone down considerably. She took lots of naps today and she is just on Tylenol now, about every 8 hours or longer depending on her level of pain. I know when she's in pain when she's just gotten up from napping, just been fed, and just been changed, and is being held and is still crying or acting miserable. They took out all of her IV's which is so nice.

She tried to open her eyes a few times today, and I think she actually succeeded, but she could only do it a tiny bit and only when laying down. She still can't do it when sitting up. We're letting her sleep basically sitting up and hoping the swelling will go down enough overnight for her to open her eyes enough tomorrow that they can check her out and send us home.

We finally made it to a regular room on the floor today!!! Oh, regular room, how I love thee. Let me count the ways:

1. We can eat food in our room.

2. We can have as many guests as we want in our room.

3. We can come and go whenever we want and not have to "stay in or stay out" from 7-8am and 7-8pm every day while the nurses change shifts like we did in the PICU.

4. She only has to wear a pulse-ox monitor while sleeping and the rest of the time she is totally unplugged.

5. Therefore, she can now wear clothes!

6. We can take her around the hospital like to the garden and the playroom now.

7. Nice crushed ice machine in the family lounge. :)

So we are hoping she will go home tomorrow because all they are waiting on is to see her eyes and make sure it's all okay. I'm not getting my hopes up because I know it very well may be Wednesday because we are totally ready to go, but either way it's soon!

Oh my -- there is a SCREAMING child across the hall from us. I do hope this isn't an all-night thing considering it has been going on for about 45 minutes now.

I will just make the next blog post a picture post to catch you all up.

Hope persists...

Well, Lucy hasn't opened her eyes yet today. I know it was a lot to hope for, but I have a feeling at least by tomorrow night she should be able to open at least one eye a smidge. (Smidge is a Southern unit of measurement, y'all! haha)

The rest of the afternoon she did really well. Being the semi-immature parents that we are, we pretended like Nina (our dog) was in the room and we were like, "Nina, go get your ball" and stuff like that BUT we only did it because Lucy LOVES Nina and as soon as we started saying her name, Lucy started smiling and saying, "Hey" and acting excited. Oh, the things you can get away with when your child can't see temporarily. ;-)

Teresa (her Gigi) stayed with her tonight while Wesley and I went and grabbed some Pad Thai from Doc Chey's for dinner, and then again while we ate the Carvel ice cream cake with my parents who had come back to give me my birthday gift. I got some sweet cards and awesome presents from quite a few people, so you know who you are -- THANK YOU! I won't call this my favorite birthday ever, but I have so much to be thankful for.

This is my first birthday with a baby (I was pregnant last year for my birthday but, you know, my first birthday with Lucy outside the womb!). We're in the middle of a process of healing that will hopefully mean no more surgery and no more problems for Lucybird. So for that, and for the amazing outpouring of love and support I've received, I am thankful and humbled and I can celebrate that any day of the year -- no birthday needed! Plus, Wesley promised we could celebrate my birthday again when we get out of the hospital. His birthday is this coming Saturday (Nov. 27th) so we'll have a double birthday celebration ["Double birthday, double birthday, 'cross the sky, yeah, yeah, yeah, so intense."]

Since Lucy is sleeping now I guess I will try to lay down and get some sleep. No word yet on getting into a regular room. I think we've given up on that. Until tomorrow ....

Happy birthday to me...

A rough start to a good day.

Well, first of all, it's my birthday!!! Yay! I love birthdays (mine and other people's, but mostly mine ... teehee) and even though this year is a little different, it's not a big deal. I've gotten a ton of Facebook messages and texts from people, and I even got balloons and gifts and a ice cream cake that I asked for!

Lucy did well last night. She would wake up and eat and then go back to sleep, but she was a restless sleeper. I got about 2 hours of sleep total. She woke up this morning and she was not a happy camper. She was just crying and she didn't want to eat or snuggle. They said they only wanted to give her Tylenol so they did, but then she just kept crying and crying so they ended up giving her more morphine. She hadn't had any pain medicine since yesterday around 4:00pm.

One of the residents talked about sending her home today and I was like, "Excuse me?!" Not even 48 hours after her surgery? But I think he was saying that because they still don't have a regular room to offer us. But the other doctor, his boss, came in and said they want to keep her until her eyes are open at least.

My parents came by and Wesley's parents are still here and she's sleeping in her Gigi's arms now. I have hope that her eyes will open at least tonight or by the morning time. I'll update once that happens or once we get moved to a regular room.

That's our girl!

My parents are here now visiting. Lucy has been sleeping a lot today on and off. Wesley is at the house with his parents getting some much needed sleep after being with her here last night.

She hasn't had any pain medicine since 6:30am this morning but seems to be doing great without it. I really think that any crying is due to her frustration at not being able to see and the skin itching from being swollen. But when she has been awake she has played with her toys and even did a little "singing" and that made me so happy to see her being her normal self in spite of her current condition. What a blessing.

We're still waiting on a regular room (not in the ICU) ... but the hospital is full so there aren't any beds to spare at the moment. We're here until they have a room free. It's fine with me -- the ICU tends to be quieter and the nurses have less patients so I don't feel as bad if I need them to do something for us.

I'll update next whenever I have more information to share. The prayers are working -- we are so grateful to our Father in Heaven and to our friends and family who have been continuously petitioning on Lucy's behalf. What more could you ask for in life?!

First day post-op

Wow, just writing those words "post-op" are amazing. We are post-op now!!! No more waiting around for a surgery to happen and dreading all that comes after it. We are living it, and by God's grace and His faithfulness, we are doing great.

They decided last night to just give her Pedialyte and see how she did, so Wesley decided to stay with her and I reluctantly went home to get some sleep, knowing it would be the only night I would have that chance. So I went home around 10:00pm last night. It was so hard. Lucy had been pretty upset when I left the hospital just due to pain and frustration and probably hunger, too. I got in the car and just sobbed the 6 minutes it takes me to get home. But I also prayed and I felt a peace and I knew she was in good hands with Wesley, of course! :)

I slept until about 12:30am and then pumped. I set my alarm for 5:30am (at least I thought it was a.m. ....) and proceeded to sleep some more. Well, the next thing I know I wake up and it's 8:30am!!! I accidentally set my alarm for p.m. (duh!). I panicked! I got up and Clifton and Teresa were gone and I couldn't reach anyone on the phone so I was so worried. I just threw on some clothes and just as I was leaving Clifton came back and said he had taken Teresa to the hospital so that Wesley could get breakfast and that Wesley wasn't expecting me until 9am anyway. haha. oh well. I still rushed over.

A lot had happened last night. (This is all from Wesley's information since I wasn't here). They took her head bandages off, and she only needed pain medicine twice last night. Wesley said he got a little bit of sleep. When I got back this morning Lucy was in a good mood. I think honestly that the fact her eyes are swollen shut is frustrating her more than anything else. But they finally said I could breastfeed her this morning, so I did. I think that improved her mood like 95%. Afterwards she was saying "Hey" (her favorite "word") and sort of just moving around like her normal self. I had to go pump again since she only wanted one side, and when I got back she was sleeping like a champ. She's still sleeping now and by the snores I hear from behind me, I think Wesley is sleeping, too. :)

They think that she may go to a regular room today, which is great. It allows for more flexible visiting and just generally more flexibility overall. My prayer for today is that Lucy can get into a nice eating/playing/sleeping pattern and that the swelling will continue to decrease and by tomorrow morning we'll see a huge improvement I hope. God has been so faithful and everything we have asked people to pray for He has shown up in a big way. I don't know why I expected any different, though!

I will post some pictures of this morning. Her head looks a lot worse than it is because there is a lot of dried blood which makes it look awful but if you disregard that you can see that her incision is so neat and clean and it looks great. I'll post the pictures below, so just go bye-bye if you think they will bother you. :) Also, I look awful today, so just disregard that, too! haha.

Giving her some Pedialyte this morning before they let me feed her.

Crazy, I know. She looks so swollen -- but it's part of the process so we embrace it!

Getting worse before it gets better

She is definitely more awake now and has started crying and it's such a pitiful sound. Her eyes are also swelling up quite a bit more and are turning black and blue. It's so hard for me to see her like this and know there is nothing I can do except comfort her. Just pray that she will continue to heal quickly and that she won't get too upset or be in pain.

Wesley may stay here tonight instead of me since I'm not sure they are going to let me feed her. We'll see how she's doing around that time, I guess.