VCUG Postponed

So, since many of you have asked how the procedure went I thought I needed to update our blog. Ryan and I decided against the invasive VCUG procedure until we were sure it was the right diagnosis. After scouring the internet and reading numerous articles about hydronephrosis I realized that this is not as serious as some doctors would lead you to believe. Not only that, but this issue 99% of the time resolves itself. For this reason, and several others we decided to postpone the VCUG indefinitely. We will, of course, continue to monitor the situation and ideally we will have another ultrasound at 6 months to see if this condition has corrected itself. If so, we have spared Lacy the expense of the invasive catheter and possible infection from the procedure. If the condition still exists we will pursue the VCUG route, but only through a children's hospital which we could not do out here as they had no appointments available prior to leaving for San Francisco. As many of you have mentioned there is so much over diagnosis these days (ie. the calcium deposit in the heart scare we had at 20 weeks in the pregnancy) due to the advances in ultrasound technology. Who knows how many of us are walking around with hydronephrosis and we are just fine.

Lacy does, however, have her first shots today. I have also done probably way too much research on this as well, and I have come to what, I believe, makes me the most comfortable. I want Lacy to have all her necessary shots (although I do think there are WAY too many these days as compared to 1983--which could be a possible link to the increase in autism) but I don't want to follow the 'recommended' schedule which would require Lacy to receive the following vaccines all at one time: Hib (meningitis), Rotovirus, DTaP (diptheria, tetnus and pertussis), Hepatitis B (which by the way is an STD--why are we vaccinating an infant for an STD?), Polio, and Pc (pneumoccal disease). That is 6 shots in one visit...children were given 2 at this age in 1983. Imagine all the toxins and 'ingredients' running through her body at one time? Now, I am not an 'earth mother' who believes that vaccinating your children is wrong, and I plan on Lacy having ALL these shots, but I believe that we can split them up a bit and have an alternative schedule other than what the dr. recommends, so that Lacy's body can process these shots better. Just our opinions.


So, lastly, Ryan is back from our house-hunting trip in San Francisco! He did a great job and after days of seeing properties and being either too late or seeing way to many dumps he found us a great home in Sausalito, CA. We are looking forward to living only a block from the beach and walking distance from Old Town Sausalito. It will be a great place for us for a few years. It may be hard to leave!! If any of you are out our way, please stop in for a visit. Family and friends are always welcome.

VCUG

Well, we have finally scheduled the VCUG after several attempts at numerous different hospitals. We started out trying to get an appointment at Children's Hospital of DC, but they were booked solid until Memorial Day, which doesn't help us much since we will have moved to CA by then. We tried Fairfax Inova and they too were booked solid until after we had moved. We decided to go back to where Lacy had her first ultrasound and where she was born at Virginia Hospital Center. We scheduled her appointment for April 29th, the day after her first round of shots! The poor girl will have a traumatic week and it just about breaks my heart to have to do that to her, but its the only appointment time that we could get. I think Ryan will have to be the strong one on this b/c I am already nervous for her. I know its for the best, but just the thought of her having any pain or discomfort caused by her parents is hard to take.

Anyway, many of you have asked so I wanted to let you know that the day and time have been set. Keep your fingers crossed that we won't have to go back for any further tests.

We had our first of 10 nights away from Ryan and his midnight diaper changes. It wasn't as smooth as we had hoped. Lacy was up at 1am, 2am, 4am, 5am and 6am! I suffered from a massive headache all day yesterday and into last night so it was not a good night for either Lacy or I. I think she is a bit messed up between her days and nights so we worked on correcting that today and she is doing really well. We will see how tonight goes.

Are We Done With The Growth Spurts?

Well, we find ourselves recovering from completing one of Lacy's growth spurts and then entering right back into another one. This one was not nearly as bad, but it required several feedings much closer together than normal and waking in the night every 2 1/2 hours when we had gotten so accustomed to a 4-5 hour straight sleep. Last night, we were able to get our 4 1/2 hour straight sleep yet again. Whew! Just in time for our visit up to PA for 10 days.

Ryan is leaving tomorrow for our house-hunting trip out to San Fran, so Lacy and I will be retreating up to PA for a little help with the day to day and, of course, to have the grandparents, aunts and uncles lavish attention on our little one before we head out West.  Lacy is going to relish the time with her extended family and we will as well.  We are hoping to have lots of visitors in our 'new' home.  

In other Lacy news she seems to be changing daily.  She is so alert now, looking around at everything.  Her eyes track voices and moving objects and she is now starting to use her hands to grab at things (or maybe it more closely resembles batting at things).  She gets a big kick out of looking at our ceiling fan.  Amazing the simple pleasures that a baby can find.  She will smile and laugh and throw her arms in the air.  It can keep her entertained for a good half hour. 

Turns out her rash is nothing but 'baby acne.'  We took her to the doctor this past Thursday as it was not clearing up and the doctor took one look and said, "It's normal."  Apparently, this rash-like formation on her neck, chest and face is caused when the mothers hormones break through to the placenta on or near child birth.  It does not show up until around the 5th or 6th week of life.  Unfortunately, it will stay with Lacy for the next 5 months on and off.  It seems to be more pronounced when she is hot or fussy.  

We are still waiting on an appointment for the VCUG.  Luckily it isn't an urgent matter, but I know that Ryan and I would just like to have that past us before we move out to San Fran and to know our little girl's kidney is functioning normally.  I think all will be fine, but it is just a matter of not knowing that we want to fix.  

It's amazing to think that every day in Lacy's life she is learning something new or seeing something for the first time.  She really does change every single day and with every day our love as parents grows.  She is truly our little miracle.

First Growth Spurt Complete!

Well, Ryan and I made it through last week virtually unscathed. We probably have a few more gray hairs and darker circles under our eyes, but I am sure it is only the first of many to come. For those whom we haven't spoken to, Lacy hit her first 'growth spurt' last week which consisted of almost constant feedings every hour to hour and a half. Sleep was nearly impossible because as soon as I finished one feeding and closed my eyes Lacy would roar with hunger yet again. I literally didn't think that a baby could eat as much and as often as she did.

As quickly as the growth spurt came it vanished and she has been very close to sleeping 6 hours at a time at night. Her parents grogginess has finally cleared and we can function like normal adults and carry on real conversations without zoning out or rambling on in broken and incomplete sentences.

After the 'spurt', as we refer to it, we noticed not only a change in ourselves but a change in Lacy. She is so much more animated now. She is smiling real smiles and most noticeably when I go to wake her up from her naps. She now recognizes our voices and turns her head towards us. She is starting to bat at objects on her play mat and likes to stare at herself in the mirror. (she gets a big kick out of that!) Her hair gets lighter and lighter every day. When I say lighter I mean more red. She has the blondest eyebrows and eyelashes and all the hair coming in is coming in blonde, but the hair on top has a red tinge (when its clean). We shall see!

Due to the warmer temps I have been able to get out during the day with Harley and Lacy for walks around the neighborhood. I would say she loves them, but the moment we walk outside she is asleep! We took her out to lunch twice last week and although all the ladies stopped to coo and ogle her she still didn't open her eyes. It is amazing the copious amounts of people who stop to 'see' the baby. Everyone from elderly ladies to little tots, to the muscle bound gym rats to women wanting to have their own, but the most interesting of them all is the 'advice giver.' The completely random stranger who comes up to you and says, "she should be wearing a hat" or "when my kids were young...", which is all fine and good until they start dragging on in their stories and you are left holding what feels like an 80 pound car seat for 15 minutes listening to a complete stranger talk about how at 4 months her child was talking, walking and reading.  Tangent aside I really do enjoy showing off our little girl.

This weekend we had my Mom and Bob come down for a visit.  It was a short one as they arrived on Saturday afternoon and left Sunday pm.  G'ma needed her "Lacy Day Fix" as she calls it.  The weather was great on Saturday and we took several walks and even ventured out to dinner at a 'hippie granola' restaurant that opened up in Shirlington.  Lacy Day was an angel and again slept through all of it.   Saturday afternoon she developed some sort of a rash so we spent a good portion of time washing all her clothing, bedding and blankets making sure it wasn't the detergent.  The rash is still visible, but it seems to be deteriorating and she does not seem to be bothered by it.  It is probably more bothersome to her parents!  Still not sure what caused the bumps.  Again, babies are weird.  

Sunday our old neighbors came to visit us from Greensboro, NC and brought their 8 month old daughter, Avery.  We had a great time catching up on the 2 months that they have been gone from our Fairlington court.  Avery has grown so much and is crawling very fast.  Harley had to be on guard most of the visit.  She was a living, breathing teddy bear to Avery.  Lacy slept through most of the visit, but was awake to meet Avery for the first time.  

Lastly, we got word from our pediatrician that a VCUG would rule out any serious issues with Lacy's kidney and has given us a referral to make an appointment at a hospital of our choosing.  A VCUG detects if all the urine is leaving the kidney and into the bladder and nothing is being left behind that could cause an infection.  The procedure sounds worse than what I have been told it actually is.  It requires a catheter to be placed into her bladder and a dye will be inserted to determine how the kidney filters the liquid.  Fingers crossed all will go well, although we do not yet have an appointment scheduled.  If the procedure shows no anomalies no further tests will be required (or so we have been told).  We will keep you all posted when we know more.

Love to you all!

Introducing Lacy Daze

So, due to our impending move to San Francisco and the very recent birth of our most precious daughter, Lacy Day, we have decided to become bloggers. Both Ryan and I swore we would never blog, mainly because we really didn't understand it and we wondered why anyone would want to read what we have to say. However, after reading several other blogs by family and friends it appears it is a pretty good outlet to keep people up to date and amused at the crazy and zany antics that occupy our life (well, we can hope they are crazy and zany but lately they are sleepless and boring).

Lacy Daze is an attempt to keep family and friends up to date on Lacy Day's growth, her milestones, the ups and downs of parenthood and our new life in San Francisco. In no way shape or form do I believe I am an excellent writer or full of profound thoughts, but I hope that this blog is amusing to some and helpful for family to remain close even if we are thousands of miles apart.

On Monday we had our one month check up for Lacy and our little one now weighs 9 lbs 4 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches. Growing like a weed. At birth Lacy weighed 8 lbs even and was 18 1/2 inches. She was down to 7 lbs 1 ounce two days afterward, but that does not seem to have phased her at all. She steadily grew and is now in the 50th percentile of weight (up from the 25th percentile).

In other momentous baby news, we got our first REAL smile out of Lacy that wasn't attributed to gas or some other intestinal issue just 2 days ago. It's the small things. She holds her head up and turns it from side to side for a few minutes during 'tummy time' and she has started to sleep much longer at night. Ryan and I are still holding out hope that by week 7 she will be sleeping through the night, but that might be wishful thinking AND the number of diaper changes has dramatically decreased (thank goodness!).

We had a renal ultrasound for Lacy on Tuesday as requested by my OB and pediatrician due to the results of a pre-natal ultrasound we received at the end of January. The specialist detected a very mild case of hydronephrosis (a partial blockage of the kidney) prior to Lacy's birth, which is not uncommon. They anticipated that this situation would resolve itself by birth or shortly thereafter, however, on the aforementioned ultrasound on Tuesday the results showed that the situation had not yet resolved, but that it had not gotten any worse. It is still a very mild case. The doctor is sending us to a pediatric nephrologist to monitor the situation and advise if this needs further medical attention. Our guess as well as our pediatrician is that eventually this situation will take care of itself, but we will need to monitor on a regular basis. After reading up on the condition online we have found that this is the most commonly detected anomaly found in pre-natal ultrasounds due to the advancement in technology and the intricate detail that doctors can now see. It has not affected Lacy's diaper count as we mentioned above and she does not show any signs of pain so we are not too concerned, but will continue to keep track of the situation.

Yesterday we took Lacy in the Baby Bjorn and walked into the city (from Gravelly Point) to view the peak day of the cherry blossoms. It was a crisp, cool day and rather windy along the Potomac, but we had fun even with the throngs and throngs of tourists. In fact, I started to think that Ryan and I were the only English speakers as we meandered through the crowds. Lacy slept through the entire walk (2 hours!) until the moment we got back to the car where she proceeded to scream uncontrollably when we put her in the carseat. Guess she didn't want to go home! Once the car was on and we started moving she immediately fell asleep. Babies are weird.

We are gearing up for our move to San Francisco. Ryan leaves April 16th to 'house hunt' and find our family a place to live. Talk about stress. We have so many open ended items on our plate that I think we will both be glad to have this trip past us. We hit the road (we haven't quite yet decided who is driving or flying or if we are both driving) May 14th and hope to stop in Denver for a few days to visit family and friends. We have to be out in San Fran by May 22nd.

That concludes the first entry on Lacy Daze and we hope you enjoy!