6 Years!

Bradd and I were able to escape our busy lives for a moment to our favorite place, the mountains, to celebrate being married for 6 years!  We didn't have a child to take care of or a dog to walk and feed.  It was so relaxing and almost weird not to have to do anything. We slept a lot, hiked a little and drove around to see all the beautiful mountain sights.

Thanks to "G" & "Pa Pa" and Aunt "She-see" &"Un-dle"Christopher, Dylann had a great weekend too!!

6 Years married!

My philosopher...

 Couldn't see a thing in the fog.

Sweet Baby Girl #2 Update

For those who where praying and concerned. Thanks so much!! Your thoughts and prayers are very appreciated!

I went to the ultrasound today where they looked more closely at our baby's kidney.  I was praying they wouldn't find anything, but they still saw the urine backup in her right kidney that they saw last time.  (I thought it was the left if I said that in the previous post).  After quite a long look, the doctor said his best guess at what is going on is that she has a Duplex or Duplicate Collecting System on her Right Kidney.

Basically, as I understand it, we create urine in our kidneys that travels down tubes called the ureters to the bladder and then out of the body.  Since the backup is only appearing in the top half of her kidney, they think she has a duplicate ureter at the top half of her kidney that is either not connected properly to the bladder or has some sort of blockage.  (This anomaly of having more than one ureter is something that anyone can have, but you would never know unless there is an issue with it or you find it by accident while being evaluated for something else.)

The doctor said, although anything is possible, most likely this will not resolve itself before birth... let's pray!!  Total healing before she is born would, of course, be the best scenario.  Most likely, she will have an ultrasound of her belly shortly after birth to get a much better look at the situation.  She will probably be put on antibiotics to keep the likely chance of Urinary Tract Infections down and be monitored as she grows.

If the kidney does cause her trouble such as lots of UTI's she could have surgery to fix the problem or in the worst scenario if the kidney becomes damaged from the infections, they could remove the damaged section of kidney or the whole kidney itself.  Apparently many folks only have one kidney and if this was her situation, she just should avoid contact sports such as football and motocross (as said by the doctor). And, I think we can live with that.

All that to say, we are praying for her to heal completely before she is even born, but if she isn't - even in the worst case, aside from the temporary discomfort of surgery, she will have no life altering effects.  As the doctor said, of all the health issues they find in fetal ultrasounds, 10 being the worst, this is a 1.

So, again, thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!  Keep praying she will be healed before we even get to see her sweet face.  We will have a follow up ultrasound with these specialists again at the beginning of July and have a chance to meet with the Pediatric Urologist that would be treating her, if needed.

Other than that, she is perfect!  She has all her fingers and toes. We saw her sucking on her thumb already. Maybe we won't have to deal with trying to find the nasty "ba-ba" (paci) that Dylann is so attached to.  And she had her feet crossed the exact same way her Dada and her big sister do when they relax or are sleeping... I am afraid Bradd may have another clone!  We will see...

Mother's Day Giveaway.

Junk Posse has some beautiful items that help support adoption.  There are an estimated 147 MILLION orphans in the world.  This number blows me away. Even with the econimic issues we are going through, think about all we still have... and somehow there are still 147,000,000 children with out lifelong families to love and care for them.

Check out the giveaway below and the families cool adoption story.

Giveaway Info: Click Here

We're having...

... another sweet little girl!  We are so excited and can't wait to meet her sometime during the first couple weeks of September.  

The doctor said she looks great. All the things they measure and look at during the ultrasound were just as they should be except for one little thing.  Her one kidney is slightly enlarged probably due to a small blockage somewhere between the kidney and the bladder.  He assured us not to worry. Most of the time it doesn't amount to much. It is just monitored and resolves it self sometime before the baby is even born or shortly thereafter.  We are going in for a level two ultrasound next Friday.  Please pray for our sweet baby girl's kidney. I am praying that we go there on Friday and they can't even find a problem at all!  

Much love from Bradd and his THREE girls.