Ahh

We are having such a great time here at the beach. Lots of family here means it is not always me who is holding her. She is quite heavy, so this is a very good thing. Here is Ev with her Aunt Holly, Aunt Jaclyn, and Uncle Tim. They love her so :)

It seems like there is not much to report! (But then I wrote this)

Ev has been in the cast for 3 weeks, one day now. Life with the spica cast has been rather uneventful lately ... good thing because life otherwise has been busy busy.

The last week has been full - over the last nine days we have had: seven family members over for the day, dinner for nine, ten house guests, one graduation party for a friend (at our house), one wedding, one date, one flight to Philadelphia, two nights staying with friends there, two pets for Ev to LOVe, one day reuniting with college friends (six adults and six kids age 7 and under), two breakfast sandwiches from the best food truck on Penn's campus, one drive to the beach, and two grandparents *very* happy to see Evie. We will continue this fun until the end of the week. It is great.

My major (Evie) priorities while we are here at the Jersey shore are two-fold. First is to keep Ev cool and comfortable. The gore-tex liner of the cast is basically like having a raincoat wrapped around her skin. Not fun in the sun. The second priority is to take her to the beach without getting any sand in her cast. I cannot imagine how terribly uncomfortable it would be to have even a grain of sand rubbing between her skin and cast. So I want her to able to see the beach and maybe put her hand in the saltwater ... But not go anywhere near the sand. We will see how that goes :)

You can actually see just about everyone there if you also look in the mirror ...

Oh the fun. Everyone should have one of these in their backyard.

Evie, Tim, and Ava. Ev LOVED Tim and his Greyhound brother Streak.

We are getting ready to relax and enjoy being at the shore this weekend! Yay!

Weekend Fun

We had a fun weekend with one of my dear college friends, Alyssa. We forgot to take many pictures, but here's a shot of us getting ice cream with my sister and her family :)

Booster Seat

The booster seat arrived! And it works :)

The pictures aren't great but my camera was upstairs ... and the one thing about this seat is that you for sure cannot leave a kid unattended in it. At least not my kid - she could tip right over if she tried hard enough.

But she can sit! Her legs sort of hang over the edge, and we put blankets or padding behind her to keep her upright enough & in case she throws her head back against the chair.

And then there is the tray. It is way bigger than I expected. It has long straps that go all the way around her & the chair. But, like the booster, it works (Sort of. You can't put anything heavy on it or anything that could tip & spill). I put cheerios on it today and she tried them for the first time. We actually may use it in the car too, so that there is something most of the way around her to catch toys as they fall.

So glad we have a way to feed her now that doesn't involve one of us holding her!

Diapering

I waited a week (can you believe it's only been a week? I almost don't remember life before the cast!) before doing the diapers post so that I had a chance to figure things out. Diapering with the spica cast is annoying but it is not as bad as I expected it to be.

One thing that helps a ton is that the cast has room to spare in critical places - you can see here that there is tons of space between Evie's belly & the cast. There is also a little extra room in the diaper area, which seems pretty important for successful diapering. I keep wondering how this will all change by the time we are close to the 6-week cast change because I expect that Ev will keep growing like a weed.

Evie normally wears a size 3 diaper, and from what I had read online, it sounded like most everyone has had to go down a size in the spica cast. I haven't found this to be absolutely necessary. I also read a lot about people doing things like lining the edges of the cast (in the diaper area) with pantyliners so that it absorbs any leaks. I can see this being important if the cast fits so tight you can't get a diaper very high in there, but I haven't done this yet.

I'm trying to keep things simple. So I have two different boxes of Poise pads - I think it's important to use incontinence pads because they're made to absorb an adult sized amount of urine, which gives me confidence that they're plenty absorbent for Ev.

Ultimate absorbency for nighttime

Moderate absorbency for daytime

As for the diapers, I use Pampers BabyDry - this is what we've used for a while and they've always done the trick. Size 2 are easiest to get up in the cast (one size too small), but I have been using some size 3 too.

When I change her diaper, I first take out the dirty diaper and wipe her, and let her air out a little while I get the new diaper ready. I take the pad (moderate for daytime, ultimate for nighttime) and tear 3-4 holes down the back of it. This is so that the urine soaks through to the diaper instead of it all staying in the pad, hopefully keeping her a little drier. Then I put the pad in the diaper, more towards the back because as she is lying down, the wetness will move back. I'm not sure about other brands, but the pads fit perfectly inside our diapers. Conveniently, the ultimate pads are almost exactly the same length as the size 2 diapers.

Then I (sometimes) tear off the tabs of the diaper so that they don't bother her. And when I don't tear them, I tuck them inside so they are not touching her skin, which could be uncomfortable.

Tucking the diaper inside the cast right now isn't too hard, so I usually do the front first (and I know it's far enough in when the band of colors along the top of the diaper is right inside her cast) and then just tuck it up the back. Occasionally I turn her over to tuck the diaper in the back of the cast, which makes it easier to get it nice and smooth.

You ca see here that the edge of the cast is lined with wide medical tape. They did this at the hospital and it is just now starting to peel a little. Seems like replacing this once a week is a good idea. I need to do it this weekend.

Also, I don't always put in a pad - if I know she'll just be in the diaper for a short period and won't be sleeping during that time, I use a size 3 diaper without a pad.

Over all of this, I put a big diaper (size 5) just to keep things all in there. It really doesn't serve much of a purpose except that if I'm holding her, the small diaper could very easily be pulled out. So the big diaper keeps everything secure. Also, it's a little protection for while she is airing out between diapers. I pulled this one out too quick a few days ago and ended up with a major pee all over the bed. Gross.

So that's how we diaper. Hope that helps anyone who is about to do this for their son or daughter!

elliebear spicawear

I am not sure what we would do without the ebsw rompers. Evie wears them all the time, except when we go out (glad it's summer - we're wearing dresses).

If you have a child who will be wearing a spica cast for any length of time, I highly recommend getting a couple of these.

They'll make a dent in your wallet at $35 a pop, but if you only buy a few things to make life in the spica easier, they easily make it into the top 3 for me (those things being, in no particular order, the ebsw rompers, the MacLaren stroller, and the beanbag. However, I'm pretty sure that the booster seat arriving tomorrow will pass up the beanbag in these rankings ...).

The rompers are well-made with a nice thick cotton, have snaps along the whole bottom for a seamless look, and best of all - most obviously - fit like a dream over the spica cast. Thank you EBSW Spicawear for such a great product!

*Note: Evie weighed 21 pounds at the time of her surgery, so she has size large. They fit great, even though her cast is enormous around the thigh. She has a bar across her cast, so I snap the romper above the bar. Also, I will gladly pass these along to folks who might need them after Ev is finished wearing them. She's projected to get her cast off in mid-late July. Email me if these would fit your little girl (we have only pink ones) and you might need them at the end of the summer!

Yum Yum

Last night I finally bit the bullet and made some homemade baby food for Evie. I don't know why I didn't do more of this sooner. Well, except that pre-made baby food is super convenient. That's why.

One of the reasons I enjoyed this so much is that it was easier/ more fun than I expected. Here's what I'm loving:

1. My immersion blender. Put chicken and some veggies in a pot, simmer it, and then stick this baby in. Pureed in minutes. It's wonderful. An aside - anyone ever used an immersion blender with spinach? It doesn't seem to work so well.

2. Tovolo Perfect Cube Ice Trays. They are flexible and come in great colors. They just make freezing food more fun.
 

                          

Ready to wrap and freeze!

3. Annabel Karmel's baby food books. I made two batches of food based on her recipes - chicken with sweet potato, apple, & carrot, and spinach/pea/sweet potato/apple. Yum.

4. Zoli sippy cup. Obviously I wasn't using this to make the food. But it has turned into a meal-time essential around here. The weighted straw means the cup doesn't have to be held upright. It's the only sippy cup she has been able to use well. I give it to her while she eats so she doesn't try to grab the spoon.

                                                             

Now the next step is to actually be able to feed her easily. I thought that maybe the beanbag chair would work, but no such luck. She's a little too reclined to be able to eat comfortably. I ordered the First Years on-the-go booster seat and a snack tray that can go on it. They should arrive tomorrow and I'm excited to see how they work. I decided that this is a better choice than buying a $200+ high chair. Hopefully they do the trick!

                                        

Bath! (sort of)

Evie has been a little stinky lately. Not in the diaper (due to the iron in her vitamins - we would actually like her to be a little stinkier in this department), and not in her personality (because she is so sweet, as usual), but in her neck. The child has a nice roll between her neck and her shoulders, and it's a little hard to clean. It is especially hard to clean when we are trying to keep the cast dry.

So this afternoon, after a particularly messy meal, I had had enough and decided to try to clean her more thoroughly than I've been able with just a damp washcloth.

We put a garbage bag over her from the top of the cast down and cinched the drawstring (and realized we were going to have to make this 'bath' quick because she really liked chewing on the plastic. Ew). We layered her bathtub with blankets to make it comfortable, and stuffed some paper towels inside the top of the garbage bag to catch any water that dripped in.

And we put her by the kitchen sink and washed up. She was pretty confused by why only the top half of her body had water on it, but always enjoys water pouring over her. And now she smells like herself again. Ah.

Ev is still herself

One of the reasons I was so sad before Ev had her surgery & cast was that I was afraid that being physically restricted would take some part of Evie's personality away ... like, she wouldn't be as happy or not laugh as much ...

As it turns out, this was totally unfounded (as I suspected, but it was nice to actually see her be her normal self even the same afternoon of the surgery). She is even learning new things ... like peek-a-boo. Usually she laughs more when she does this, but the video below shows you a little of what she has been doing a lot - peek-a-boo & clapping :)

Carseat and Stroller

As I mentioned, Ev's carseat is a loaner from the children's hospital where she had her surgery. She has the Britax Hippo, which retails for between $400 and $600 - thus, we are so thankful that they give us the carseat to use while she is in the cast for free!

It's an awkward fit because the angle of her cast matches the angle of the carseat - which would be great except her heels are lower than her bottom, so if she were to sit on her bottom, her heels would dig into the carseat. Not optimal. However, we found that if we put a small pillow underneath (actually it is one of those travel neck pillows) her heels are elevated just enough and she is able to be comfortable. Another thing we needed to get was sunshades for the windows - obviously this carseat does not have a shade like the infant ones do. 

As for the stroller, we knew it'd be a priority to get one that she could fit in comfortably (otherwise we're pretty stuck in the house - because of the bar on the cast, I'm not optimistic that any wearable carriers will work). On Saturday we took an excursion with Steve's mom (who is in town and has been SUCH a big help!) and tried out (literally) every stroller at Babies R Us. 

We bought the only stroller she fit in, but fortunately it's one that we were considering getting anyway (before all this spica cast business started)! We got the MacLaren Quest (http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11082692&searchURL=true) and it's awesome. We put a little padding behind her torso to make it a little more comfortable, and it's a dream. After her nap this afternoon, I was able to get the stroller out from the trunk of the car and unfold it all while holding her. The one handed fold and unfold is, as it turns out, even more essential than I thought. So it's worth the high price tag (well, given that it's the only one that fits her too, so not like we had a choice ...). There's a good chance that another MacLaren would work (although the Volo didn't because it doesn't recline, and the Triumph's seat didn't really fit her cast), but there is the Techno (which we'll get to try at the end of this month because our in-laws have one at the house in New Jersey). So check her out!

Happy Mother's Day!

We celebrated with a cute dress for Ev (thanks to Grandma Aimee) and church. And a nap (which is going on right now, thankfully). Great day!

Day 2

We have 42 days in the (first) cast. We're on Day 3 now. Woo.

Yesterday was our first full day home, and it wasn't too bad. Ev took a couple short naps in her crib, so that was great progress. When she wasn't sleeping, she was either trying to go to sleep (it took almost an hour each time) or playing downstairs with mom :) As it turns out, the beanbag works great. Her abs are strong enough that she can sort of lift her upper body up, which may mean she can topple out of it (so dangerous) so she can't be in there unattended. I imagine if she were even just a few weeks younger it wouldn't be a problem at all.

So by the end of yesterday, I was pretty nervous about how she would be at night. She only slept for 1 - 1.5 hours for each nap and didn't seem to be sleeping all that well. So we did our normal afternoon evening routine (eating food around 5, going for a walk (Steve just carried her), nursing around 7, read a book, sing a song, then to bed in her crib). She cried for a little bit so I went up and just sang to her until she was in a comatose-like state. Then she fell asleep at 8:20 AND SLEPT UNTIL 4:30. Glorious. She went back to sleep after nursing until about 7:45. And now we're about to try our hand at another nap.

I'll put details about diapers and sleeping arrangements in separate posts once I have a chance to take pictures. We have successfully navigated every diaper change, including one very poopy one, so my mission to have a clean cast is off to a good start. Hoorah.

End of Day 1

Well, Ev is asleep (not in her crib. That did not go so well. She is on a bed upstairs snoozing away) and I wanted to give more details about the day (mostly because we have a few really sweet pictures).

After we talked to her doctor, we waited for another hour until they called us back to recovery. The nurse told us that she was smiling a lot and seemed pretty happy. We waited back there for about 15 more minutes until they brought Evie out.

We were VERY anxious to see our little girl!

She came out with her little breathing tube (they put oxygen through here while she's waking up from anesthesia). Looks pretty happy, right?

And then she recognized us. Very, very unhappy.

They suggested that she drink water or apple juice first because she was likely to vomit due to the anesthesia. We gave her a sippy cup with apple juice, but she was only interested in getting some milk. And she didn't throw up at all. Yay!

Then we went home. She nursed and slept most of the afternoon, then played for a little bit. 

Audrey was kind enough to offer her toes for Ev to play with. 

And Judah was so, so sweet to her. 

And, of course, Dad got her to smile and laugh while singing the chicken dance song.

So one day down. And it was a pretty good day! Steve got some great news from work, Evie seems to be adjusting well, and she is finally asleep (and not in someone's arms).

We are grateful that God has brought us through today. I was, admittedly, a total wreck last night and this morning. It was terrible when they took her away from us to do the surgery. But I have never breathed as big a sigh of relief in my life when the nurse called from the OR to tell us that they were casting her and only needed to manually put the hip back in place. I laughed and laughed when she first clapped (while we were getting into the car - she had a balloon, and she loved it). And I was still able to cuddle up to her as she was nursing. So it was a good day. Now for tomorrow ...

PS. You can see how well she is doing in this video from this afternoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9no380_6b4 

Home!

We are at home. It wasn't particularly fun or easy, because Ev does not fit into the new car seat very well. The angle seems to be awkward for her, so we'll have to figure that out. On the bright side, we did get some smiles and some claps from her!


Since we have been home, she has been sleeping while I nurse her. When we tried to put her in her bed, she would just scream. At least this way, we are all getting much-needed rest.

We will check back in later.

Update #4

We are in recovery. She is a bit groggy and cranky but otherwise pretty good.

Update #3

We just talked to the surgeon, who is all done with her. Ev is being taken to recovery and we will seek her in 45 minutes or so.

The doctor said it went really well, that as soon as she was relaxed under the anesthesia her hip went right back into place easily, and that when they looked at it with the dye under the x-ray, the socket looks great. He said that there is a good chance she doesn't need the full 12 weeks in the cast, so we will see what it looks like at the 6 week mark (when we come back and do all this again).

We can't wait to see her and will update with a picture when we do!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Update #2

We just heard from the OR ... They are putting the cast on right now. They did not need to cut at all. This is what we were praying for!!







This is our lovely view from the waiting room. It will still probably be a couple hours until we see her. They will put the (hot pink) cast on and then she will be in the recovery room for about 30-45 minutes before we see her.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Update #1

Not really an update, except to say that they took her back to the OR. She took some medicine before she went back so that she won't remember anything and won't have anxiety being separated from us. She seemed to like the doctors and nurses, and we were thrilled that she didn't seem too hungry or miserable.

We will probably hear in about an hour what kind of procedure they will need to do. Please pray! Thanks :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Waiting

We got to the hospital right on time at 6 am. Since then we have been waiting. Fortunately, Evie is pretty chipper and not having eaten since before midnight does not seem to be bothering her too much.

Last Day

Well, not the "last day." But it kind of feels like it. It's like when you were graduating from college (or high-school, or whatever) and everything was your last - last class, last weekend, last lunch at xyz cafeteria. Remember that? It was super depressing, right? 

Today was a teensy bit like that, except not totally depressing. Ev spent for-e-ver in the bath today, and, ironically, finally figured out how to really, really splash with both her legs and arms. She had music class (loved it, as usual), and played a lot on the floor at home this afternoon. I wanted to give her as much time as possible to be mobile, because it was her last day (for a while at least) to roll around. But I tried hard not to be melodramatic (about it being the "last day"). If you know me, you know that was some pretty hard tryin'. 

It helped that some dear friends came over this evening to pray for her. It was a sweet time (even though I missed most of it to nurse her and put her in bed). Lots of people are praying for a miracle tomorrow. I am too. How awesome would it be if a nurse came out and said, listen, we don't know why, but we don't need to cast her. The hip is a-okay. It would be awesome.

But here's the thing: because I 100% believe it would be possible for God to work a miracle here and heal her hip, I know that if, tomorrow morning, she ends up in a cast - or ends up needing the more extensive surgery, it is because God has a plan for it. No, it won't be fun, and I won't be thrilled about it, but I will chose to trust and remember that God is good. He will take care of his children (and his children's children).

You'll hear from me tomorrow from the hospital. Surgery's at 7:30. Thanks for praying!

Wouldn't it be fun if Ev could update you directly?
We're working on it.