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Sunday, August 30, 2015

Ana sounds

I am notoriously not a picture/video taker,* which means that most people have no idea what Ana's range of oral expression is. 

Ana came to us with a little laugh, and a little cry, and we have watched that expand into a huge repertoire of noises. 
Ana giggles, cackles, and laughs. Ana whimpers and bawls and screams. But most excitingly, Ana sings "Ana songs" and uses consonants. My sister who is finishing up nursing school heard Ana "talking" the other night and got really excited; she is beyond just baby babble, and is using a wide range of consonants. Here are some of my favorites:

"Lalala!"

"Mamama!" (No semantic value yet, but I am excited for when it clearly means "mama")

"Gagaga!"

"Wawawa!"

Those sounds are usually expressed in long strings, ending when she needs to come up for air.

However, she has a one syllable word that she says very expressively. I have no idea what it means but I grin every time she says it:

"Ufff!"

We haven't started speech therapy yet, but I am suspicious that she'll do really well if she decides she's on board.





*it doesn't help that every time I DO try to get a video of her talking she shuts up and grins at me. Thanks, Ana ;-)

Sunday, August 23, 2015

She's home!

Ana surprised us all by breathing, eating, and healing like a champ. Yesterday afternoon she was released from the hospital and now our family is all together again.


Look at those legs! Such a nice wide space!

We are so thankful for God's mercies during this much-easier-than-expected surgery and recovery.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Chugging along

We are getting feeding back underway, and breathing is still pretty good.

Ana has a little more energy, which means she's fairly annoyed at being stuck in bed.
She did enjoy this toy a little, though.


Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Out of surgery!


Things are looking good, Ana is breathing well. Thanks to all who have prayed and continue to pray for our little lady!

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

One day to go!

Today was the day that we got to pre-register for Ana's surgery tomorrow!
Because purple is Ana's favorite color according to her brothers, I couldn't resist using this lovely purple wall for a portrait :-)

At the pre-registration, we also got to do the pre-op blood draw, which turned into a bloodless stabbing fest... Ana was not giving up her blood today! After several tries and a lot of screaming (from Ana, not the nurses), the nurses decided to see if they could do her labs tomorrow when they set her line under sedation. Since her surgery is fairly simple and low risk, the surgeon was fine with that. Whew! That means Ana won't be conscious for her next needle poke.

I was happy with how the blood draw went, even though no blood was forthcoming. Here's why: Ana had her first blood draw shortly after hitting US soil. At that blood draw she was like a statue. No crying, no wiggling, she just let the phlebs poke around in her hand and squeeze out teeny drops of blood.

Fast forward seven months... Today Ana was enraged that those nurses were poking around under her skin. It was hard to see her so worked up, but I was also really proud of her for responding appropriately and vocally! Go girl!

The other thing that made me happy was that I followed advice that I have heard about not holding your child for a painful procedure. The reasoning is that for a child who is cognitively so young, you want your arms to be a safe place and to build trust by not allowing painful things to happen while you are holding your child. 
Today I made a nurse hold Ana for the stab-fest, er, attempted blood draw. Of course I was right there talking to her the whole time, but I wanted to distance myself from the discomfort. When the travesty was finally over, Ana was so happy to come to me! She was still peeved, but she calmed down pretty fast and seemed to bear me no ill will, which I KNOW would not have been the case had I been holding her the whole time.
This may not work with every kid, but I will definitely make the doctors be the bad guys for this hospital stay!

I will keep you all posted as we go in for the real deal tomorrow!

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Surgery is a Go

We saw our pulmonologist one more time to go over the hospital sleep study results.
Because of Ana's hatred of having things on her face and her relative agility in removing things from her face, we decided not to do a BiPAP trial before the surgery. If we have to use one afterward we'll figure it out then.
Please pray that Ana stays healthy and that God would prepare our family for her surgery next week.