22 weeks baby #2

22 weeks and I've already gained about 22 pounds!! It must be all baby, definitely not that pack of Oreos I ate last week. Which is the exact reason I NEVER buy junk food. It was supposed to be for a worms and dirt dessert that I didn't end up making; couldn't let them go to waste and didn't want Rilynn to find them.  ;)

We met our new doctor and think she is the perfect fit for us! She is a private practice and delivers all of her patient's babies. We tentatively scheduled our c-section, aka picked our kids birthday, for October 15! 4 months to go! I've been working on the new nursery while Rilynn is at school. 

Rilynn took a trip to the ER this week for a false alarm appendicitis. 

Spending lots of time on the boat.

And in the new backyard!

The only downside to having Rilynn potty trained is that she wakes up at the crack of dawn to pee and doesn't go back to sleep. So we find lots of ways to entertain ourselves at 6 am. 

We love living by our friends! 

Besties!

Tube rides!

 

 
 

 
 
 
 

 

Ending Our Hip Journey

I realized after a random person stumbled upon our blog and messaged me, that I never wrapped up our blog on Rilynn's hips.  Hoping that random strangers in the same panic and pain I was in as a mom, would be googling what to do like crazy and find our blog was my whole point in writing it.  So here is our ending to that chapter in our lives...

December 2, 2015...

Today Rilynn was scheduled for her next surgery. We knew that there was a possibility that her right leg would not have the succuess we were hoping for... Again. Yesterday, we met with her surgeon, had an X-ray that showed her right leg was not in the socket (and there still wasn't much of a socket there), we were back to where we started with 2 hips out.  We have attempted to fix Rilynn's hips 6 times. She has spent 14 weeks in spica casts, worn a pavlik harness for 6 weeks, gone under anesthesia 6 times, and spent 3 nights in the hospital. We have checked every box and attempted every treatment on the list. Our options were to try them again, knowing that her left side anatomy looked the same as her right side and our surgeon could not confidently guarantee that he could fix her hips, or we could wave the white flag and decide to call it quits. We came home, talked about it, and came to the decision to cancel surgery today and instead schedule a cast removal. So this morning, we took that stinky cast off. Our surgeon thinks we made the right decision for her today and we do too. It wasn't an easy one.  What's next? We will go see Dr. Roy again in 3 months, check things out, and then continue to have him monitor her through childhood. Her right leg is shorter, but should even itself out within the year and if it doesn't we can look at options at that time. She will probably get hip replacements early on as an adult.  

Current X-ray, while still casted. That big white thing in her leg is her new hardware from where they did the Osteotomy (broke her leg).

Inside the gross cast!

"I not stuck!"

Celebration pancakes! 

It took her 3 weeks, on Christmas Eve, she walked again. She had a limp that she outgrew. And now, she is like every other 2 year old. Happy as a clam and perfect as can be. We couldn't be happier with our choice to end the surgeries and casting that didn't work for Rilynn's unique case of bilateral hip dysplasia. We plan to let her set her own limits and one day make the choice to get hip replacements when needed. Our doctor at Shriners back us 100% in our decision to end our journey and let her be a little girl. She spent 6 weeks in a Pavlick harness, 6 surgeries including open and closed reductions and an osteotomy, 6 months in 4 spica casts, and 3 nights in the hospital. With not one bit of success, we waved the white flag and never looked back. It may not be the ending we expected, but it was a perfect ending to this chapter for my family.