Hello. This is my first post for this blog and I'm feeling a little weird about it...initially, my thought is who is going to care about my boring life enough to follow my blog?! But then I came back to the real reason that I'm writing this...the sunshine of my life, our little "Keypad"....Leyla Quinn! As I've been poking around on the internet reading others blogs about their pregnancies, their newborns, their day to day lives, I really started to regret not doing the same. What a cool thing for a child to look back on! So, while I spent hours upon hours creating a photobook of Leyla's first year on Shutterfly; all of these other brilliant moms were blogging about their babies! Sorry Leyla, that I didn't think of that from the beginning! Not to mention, what an awesome way to keep family and friends that are far away in touch with the happenings of our little one! All of that said, whether you're here to follow Leyla's progress or to let my boring but crazy life give you a few laughs or even maybe make you shed a tear, I hope you enjoy every minute of it and feel free to comment as necessary.
Here we are almost a year after Leyla was born and I'm joining the blogging mommy world! It has been a crazy, emotional, exciting, fun, exhausting, roller coaster ride since December 8, 2008 when my awesome husband Eric and I found out that we were pregnant with our first little bambino(a)! I'll give you a quick recap on the ups and downs of the past year and a half since we found out that Leyla was coming into our lives! On January 18, 2009 (7 days before our wedding), and the day the cable guy was coming...I headed out for our first ultrasound appointment to determine how far along I was! I told Eric that he could stay home and wait for the cable guy because we likely wouldn't be able to see anything at this point anyway...boy was I wrong! As I laid on the bed the ultrasound tech asked me approximately 3 times if I had already had an ultrasound and if I was sure that I was pregnant...ummm...Yeah! Then she proceeded to tell me that we were having twins. Yes TWINS!! There were two heads, 4 little arms, 4 little legs...Holy Crap! We were having twins! Needless to say, Eric was a little bummed that he stayed home for the cable guy!
I'm really trying to keep this short so, I'll fast forward a few weeks...to our next appointment. Eric did come to this one. We were so excited to see our two little miracles! My OB, just brought in the portable ultrasound machine to take a quick look at everything and I knew after her searching around for a few minutes and by the look on her face that something was wrong....she wasn't able to find a heartbeat for Baby B. Being that she was using a portable ultrasound machine she wanted to be 100% sure so, we headed up to the University of Minnesota Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic to have a level 3 ultrasound done. It was confirmed that Baby B had passed and the ultrasound techs and doctors began looking at Baby A with a fine tooth comb. It seems Baby A was taking more of the oxygen and blood that were being provided which deprived Baby B of what she needed...yes, SHE, they were two girls! The doctors found that Baby A was under quite a bit of stress from Baby B passing and there were some questions about he brain and heart development. We later named Baby A, Leyla Quinn and Baby B, Ava Grace.
As the pregnancy progressed, it stayed as a high risk pregnancy and we had ultrasounds every 3 weeks to make sure that Leyla was developing as she was supposed to, and she was. In the last couple of months we began having weekly bio-physical profiles that soon turned into 2 times a week because of low amniotic fluid. On July 17, 2009 we went in for our 2nd bio-physical profile for the week and the tech wasn't really saying much while measuring the pockets of fluid, she left and came back with the doctor that basically said, "Alright, you're going to have a baby today." We headed over to the Labor & Delivery unit...it was definitely a weird feeling just walking on into the hospital knowing that in a few hours I was going to be a mommy! Crazy! We checked into labor and delivery at 2:50pm, chatted with our OB a bit and decided that a c-section was the best way to go to have the least amount of stress on Leyla possible. And at 4:12pm, the most amazing, beautiful, tiny little creature made her appearance in this crazy world!
Whew...this is getting lengthy...we'll speed up the process a bit...Leyla's first few months were awesome! She was such a little peanut! Talking all the time...blowing bubbles...cutest thing EVER and I'm not biased at all! Fast forward through the winter to Leyla's 9 month doctor appointment; she's looking good but, not sitting, rolling over, crawling...she's missing her developmental milestones. Our pediatrician then sent us to a neurologist and on June 9, Leyla had an MRI done of her head. She was diagnosed with Joubert's Syndrome; a super rare genetic malformation of the cerebral vermis which controls balance, coordination, muscle development, etc. So, that's pretty much where we are with Leyla right now. Waiting to see specialists, waiting to to have tests done, waiting for answers, waiting, waiting, waiting, to find out what the severity of her condition is and what we can do to help her progress and develop as much like a "normal" kid as possible!
Okay now that we're all up to date...I don't want to focus on Leyla's medical issues in this blog...it's intended to be more of a light read about life, love and Leyla! What goes on from day to day...random ramblings, photos, I will put information that I get from doctors, readings, etc. regarding her health stuff and Joubert's in here when it fits or if it's something on my mind....that said, enjoy!
