I should probably change my ticker....

..and blog more :)

Just wanted to inform the few people who check in every once in awhile (sorry, I know that I am not too interesting lately) that our little girl has made her appearance.

Analeigh Grace was born June 30th. She weighed in at 6 lbs 1oz and was 19 and a half inches long. She is such a cutie and we feel so blessed to have her with us.

Luke is doing okay with the new baby. I see a few behavioral issues that I have never seen before but I am hoping that with time he will accept his sister a little bit better. It must be hard to go from being the only child to having your mom spending so much time feeding and taking care of another little person.

Luke's health has been pretty good lately. He has been fighting a nasty cough but I am not overly concerned about it. I think that it will calm down in a little bit. I think that the past few weeks have been a little rough on him and I am hoping that as life settles down so does his cough. He is on antibiotics for them at the moment and I think that will help keep anything icky at bay. I really don't feel up to a hospital stay right now.

Here are a few pictures of little Ana. hope that you enjoy!

Update and Great Strides

We are home! We actually have been for a week but I am just now getting around to posting. Luke's port is safely in place and doesn't seem to bother him at all. The surgery to place it was so easy and Luke had no problems with the anesthesia. I think that the Dr's scared me more than was necessary :)

Luke's cough is much better and I am hoping it stays that way for awhile. I don't want another hospital stay till Baby has been born and is able to walk. Overall I would say that we are at a 'resting' point. Everything seems to be okay and we are just living life.

Tomorrow is a big day though! We are walking in the Schaumburg Great Strides walk and hoping to raise more money for Cystic Fibrosis research. A cure is so close and the CFF needs all the funds they can get to continue with the expensive clinical trials.

I am asking that you donate something to my Great Strides campaign if it is possible for you. It would mean so much to us. Any amount is helpful and nothing is too small. You can donate by clicking the button on the side or going here

It should be fun tomorrow and I will post pictures so you can all see what happens at a walk. I may have to borrow someone's camera though because ours just pooped out. Not cool....

Anyways, I took a couple of pics today with my camera phone. Try not to look too closely at my messy bathroom (going to scrub it down after posting this) or my sheer shirt. Tomorrow I will be wearing another shirt under it, don't worry. Also, I know it is not a maternity shirt. I decided that I wanted to wear it even after I was pregnant so a maternity shirt probably wouldn't work for that. Oh well, the shirt shows off Luke's little sister (who is doing great btw).



30 Weeks- Only 10 more to go!

Awwww, Home!

I am only home for the night but boy does it feel good! Dan is staying the night with Luke and I am catching up on laundry and sleep.

Speaking of sleep, I think that I am going to go enjoy some :)

I will leave you with a picture of Luke being super bored during an antibiotic infusion.







And also Luke looking out his hospital room door. He knows that he is not supposed to leave the room so he will spend quite a bit of time just looking out at everyone walking in the hallways. It's really cute :)

PICC's. Ports, and Poop

I have been horrible at updating but I do have a reason for it! Luke was admitted to the hospital last Wednesday and it has been a roller coaster ride since then. Nothing has come easy this stay for my poor baby. To say that this has been a rough stay emotionally and physically for both Luke and I would be an understatement.

I knew that this stay would be different when they were not able to place his normal arm PICC last Wednesday. Luke's vessels nears his heart have become too narrowed from repeated PICC's and so he can no longer receive PICC's in his arm. Because of this little problem Luke had to get one placed a few days later in his femerol/groin area. They don't allow people to go home with that kind in place so we are going to be here for another week still.

We do not want to have to deal with 2 week stays every time that he gets sick (the vessels won't be good for awhile) and so wee are planning Luke getting a port in the coming week. The surgeon doesn't want to put Luke under until he has finished his antibiotics and that won't be until next Wednesday.

The other issue that Little Man had to deal with was that he contracted Rotavirus and so he was very sick last weekend. He was running a high fever, had diarrhea, was vomiting everything that he ate or drank. I felt so bad for him because I had never seen him like that. He just laid around and didn't even talk. He didn't care if you were holding him or if he was laying on the floor. I have never seen Luke that lethargic or sick. The doctors didn't tell me but they were considering moving him to the ICU if his fever didn't come down. His heart rate was close to 200 and his respirations were very high too.

It's been a few days since his fever broke and he is doing much better. He is still a little irritable but that is to be expected when a 20 month old is stuck in a hospital and not allowed to leave his room.

Luke's new odd thing is that his teeth are turning gray. Yes, that is very odd. Apparently his Iron is low and so they are giving him iron supplements 3 times a day. That is the only thing that could possibly be turning his teeth gray. The Resident is going to be talking with a dentist so hopefully we will have some answers soon. I would really like to know if this is going to be permanent. My poor child will scare all the girls away with his smile!

I will try and post more often but like I have said before, I make no promises :)

I am here!

My cousin pointed out to me that I have not blogged since March. I guess I didn't realize how long it had been since I had taken the time to write down what's going on.

Life is pretty mundane right now and I am completely fine with that. We are busy with doctor appointments and some tests that Luke is having done but other than that life is in a nice pattern. We are trying to figure out why he has a cough but we can't seem to find out what's going on. He has had quite a few x-rays and blood draws along with some extra cultures but everything has shown up clear. His dr has switched some of his meds around and made other prescriptions stronger but still nothing is helping. In fact, right now his poor voice is raspy and going out on him because of all the coughing. His lungs do sound clear though so we think that everything must be going okay with the lungs. Tomorrow I will be calling to check on his cultures so we will know more then.

On Wednesday I am taking him back to CMH so that he can get a speech-swallow study done. Basically that is where they have him drink some kind of drink and then you can watch it go down as the x-ray him while he drinks. No, that is not a good explanation but hopefully you get the picture. He has had this done several times before and the other times he got it done it did show aspiration. The last time however it came back clear so hopefully it will be clear again. However, if it did come back that he is 'silently aspirating' that would explain the cough.

We had some friends over for a great Easter weekend and it was nice to catch up with them.

On the baby front things are great. She is very active and kicking :) I just had an OB appointment today and that went well. Midwife thinks everything looks healthy so I am going to believe her. I am still leaking protein in my urine but she isn't too concerned about that because my BP is great.

I have also been very busy with trying to get everything ready for Great Strides. I am walking in the May 16th Schaumburg Great Strides and I really want to raise more than we did last year. You can help us meet this goal by clicking on the widget on the side of my blog. I really appreciate every penny that people donate. It means so much to me and my family. We are also raising funds with t-shirts this year. You can buy them at www.cafepress.com/lukeslegion. A portion of the sales price will be going to the CFF. Dan designed them and I love them! He isn't too happy with them but I don't care. I like them :)

I hope all is going well with everyone and I plan on catching up with some blogs tonight. Toodles!

Totally Understandable!

Please read this blog entry by Baby Stellan's mom MckMama. I feel that it totally epitomizes what I have gone through with Luke in the past. Just take out the SVT talk and put in lung gunkiness talk (yes, I just made that phrase up).

Please keep praying for little Stellan. I know that his family will appreciate it.

Read and please try to understand how hard this is on the whole family right now.

Please Pray!

I have been following Mckmama for some time now and I really enjoy her blog.

Her sweet little boy has been having tachycardia for several days now and just recently switched into v-tach. Please visit her blog and pray for them today. This is their miracle baby and I know that they are praying he will be completely healed from this heart problem. Thank you in advance :)