Meet Baby L!

We have been blessed to adopt this cute little angel. She is such a sweetie! We are so in love with her!

We found out about her around the beginning of May. We felt good about her so we submitted our application for her birth family to look at. A couple of weeks went by and then we got a call that we had been selected! We were absolutely thrilled!

When we saw her situation her due date was July 5th, the day after Wizard of Oz was finished. I thought that even if she came a couple of weeks early it wouldn't be a big deal because we'd be in tech week, finished with the choreography. Well, after we were chosen for her we found out she could come any day!

Allan and I rushed about for the next two weeks trying to get all of our commitments wrapped up. Me with the play choreography, and Allan with Scout camp and work.

We wanted to tell as few people as possible so that if the adoption fell through we wouldn't have to tell very many people. So we just told most people that we had a family emergency and had to get things wrapped up. Everyone was so good, worked so hard, and made so many sacrifices to make it possible for us to leave when we needed to! We live in a great community!

Two days after I finished the choreography we got the call that Baby L was coming. We packed everything up and were ready to head out the door first thing in the morning when we got another call that it was a false alarm, ha! The next day we got a call saying that Baby L was born earlier that morning!

She was born June 7th, 5lbs 8 oz, 18 1/2 inches long! A day after Allan's birthday! Happy Birthday Daddy!

Baby L was born in CA, so we headed out to get her. Little A was quite the champ on our long car ride! She really did great! She was so excited that we were going to get a baby sister!

She was also very excited that she got to sleep in this big bed all by herself!

We got to the hospital the night after L was born. We went straight to the hospital to meet her and then headed to Allan's cousins home for dinner. Allan's cousin is attending the university that the hospital is affiliated with. We are so grateful for them! The Ronald McDonald house was under construction so we couldn't stay there, and all of the hotels with in an hour were full because there were several tournaments and other things going on in the area. His cousins let us stay in their home, in student housing, even though they'd just had a baby of their own!

Little A loved playing with their kids. We spent a lot of time on the swings on the playground right outside their door. They watched Little A for us a couple of times so we could get some of the paperwork done, and they made us dinner several times.

They even took care of Father's day for me, ha! It was such a huge blessing to be with them in so many ways!

Baby L was about a month early, but doing really well. She had an intestinal blockage that was found in utero, so they had to feed her intravenously until after her surgery. She had her surgery when she was 3 days old. It went really well. They had to bypass her stomach for a while and feed her through a feeding tube. She's a fighter though, and she worked really hard to be ready to eat from a bottle. She practiced sucking by using a pacifier and with a little help learned to poop on her own.

Taking out the pump.

L also has a small heart defect that we are hopeful will heal on it's own, enlarged ventricles in her brain (which seem to be resolving on their own), a problem with her blood called TMD (it looks similar to leukemia, it usually resolves on it's own but 1% of cases do become leukemia), and Down Syndrome.

Since her surgery she has continued to get stronger and heal very quickly. She spent 2 1/2 weeks in the NICU and then was transferred to PICN for a week.

Transferring to the PICN

During that time she healed from her surgery, learned to suck and swallow from a bottle, and the doctors were able to take out her feeding tube! She also had three blood transfusions and received platelets to help her blood out a bit.

Allan and I split up our time between the girls, taking turns sitting in the NICU and PICN with Baby L, and playing with Little A. We made sure to always eat our meals together. Little A found a lot of fun things to do at the hospital. Riding in the little cars,

Rocking in the rocking chair,

Stickers, stories, and coloring in the library,

Smelling (and picking) the flowers in the garden,

Painting at the preschool,

but her favorite thing to do was run around the circle outside the NICU. The hospital waiting areas and hallways were set up in a large circle, the middle was windows to the garden. She loved to run around and around that, giggling the whole time.

One day a nice receptionist gave Little A a balloon to play with. She loved it so much she literally squeezed the life out of it! HA! That didn't bother her though, she continued to play with that deflated balloon until I threw it away right before we left!

Little A also loved going to the cafeteria to eat. It was a highlight of the day for her. She was very quickly known as the vegetable girl because she almost always chose the salad bar over pizza or chicken nuggets! The cafeteria people were floored! In this picture She had chosen the salad bar and a fruit and yogurt parfait. She ate all of the fruit out of the parfait and then proceeded to dip her vegetables in the yogurt! Lol! She's too funny when she eats!

We also went out for ice cream one night to celebrate having a sister! The place we went to did create your own ice cream sandwiches. It was super fun and super yummy! Little A was ecstatic about her cookies. 

She thought the ice cream was okay too. Then she saw a family that brought their dog with them and she went crazy over that dog, ha! She wouldn't pet it but she ran over to it giggling and squealing in excitement. The dog wasn't sure what to think about her, but it was a very sweet dog.

Funny story about little A. Allan was lying next to her one night helping her to fall asleep when she started pushing him off of the bed. He sat up and she promptly put her stuffed kitty in his spot! He asked where he was supposed to sleep and she pointed to the floor, ha! He laughed pretty hard and obliged her! 

Little A went on an elevator for the first time. When we got off she collapsed to the floor in tears! After that every time we went by the elevator she would cry and yell "No"! I think it may have thrown her equilibrium off. She's got pretty sensitive ears. She loved the stairs though.

We also spent one day at the Ronald McDonald house. I'm really grateful that we couldn't stay there because I'm not sure what we would have done with out the park at Allan's cousins house. The Ronald McDonald house didn't have any swings, and Little A was terrified of their slides. They had a couple playhouses, but one was too big for her, and that was about it. They have a toddler play room but it was only open at night when she was sleeping. The family room that had toys in it was right next to another family room where people were sleeping so I had to try to keep her quiet, which didn't work well at all. She did enjoy the sticker the receptionist gave her, and trying the helmet on to a bike that was lying around. 

We were playing house in one of the playhouses, and she told me she needed to go potty. I asked if she needed to go real potty or pretend potty. She said pretend and then went to the corner where we were pretending the bathroom was and started to pull her pants down! I stopped her and explained that if we're going pretend potty we don't pull our pants down. She said okay and then peed her pants! We have some work to do learning the difference between reality and pretend! Also, she peed on the astro-turf instead of the dirt! Ug! And I'd forgotten to pack extra clothes that day so all I had was a pull up!

So, the Ronald McDonald house was a fail for us. I do have to say though that it was really a beautiful place, and if it had not been under construction (they had built a new building and were remodeling the old one along with other activities for the kids) it probably would have been a great place for us.

Little A did really well, but it was a tough time for her too. She ended up in bed with us every night, and she had a major (and I mean MAJOR) potty training regression. She is terrified of automatic toilets, and all of the toilets were automatic. At first she did really good about going pee in the potty as long as we were at our cousins house, but eventually she just stopped altogether. We had a few really nasty poop incidents as well.

Our 4th week in I ended up taking little A home so she could have some normalcy. While we were home we went to see the Wizard of OZ, which turned out really great! More on that later.

Baby L had chronic jaundice. It wasn't really bad, but just lasted and lasted, so she had to be under the lights for a few days. It looked like she was in a space capsule, ha! She hated it. Especially the glasses.

An Occupational Therapist came to give Baby L her first bottle. She had a pretty good suck but struggled to swallow without choking. They decided to continue to use the feeding tube for a while and let her keep sucking on a pacifier. When she got to have the bottle again she really went after it! It took her a while to gain the muscle strength to eat a whole feeding but she got there. We were able to leave the hospital without the feeding tube, which was a huge blessing!!!

We did receive training on how to insert the feeding tube, and we fed her through the tube for all of her feedings, which was really easy. Quite honestly it was easier than bottle feeding and took less time too. But, we're relieved that she could learn to bottle feed!

In the NICU all of the babies would just lie there, quietly for the most part. Baby L was the one wiggling out of her blankets kicking her legs and looking around. She was always very interested in what was going on. She loved to be read to, sung to, snuggled, and have rattles shook for her. She rarely cried.

We had really great nurses and doctors. There was one stressful incident involving IV's, forgotten transfusions, and they wanted to put a PIC line in her head, but otherwise it really was a great experience and couldn't have gone smoother. Baby L was really well taken care of.

We got to visit with her birth family a few times before we left. It was always a joy to have them come and visit Baby L in the hospital. They are such kind people. The name they gave Baby L means peaceful, and it really fits her and them perfectly.