Little setback

Well, we've had a bit of a setback with Caden's clubfeet. While he was healing from the sores the first abduction brace caused, his feet relapsed. A relapse which was made worse by his Arthrogryposis. His heels tightened back up. We had an appointment at Shriners today, and he'll have to have his Achilles cut. They set us up for it next Tuesday.

It's an outpatient procedure; they'll put some numbing cream on the backs of his heels then let it set for about an hour (which is when the effect peaks), then they take him up to the OR and give a shot of lidocaine (the cream numbs him so he doesn't feel the lidocaine injection), after which they make about a 1/4 inch cut, move aside the tissue and stuff from the tendon, snip it, close it, and then immediately cast his feet to hold them in place so the Achilles can grow back to a longer, looser and proper length. He'll have to keep those casts on for 3 weeks straight, no changing them every week like we did in the beginning.

Poor Nugget, with new casts on it's back to the sponge baths. We won't be able to have fun full-dunking bath time anymore for a little while :( I really believe stuff like this is way harder on mom than it will be baby!

365 days, one little miracle

I was updating Caden's little event calendar tonight and something struck me as I looked at the date. One year ago today, I lost our last little one. That was miscarriage # 3 for us, and I thought for sure that that meant that I just wasn't destined to have children. It was always such a struggle just to get pregnant, and then when we did, I'd lose them within weeks. I almost didn't want to try again; I wasn't sure I wanted to go through the heartache again, wasn't sure that I could. But we did end up trying again, and after a lot of extra care from my OB and some extra medication to help, the gorilla glue finally stuck fast and we were blessed with this a week before Christmas:

Is he not the most yummy baby you've ever seen? Can't tell that I'm biased at all :) I cannot imagine loving something so small so much, so completely, so fast after first meeting him. It took 365 days of pills, some morning sickness, extra doctor's visits, and a lot of worries to do it but he's here, he's ours, and I wouldn't change anything about him, crooked feet and all, for anything in the world and I'd do it all over again just to snuggle him close and have him giggle in my face. I love you, little Nugget!

Blessing Day

I know I've been slacking on updating this. Here are some of the pictures from Caden's blessing day, February 8, 2009:

It was so wonderful. The blessing made everything so much more real. He really is here, he really is ours. It's so humbling to think that my Heavenly Father trusts me enough to send this special guy, with his special needs, to me to take care of for Him. Talk about overwhelmed.