My Two Little Loves

Oh my goodness, I cannot tell you how much I adore my daughter and my soon to be son. I know that they cannot see each other yet, but I know already they love each other. She is constantly giving my belly kisses and trying to feel Gavin kick. She snuggles my belly and tells him she loves him. Ayla can't say Gavin quite yet so she just calls him "Gav." It is so sweet. And my little guy Gavin always wiggles so much more whenever Ayla is near my belly. He kicks and rolls, and I feel like thats his way of telling her that he loves her too. I just cant tell you how much joy I get from their little interactions already and he isn't even born yet.

Ayla loves to fall asleep hugging my belly. Today she fell asleep with her head on the center of my stomach and Gavin was kicking her face over and over again. Her head kept bouncing up and down and it was so funny to me. Oh, my kids are too cute. Well, I only have about 6 or 7 more weeks until Gavin's arrival, and although I am incredibly nervous that she will just want to squish him with love, I cannot wait until I can see them together for the first time.  

This pregnancy has been more stressful than I EVER would have imagined it to be, but I wouldn't want my life to be any other way.

Gavin in 3D, Take 2!

We went back to Bountiful Babies Ultrasound in Center Valley, PA yesterday to try to get a better view of little Gavin. It took a little coaxing and a LOT of patience but he actually showed us his adorable little chubby face! I am so happy we actually got some good pictures of him this time!

At first he was buried up against the placenta wall and wouldn't move himself out of that area, but we wiggled him around a bit and finally managed to get a big enough pocket of fluid around him to see his face! He kept puckering up his little lips like he was trying to make a kissy face, and at one point he gave us a peace sign with his little fingers. Oh gosh, he was just so stinking cute. The package we got came with a DVD of the ultrasound and I am very excited to watch it again and again!

If you are pregnant, near Center Valley, and looking for a great place to get a 3D ultrasound, I highly recommend you go here! It was a wonderful place! They also do massage therapy and maternity/baby photography. They also have some really nice specials if you look on their website, and as you can see, I got some AWESOME pictures of Gavin.

Check out their website! http://bountifulbabiesultrasound.com/index.html

Zoo Trip!

This week is the first week in a long time that we haven't had to go to any appointments for Gavin, so yesterday we decided to take a trip to the Philadelphia Zoo. I absolutely love the zoo and my daughter Ayla was so excited to see all of the animals. It was so nice to take a stress free day trip with our daughter before our little guy's arrival. The weather was great and we all had such a wonderful time. 


Ayla and Daddy were very excited to get into the zoo as we walked up to the gate.

We took a little break to have a snack shortly after we got to the zoo. We were too hungry to walk all the way through without something in our tummies!

Since we were at the zoo last, they added the Kids ZooU, which is an educational section for children. They had a butterfly room with hundred of butterflies, a play area, and then outside they had an area with goats that you could go in and pet or brush the goats. Ayla really enjoyed being able to stand with the goats and pet them. She even made a little goat friend while we were there!

Ayla enjoyed looking at the otters and thought they looked like mermaids! We got to the otter exhibit right as they were feeding the otters, and Ayla was very interested in watching them eat. First, they would throw their fish around for a bit, which she giggled at. Then they would gobble up their fish as quickly as possible. 

Ayla loves monkeys, or as she calls them "ah-ah's" (because of the sound they make), so she wanted to pretend to be a monkey! Then we went on to see the gorillas, orangutans, and other monkeys. She liked the gorillas so much she sat and watched them for a very long time. Then she got to see the baby orangutan which she thought was adorable. The baby kissed the adult orangutan and Ayla turned to me and kissed me to copy the monkeys. She is so sweet and had such a fun time watching them.

When we saw the snakes, Ayla loved pointing out how their tongues moved and mimicked them as well. She had to show me how funny their tongues were. Then she saw this one snake and she thought that its nose was the funniest thing she had seen all day. I was able to get this absolutely adorable picture of her turning to me and giggling about the snake's nose.

And of course her favorite part of the day was seeing the lions. She had been asking about them since we got to the zoo and she just loved looking at the lions. It stood with the male lion and just looked at him for a while, roared at him a bit, and did not want to leave when it was time to see the next animal. 

Overall we had an amazing day at the Philadelphia Zoo. It was a great day for our little family. And as a bonus on top of the day, Ayla was doing so great with her potty training that she went all the way through the zoo without peeing in her diaper. She waited until we made it to a bathroom at the end of our trip to use the potty. I think after that it is safe to say that my little girl, at 2 years and almost 2 months is potty trained! It was a great bonus to the fun day we had!

DuPont!

Yesterday was our long awaited consultation with Dr. Bober at DuPont! I haven't really mentioned much about it so I will give a little background story first. My husband and I joined an OI Parents board on Facebook shortly after we found out about Gavin's condition. We introduced ourselves and gave a little information to the other parents about where we had been going and what was going on with our son. Every single parent was overwhelmingly recommending that we go to the DuPont Clinic and meet Dr. Bober, who they said was amazing with skeletal dysplasias and OI specifically. They said that DuPont is considered an "OI Center of Excellence" and that we should most definitely meet with the team there if nothing else. 

We spoke to the fetal coordinator Tammy who set everything up for us. She scheduled a consult with Dr. Bober, a consult with the cardiologist whose name I believe is Dr. Thacher, and also set up a tour of the DuPont NICU and of the Ronald McDonald House across the street. 

First we met with Tammy and Dr. Bober. I have to have a small side note and say that Tammy was one of the most caring and sincerely wonderful people I have met. She was so unbelievably helpful and stayed with us the entire day. She is amazing. Okay, now back to our day. Dr. Bober sat with us for over an hour and really explained so much about OI, the possible health complications that could arise, and the treatments available. He said that Gavin's chest size looks great, but another thing we need to be cautious of is the rigidity of and amount of fractures on the ribs. If there are too many fractures, this is a sign that the ribs will not withstand breathing and that would most likely be a lethal case. The strength of the ribs is also something that we will need to be concerned with, but this is something that we will not know until Gavin is born. Dr. Bober told us that the only one who really knows how things will go after birth is Gavin, and we will have to see how he does. If the ribs are strong and he has no issues breathing, that would be our best case scenario. But he said that most likely there will be some give to his ribs and there may be some respiratory issues. This, however, he said does get better with time. He also made it apparent to us that when Gavin is born he will have fractures and that we will need to prepare for that. They will give him morphine and that will help with pain management. He also said that the first week or so will be a "wait and see how he does on his own" kind of week. We will monitor him and wait until his fractures have some time to heal before setting us a course of action. He may get PAM treatments shortly after birth or 3-4 months after birth depending on how our little guy does. He also explained rodding surgeries and Tammy said that we will get to meet with the orthopedic surgeon to go into more detail about that end of the treatments at a later date. Overall, I left this appointment feeling so much more informed about our baby and what will happen from here on out.

Next we met with the cardiologist and she went over Gavin's VSD with us. We didn't get to speak long with her because we already had the information we needed about his heart. She said she would like another fetal echo to be done before birth and that it seems to her like it is a moderate to small size now and should not be of main concern to us at the moment. 

After that we got to have a tour of the DuPont NICU and actually got to meet a family in the NICU that had a baby with OI. We got to speak with them for a little about how they had lots of concerns and he was born perfect to them. They were worried just as we are now and although he has fractures and its scary, it is so different once your baby is born. It was great to get to see them and their son was absolutely adorable. The NICU itself is a really great space and they even said that we can bring our daughter in to visit with Gavin once he is transferred to DuPont. 

Last on our agenda was the Ronald Mcdonald House. It is not even a minute drive from the hospital and it seems like an amazing place that we will be able to stay for the duration of time that Gavin is in the hospital. There is plenty of play rooms that would be great for our daughter Ayla, meals provided every night for dinner, and you can stay as long as needed while your child is in the hospital. It is great to have such a wonderful resource so we can be close to our little guy while he's in the hospital. 

Overall I am so happy with our meeting yesterday, and we have decided that we want to receive Gavin's care through the Nemours/DuPont Clinic. We will have our delivery take place at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia where Gavin will stay until I am discharged from the hospital. Then once I am discharged he will be transported with a team by ambulance over to DuPont where he will stay until he is ready to go home. I am feeling much more at ease now that we at least have a tentative plan for our little guy. I am very ready for December to come so we can see what our little guy can do!

Finally, Some Good News!

We had an appointment at CHOP yesterday to have another ultrasound to check Gavin's growth and to get a fetal echocardiogram to check his VSD. I was as nervous as ever. 

First we had our ultrasound. They took all of Gavin's measurements and you could see obvious evidence of his fractures on his tibias especially. At least on of his legs bones was almost U-shaped because of the fractures he has had so far. After the ultrasound tech was done we waited to hear the results from the OB. I was just so nervous that his chest growth had slowed down and that was all I could think about. When the doctor came in he told us that the legs and arms were measuring 4-5 weeks behind which was to be expected from previous ultrasounds. He said that the interval of growth was good for how he is growing. Then he said Gavin's chest growth was up at about the 50th percentile this month... and I about screamed out of happiness. The doctor said he remembered that last month Gavin's chest size was only at about the 10th percentile so he must have had a lot of growth in the last month! We have been so worried about the size of his chest and hearing that it had grown so much almost feels like a dream come true! 

One worry down, one to go. 

Next we had our echo to check out the baby's heart and met with the doctor to get the results. The doctor said that the VSD had gotten smaller which is what we were hoping for! She said that she would like to check it one more time around 36 weeks along, but this is definitely good news! 

So overall I am so happy with how our appointment at CHOP went! I think that I am still in a little bit of shock at how much little man grew! We were so happy that we even put our little guy's pack and play together finally! I am hoping he continues to grow at the same rate and that he will be as healthy as possible when he is born! 

Our Baby in 3D!

Saturday afternoon we got to see our adorable little Gavin at our 3D ultrasound. It was so great to be able to have an ultrasound that wasn't super stressful and that was just enjoyable.

He didn't really want to cooperate, he just wanted to snuggle in the position he was in, but we managed to see half of his face and his little arm. It was so great to see his adorable little face and it just made me so overjoyed. And his big sister Ayla was so excited to see him in 3D. She was yelling, "Mommy, mommy, Gav!" It was the sweetest! 

Anyway, because they couldn't really get a good view of his whole face, the woman that does the ultrasounds said that we could make another appointment for an ultrasound to come back for free and try again. So we will be going again sometime within the next few weeks! Yay!

On another topic, tomorrow we are headed to CHOP for an ultrasound and a fetal echocardiogram. We will be checking to see how Gavin's growing, especially his chest and also to check to see if his VSD has gotten any smaller. Will update after our appointment tomorrow!