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Abby's getting bigger!

Abby's First Photo Shoot




We had a photographer come in yesterday to take pictures of Abby. She is from an organization that photographs very sick newborns, and our social worker organized everything for us. It was wonderful!!



The photographer did a great job of working with us and waiting on Abby, and we had one of our favorite day nurses yesterday who was wonderful with unhooking Abby and making things look as natural as possible. She even got permission to take out her feeding tube for the shoot! We were able to have Abby unhooked from the vent for short amounts of time so that only her trach collar was visible, and that was really nice. We could see her entire face without a bunch of tubes! We were even allowed to dress her, which we haven't been able to do at all. Abby wore the tiniest white dress with pink trim that my sister brought over, along with little white socks--that are actually meant for a doll!! Naturally, she had a matching pink bow. She looked beautiful!



I think we got some really nice pictures. We did a lot with Caleb and some with just us, as well as some with Abby by herself. For those who know the picture we have of Caleb as a newborn in Matt's hands, we repeated that with Abby. I also got some pictures with a bracelet my sister gave me last week that says "With God, all things are possible." I hope those turn out nicely, because I have a vision in my head of what I want them to look like! :)



She will send us the disc in a few weeks and we will have all of the rights to the pictures, so we can print, email, and post them!



We are really thankful to this organization for donating their time to take pictures of Abby. We are so excited to see them!

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 6:45 PM, EST

One of our favorite daytime nurses (who also happens to be a Calvert County native!) found a cure for Abby's fussiness...bundling! They wanted to put her in an isolet, but she convinced the nurse practitioners to let her try this first. It worked!



Abby was all wrapped up in blankets and just as snuggly and comfortable as could be. I held her for almost two hours and she was just very calm. This is a big change from the agitated state she has been in more often than not recently.



Even better: now we can dress her! Yay for cute little baby clothes! :)



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Monday, November 8, 2010 5:51 PM, EST

Abby had an Upper GI done today. This needed to be done before she got her G-tube anyway, but they decided to do it earlier to rule out any major reflux problems. She has been spitting up a bit and they wanted to make sure it wasn't a bigger issue causing it. The final results haven't been reported, but everything looks good preliminarily!



Tomorrow at 4:00, we have a family meeting with the geneticist, the neonatologist, one of the nurse practitioners, and one of Abby's nurses. We want everyone to be able to share information and discuss next steps. Please pray for this meeting!! We are hoping to get everyone on the same page so that we can all work toward the same goal of making Abby a healthy, happy little girl! We are especially interested in hearing what they have to say about where her long-term care and surgeries should be. Since there is so much about this syndrome that is unknown, we are struggling to find the best place for her.



Thanks for praying! We have sooooo appreciated the cards, emails, messages, gifts, food...you are all so wonderful!



My mom posted the RMH address in the guest book at one point, but several people have asked me for it. Here it is...Caleb loves when there is mail in the mailbox! :)



Ronald McDonald House

Room 318 Matt and Julie Leach

635 West Lexington Street

Baltimore, MD 21201

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