Merry Christmas and a Sophia Update

I know it's a day late...but Merry Christmas everyone! The girls had a great Christmas. Gabi woke Jason and I up at 7am and was full throttle the rest of the day! We had to force her to take a nap because she was so wound up! Christmas was so much fun this year because Gabi actually appreciated it and had fun!

On Christmas Eve I took Sophia in to Dr. Wellman's office to get her blood pressure taken. I think after seventeen months, I have finally found the key to helping us at his office...Gabi. She was such a wonderful big sister. She opted to get her blood pressure taken before Sophia, so that she wouldn't be scared and so that she saw that it didn't hurt. They also showed me how to us it so that the nurse could walk away and I could be the one to push the button! It actually didn't take us too long, even though we did learn that since Sophia is such a hard read we have to have it on the adult function rather then the pediatric function! Her blood pressure was still pretty high for her age and her repair, but it was lower then it was when we went on the 15th...such a relief! On the downside, but also an upside so I don't have to worry about it, on the way to Dr. Wellman's office I got a phone call from Seattle. I hesitated to answer, okay, I didn't answer it, I let it go to my voicemail, partly because I was working on getting the girls out of the door to get to Dr. Wellman's office and partly because when I saw that 206 area code I knew exactly what it was and I didn't want to deal with this on Christmas Eve, let alone when I was home alone with the girls. Anyway, Sophia's cath, but probably stent procedure is scheduled for January 21. We're looking at flying down to Seattle on January 20 and returning around the 24th. They want her to stay in the hospital overnight and then stay in Seattle for a day. I'm trying to find the silver lining in this situation, like we aren't being medivaced and there is great food there, and I may try and sneak a visit to my cousin Kim while I am down there and I am doing a pretty good job of it. It still sucks though! So if you are in the Washington area and want to see us...let me know :0)

Cardiology Appointment

Today has been a very long day! Sophia had a cardiology appointment today and it took almost two hours! If there are any other heart mommies that read my blog and have suggestions on getting a good blood pressure read, I would love to know. It always takes us 6-7 tries to get her blood pressure, which is one of the most important things we need to get, but today it was almost impossible. We tried about 7-8 times before her echo and we just weren't getting ANY readings. We tried her on the bed and we even tried me holding her for a little while and that didn't even work. She was so upset and worked up that we decided we would wait until after her echo to try and get a read. She did okay for the echo, after Dr. Wellman put in Baby Einstein. Dr. Wellman wasn't happy with the readings he was getting from the echo and wanted to try and get her blood pressure. Of course it STILL didn't work, after 2 or 3 more tries we finally got her blood pressure and it was horrible. It was 130/91! Unfortunately we got this reading twice, so these are the numbers we kept. Dr. Wellman wasn't happy with this either, obviously, so he also did an EKG. With all of these it confirmed that her stent is not doing well. Dr. Wellman thinks it is almost time to go back to Seattle and get the stent replaced. He is sending the information to Seattle to have Dr. Jones look over it and see if we need to go down soon or if we can wait until our appointment scheduled with Dr. Wellman in March, yes MARCH. This makes me VERY nervous and I am sure I will be calling the wonderful ladies at the Alaska Children's Heart Center constantly attempting to get reassurance.
Other then the fact that this obviously isn't good news, Dr. Wellman said Sophia looks good.

Birthday Photos

Big Birthday Girl

Gabi is becoming such a big girl, although I have also noticed that she has become more and more hyper! We had Gabi's birthday party today and it was so much fun! We painted Christmas ornaments, made arts and crafts and decorated Christmas cookies! Here are some photos of my big girl...I still can't comprehend that she is 4 by the way! :0)

Mended Little Hearts Christmas Party

Yesterday we went to the Mended Little Hearts of Alaska Christmas party. It was a lot of fun and it is always super heartwarming to see all of the other CHD kids. Here are a couple pictures of the girls from the party!

She's Not A Baby Anymore!

Now of course Gabi hasn't been the baby in the family since Sophia was born, but she will always be my baby girl! I didn't realize that I would be so emotional with Gabi turning 4, but I sure was!!! She reminded me several times today that she wasn't a baby anymore and she is a big girl! I will definitely post more pictures after her party on Sunday, but I wanted to post a couple pictures of the birthday girl today!