Children's of Alabama

This post is a little different than the normal Carter updates.

Today I would like to talk about an important part of our world as of September 2010. We have been blessed to be a part of the UAB and Children's family. I began going to UAB's Women and Infants Center in September to have targeted ultrasounds done to closely monitor Carter's growth and progress through the last 4 months of my pregnancy, to include a procedure and delivery. They have an amazing facility, some of the sweetest nurses, and skilled doctors that are eager to educate not only their residents, but the parents with whom they are using as their teaching examples. As scary as it was to have a room full of nurses, nurse aides, residents, and doctors when I delivered Carter, I am glad that they were able to have that experience with this rare condition. UAB's Regional NICU is top-notch, and Carter was kept comfortable until his transport to Children's. I was treated like a queen after delivery, and they even did a special "Celebration Dinner" for Josh and I both before I was discharged (every couple gets this... but it feels like a very big deal!).

I have a love/hate relationship with Children's of Alabama. I hate that we have to be there, because that means my child has some serious problems and is not well... but I love that I can trust them. I remember talking to a friend (who has been a frequent flyer mom at Children's more often than I can imagine), and she described how she felt when taking her son who'd been burned to the ER there. She said as soon as she hit the elevators she felt at peace, because she knew they were close to the people who were going to fix everything. I catch nurses all of the time that have on shirts for her daughter, who's been battling cystic fybrosis. This is not just another hospital - this is a family. These nurses don't forget their patients, and they work hard to ensure that the children and parents alike are comfortable during the stress of being sick and away from home. These doctors are among the best in the country, and if they aren't the best, they typically have a close working relationship with the best and can reach out when necessary. Yes, we have to drive an hour and a half and sometimes wait extensively for the ER, clinic visits, testing... but it is worth every mile, every minute, and every packed bag.  I can't imagine trusting my son with anything less than the best. I can't explain to you the excitement we get out of the events that they have at Children's Harbor while we're admitted... they make passing the time so much easier! And the $400 million expansion project that will be finished in August makes me absolutely giddy (even though the wing we're usually admitted to will probably not move to the new building). We were even able to sign Carter's name to the final beam that will be placed in the new facility!

This looks SO cool at night. 

I can't wait to walk this.... NOT! But what an amazing structure!

I'll take a minute to brag on some of the recent awards our specialties recently received:

Among "The Best Doctors in America" were mentioned our:

Neurosurgeon - Dr. Wellons

 Urologist - Dr. Joseph

Neonatologist - Dr. Coghill

In the "Best Children's Hospital's U.S. News & World Report Magazine", Children's of Alabama had the following ranked specialty clinics (that we see):

#11 Neurosurgery

#22 Nephrology

#23 Neonatology

#25 Urology

#39 Orthopedics

You can see more here.

Also, this year is Children's 100th Anniversary - 100 years of caring for children. We're proud to be a part of this milestone, and blessed to be a part of the Children's family!

ONE

Guess who turned ONE today?! That's right - CARTER! It's hard to believe that a year ago we were learning of the details of Carter's condition. It's all such a blur. I remember visiting him in the RNICU at UAB, where they kept him sterile and stabile. They called to tell us they were transporting him across the street to Children's NICU. Then they called to let us know he was settled and we could visit over there. They gave me a temporary discharge and wheeled me to the truck. We got a quick run-down of NICU do's and don'ts from our nurse. After that there were phone calls to my hospital room to inform us of his first surgery and receive my consent. I had not even done any research on his condition, I only knew that he was in the hands of an experienced doctor and a mighty God, and prayed they'd take care of my baby. They called again after surgery to let us know how it went - perfect. He recovered quickly. All of this happened in the first 2 days. I was discharged, and we began our Birmingham adventure as NICU parents, visiting as much as we were able, driving home as little as possible, and thanking the Lord for the Ronald McDonald House and amazing friends, co-workers, and family for allowing us those options. For one whole month my sweet boy was in the NICU. Little things excited us... like the nurses telling us he could wear clothes finally, or his graduation from an incubator to a crib, and a new name tag a nurse took her time to make. One month, three surgeries, and one infection later, we were bringing home a healthy boy with a colostomy, vesicostomy, and a pretty line of stitches down his back. We've had ups and downs for the remaining 11 months... times where we never thought we'd be well and at home for the back-to-back infections, and times where he seemed like the most healthy and happy child on the planet and we couldn't even picture him in the hospital with an IV in his scalp. He's been such a trooper... a truly tough little man. Now he has three teeth, a headful of hair, and he can army crawl and roll like crazy. He laughs and gives funny looks, and hates vegetables. He can quack like a duck, and bok like a chicken. He can hold his "Little Light of Mine" up and make the Spider that goes up the water spout. He loves to patty cake, and gives the best mouth-wide-open-wet-sloppy kisses. He has brought Josh and I such joy and fulfillment, and I can't fathom my world without him. Happy birthday, sweet boy.

 I had Carter's teacher snap this picture when I dropped him off at daycare today... I'm typically behind the camera.

Carter's new bike. Josh couldn't wait til the party to let him have it! 

 So cool!

He looks like a pro. 

Taking it for a spin.

Watching Sesame Street for the first time - ZONED. 

"Are y'all watching this?!"

Carter's First Christmas

CHRISTMAS. WAS. AWESOME.

 AWESOME!

AWWWEEEESOME!

Carter was exhausted, excited, and absolutely enthralled by Christmas.

We have enough toys to man a small army of children, and need to rotate some of his "baby toys" out of the living room. The place has turned into a war-zone of blocks, zoo animals, and books. Santa brought Carter a zoo playset complete with safari car and animals that tell you what sound they make. Do you know what a giraffe says? Apparently it sounds like it's munching on food....

Opening presents is hard work!

We kicked off Christmas Eve with daddy getting home so we could go over to Meemer's for breakfast with the fam. We had Meemer Billie, Papa Gerald, and Grandma Julie in town from Florida. Heather, John, Ryland, and Ella were a special delivery from Germany... especially Uncle John, who managed to come home "early" from a deployment in Iraq :) This was his first time meeting Carter, and C was absolutely crazy about him! I wish we could've captured on film the look Carter gave Heather every time they interacted. It was a PRICELESS scowl.

 Mav with his present from mom

That night we did Christmas with the Hill side of Josh's family. Always alot of fun. KK got some great pictures of C, and even caught one of Josh (smiling!) with his sister!!

 Josh & Steph

 Carter & Pop

Christmas morning was a blast. I woke Carter up at 7:30ish so he could get started with his presents from us and Santa. He was not a fan of bows on the presents... so we had to tear those off before he'd commence with taking the paper off. He ate a bottle on the way to Meemer's, where we met three patiently waiting youngin's who were bursting at the seams to open their gifts. Carter loved watching the big kids open their presents, and of course he got to tear into even more gifts of his own. AND THEN... we went home and Josh's family came over to do EVEN MORE Christmas! After all of the excitement, you would think C would have absolutely passed out... so we put him in bed... and he talked to himself and rolled around, and after about 20 minutes, he started crying to get up. The boy never took a decent nap all day. He followed me around the house as I picked up trash and put up toys and made (the world's best homemade) mac and cheese for Christmas dinner at my mom's. He played hard again with his uncle and cousins once we got over there, and was lively all through supper. By the time we got him home, bag changed, bathed, and in bed, he gave up the ghost. He slept hard until 8am the next morning.

Christmas-wasted.

Josh worked yesterday and today, so C and I hung out with my mom, dad, and Greyson to ring in the new year... not that Carter lasted until anywhere near midnight :) It's crazy to think that in just a couple of weeks we'll be opening even more presents for home-boys first birthday! It's been a whirl-wind of a year. Josh and I were extremely blessed. He was promoted to sergeant, and I graduated with my bachelor's degree and was promoted. We got married, and we bought our first home. I can remember last New Year's Eve, Josh and I watched True Blood episodes until midnight. I was hugely pregnant and extremely nervous about delivering. We new the challenges we would face with Carter to an extent, but had no idea the joy he would bring to us in 2011. I can't imagine having spent my year any other way than being his mom.

As far as our medical adventures go, we had a post-op check up with Dr. Joseph last week, and it went wonderfully. Everything looks as it should, and we won't see him again until July, Lord willing! Next up is his year-old check up with the pediatrician, an appointment with general surgery to have our MRI read, and nephrology at the end of the month. Carter hasn't gained any weight lately.. so we're trying to chunk him up before the nephrology appointment :) We had a pancake epiphany the other day, and now it's one of his favorite things. Still a veggie hater. Always a lover of fruits and anything constipating and gassy. JOY.

Here are some random Christmas pics from December, and a super-cute video of Carter.

 Downtown Montgomery

 Posing with Santa

COLD.

First sucker. Given by the biggest sucker for this boy - Meemer :)

The Tree

He's so sweet in the mornings.

Also, don't forget to say prayers for my sweet cousins and their angel, Brenna. She's improving by leaps and bounds every day, and defying all the odds. They have a long way to go, but they have the strength and faith to get there.

Follow their story here: http://www.blessedbybrenna.blogspot.com/



Double-dose

There’s a lot to catch up on since my last post.

For Halloween we took Carter to the Candy Walk in Downtown Prattville… the Sayer/Piatt clan had a Wizard of Oz theme, and Carter made his debut as the Tinman.

Tinman

Dorothy

Lion

Greyson

On Halloween night we took him to see Josh’s family, and then met Meemer and Uncle Greyson to go Trick-R-Treating in Pop’s neighborhood. Carter had a good time, and Josh got a lot of candy that he didn’t eat :)

On November 2, we admitted through Nephrology for Carter’s MRI for Dr Harmon. His urine had started to smell funny to me, so we had them go ahead and take a sample just in case. Sure enough, it was another UTI starting. He did really well with his MRI, which took about an hour, and woke up quickly. However, he had been snotty, and the meds they gave him while under anesthesia stopped him up pretty badly. To top it all off, Josh ended up sick with the stomach virus while we were in the hospital, and so did Carter. However, we all made it home well by Saturday in time to watch the Alabama/LSU game. (I had the stomach virus the next week…)

Cool headband!

Sleepy boys

"Big Al" at Children's Harbor

The following week was quiet but frantic as I prepared for my trip to Maryland, and my first long stay away from Carter. I left Sunday and didn’t come home until Saturday… it was a work trip for an Intern Conference. We had a really great time, but I was so glad to get my hands on my baby on Saturday! :) Josh and Meemer handled him like pros, of course. The next week was the week of Thanksgiving, and Carter made his first trip out of state. We visited my cousins in Valdosta, GA, for the second year in a row. Our family has been doing Thanksgiving there for the past several years now. It’s gorgeous and quiet, and we have bon fires and the boys go hunting. Carter enjoyed being passed around, playing with his cousin Nathaniel, and being outside. He even got to play with some kittens… while I tried hard to convince Josh to take one home with us :) This year we had a lot to be thankful for. Carter made it into the world safely, and has overcome major obstacles this year. I graduated from college. We got married. And we bought our first home.

Eating cheese puffs

Sweet kitty

Shoes!

Playing!

Monday we headed back up to Birmingham to check in through Nephrology for the second time in a month – this time for Carter’s urology surgery. We had our nephrology clinic appointment with Mary Jane before we admitted, and his labs showed an elevated white blood cell count, so they did another urinalysis to check for a UTI. Nephrology warned us that if it came back positive for UTI, urology may reschedule the surgery once the infection cleared up. Of course, his urine is always dirty, and our urologist made it clear to us that he would NOT have treated Carter again if it weren’t for the surgery, but that he didn’t feel it was a risk to go ahead with the surgery… We trust this man completely and gave him the go-ahead. Carter’s feeds were stopped at midnight on Monday night, and he didn’t go down for surgery until almost noon on Tuesday. We surprised him with a pillow pet that we received from one of the craft rooms at Children’s before the surgery to keep his mind off of being hungry. The surgery lasted 3-4 hours and he did extremely well, as usual. Dr Joseph was super-pleased with the way things went. Originally, he thought we would take a phased approach to this part of Carter’s problems, but he managed to descend both testicles, circumcise him, and fix the urethra opening that was slightly misplaced. All of this was done laproscopically, so we had no incisions to clean or deal with. Carter has three “holes” across his tummy, and one in each side of his scrotum. The stitches are all dissolvable, and the only wound care we have to do is to put polysporin on the circumcision area. It’s already healing up wonderfully (today is a week since surgery). He’s a little swollen and bruised, but otherwise is fine! It took him a very long time to wake up all the way from surgery, and we started him with water to make sure he didn’t get sick to his stomach after the anesthesia. He didn’t have a real feed for nearly 18 hours, and never fussed about it! We would have been able to go home Wednesday, but had to wait until Thursday for the final culture to come back on the UTI. This time we came home on two antibiotics for two bugs.

Night before surgery

Will Laugh For Food!!

Waking up

This is serious, mom

Saturday Carter went to his first parade! We met the Sayers for the Prattville Christmas Parade, and then had dinner with them. He enjoyed being outside, petting their dogs, and eating green beans at supper.

Carter is almost 11 months old. I’ve started planning his birthday party… which is blowing my mind. He’s still a happy baby, but is starting to get a little attitude. We still have to fight with him to eat his bottles. He’s not a fan of a sippy cup. He likes fruit baby food and not vegetable, but LOVES table food vegetables. We’ve started giving him toast, graham crackers, and the baby cheese puffs. He still won’t touch juice in a bottle or cup, but loves it in his oatmeal. He’s now able to army crawl to get what he wants, but rolls where he needs to go even faster. He loves the Christmas tree and his Elf on a Shelf. He bangs toys together, throws them, shares them with you, and gives his stuffed animals kisses. He’s started reaching for people he wants to go to, and is still shy in big groups and loud or unfamiliar places. He and Maverick are finally getting used to each other…. Mav is now calm around him and will let Carter pet him without licking his whole face, and Carter isn’t as scared and talks to him through the kitchen door often. Speaking of talking, we still have no English words out of Carter’s mouth, but he babbles and giggles constantly. I love this chunky man more than life, and enjoy seeing him grow and learn.

Coming soon – Carter’s first Christmas. We can’t wait! We have a follow-up with Dr Joseph the end of December. The first part of January will be busy – One year pictures. One year check-up. Birthday party. The middle of January we have a follow-up with Dr Harmon to discuss the MRI findings. And the end of January we will take another trip to see Ms Mary Jane to check on Carter’s kidney.

Please pray that we make good decisions concerning Carter’s upcoming care. The next year will definitely bring more surgeries, more recoveries, and more struggles. Pray for peace and understanding as we go through the coming year with this little angel. Pray for strength and healing for him. Pray for us financially – we have both been blessed with wonderful jobs, and so far have managed to stay on top of the constant influx of hospital statements. Pray that this boy will gain weight (we’re still being bullied about it)! Pray for us to have patience as he starts getting more mobile and getting into things, and developing his personality and attitude :)

I’ll try to update more frequently… this was a huge gap! Enjoy time with your families, and have a wonderful holiday season!