The Life of the Rorabeck's

This is our fussy little man! Very much different than our girls were when they were babies. They were very laid back; he is very fussy! He always wants to be held and fusses if you put him down! Once he's asleep(if you can get him to sleep), you can put him down for a bit, but once he wakes up, he thinks he needs to eat or be held.
He LOVES to eat and wants to eat all the time, which explains why he already weighs 12 lbs at only 6 wks. He's a chunk!
We are trying some things to see if there is a cause for his fussiness or if it's just his personality.... one being me having no dairy! It's hard since I love my milk, but its worth it to continue nursing him!

The last pic of him on his belly is the one thing that actually really comforts him other than his pacifier! He loves being on his belly and he loves his nuk!!!!

e

Well, we are back from Chicago and are adjusting to our 8th and FINAL cast! Thats right, I said FINAL! Hadley's back curve is down to a 8 degrees! The dr. fitted her for a brace while she was asleep and are making it in the mean time. We will be going back in 12 wks for her apt to have her fitted and to take her home CAST FREE! :) What a miracle God has done in Hadley's life! He took her from a dangerous 74 degree "C" shaped spine and corrected her to a nearly straight 8 degrees! We are in awe of his work with Hadley and pray he uses her in this situation for His glory!

We had a bit of a scare last Tuesday!
As a bit of background information: Hadley would not be able to have been casted if she had any sort of cold, fever, or any sickness. It is dangerous to be put to sleep while being sick. (For whatever reason I did not know). So, for the couple wks before she was casted, we were very protective of her of getting sick and germs she came in contact with. Everything so good, until a wk before she got casted, Mianna came home with a cold(Prob. from school). We did our best to control it from not spreading to Hadley and I think we did pretty well. Grady got it(poor baby was only 2 wks old), I got it, Mianna had it, but Hadley never got it(we thought).
So, we went to Chicago thinking we were in the clear of sickness! Casting morning came and everything was going very smooth. Her lungs sounded great, she didn't show any signs of being sick....
Then it was time to go in the pre-op room and unfortunately Grady couldn't go in so I just went in with Hadley and Andy stayed out with Grady. They did their normal routine with her, but again the hardest part was the departing. This time, they did not carry her back, they strolled her out on her bed as she screamed, "mommy!" It was a definite heart breaker for me as I fought back my tears.
While she was back there, we went down for some breakfast and coffee, then came back up and waited in the waiting rm as normal. The dr came out and talked to us like he usually does. Said Hadley was down to a 8 degrees, but they had a lot of problems with her with the anesthesia and she had a lot of Gunk in her lungs! He said the anesthesiologist would be out in a min. to let us know more about it. At the sound of hearing the word, "problems," my heart skipped a beat, I felt like throwing up, and balling my eyes out at the same time! One minute, two minutes, THIRTY minutes passed and still no anesthesiologist came out.... We took turns pacing the halls passing the recovery room to see if we could hear her cry, but no cry was heard! We were left in fear, suspense, and worry! The time had now doubled what she usually would have been in there for! Finally somebody came to talk to us! We were told that one of Hadley's lungs collapsed once she was put under. The Dr. said that everything was fine putting her to sleep, but once asleep, she stopped breathing. The anesthesiologist had to give her breathing treatments and scrape her lungs in order to keep her breathing. She said she almost had to cancel the whole casting procedure, however, she got her breathing steadily so they were able to still do it. She said it could have been a number of reasons this could have happened. #1. It could have just been a bad reaction(though rare bc this was her 8th time being put under and her 1st time having this reaction), #2. fluid from crying could have gotten in her lungs causing one to collapse, or #3. she could have been at the start or end of a cold though having no symptoms. That's when we both knew it had to be the start of a cold since she was the only one who had not gotten it yet! Who would have thought that having a cold let a lone a cold with no symptoms could have caused our baby to stop breathing while being put to sleep! No wonder why they are so strict about it!

The good news was that she was ok! They got her breathing, got the gunk out of her lungs, and she was now in recovery! Praise God! The Dr said she didn't think she'd have any more problems since she was now awake, however, they took a chest xray of her and sent it to their pediatrician, who we had to see before we could leave there in order to make sure she was ok.

In the mean time, Hadley finally came out of recovery! What a relief to see her! She did great when she got out. No tears! Though she could barely talk since they had to jam the tube up and down her throat several times! But she tried. She said, "new cast." And she was very proud because she picked blue being hers and Mianna's favorite color! She was such a good sport! We got her Popsicles, padded and taped her up, and went down for some lunch while waiting to hear from the pediatrician. Once we finally talked to her, she explained pretty much the same things that the anesthesiologist explained, then we could leave.

It was a very scary day for all of us, however, we are thankful God protected her and kept her safe and also brought her curve down to a 8 degrees!

Hadley is one special little girl! God couldn't have chosen a more perfect little girl for this trial! She is so understanding of needing to have a cast and accepts the limitations she has to have. Though she LOVED her cast freedom for the wk and all the baths and swimming, once she got her new cast on, she was proud of her new look as well! She simply tells us, No bath, cast on! And when cast is off, I swim! She's such a good girl about it.

A couple cute notes:
-When Hadley first stood up in her new blue cast, as she almost fell over, she says, "woah, cast heavy!"
-Since Hadley was on some new and more pain medication bc of all the issues we had this time, she was very out of it! As we were taking the elevator down to the cafeteria, the door opened to let us out, Hadley ran right into the side of the elevator wall! I grabbed her saying, are you ok? Thinking she was going to cry being such a hard hit, but she just says, "i'm ok!" So unlike our drama queen waiting for us at home! ;)
Then after we got our food, I was carrying the tray to our table as she was following me. As I kept glancing behind me to make sure she was still following, another lady passes us going the opposite direction. Hadley got this confused look in her eyes and started following that lady! Poor thing thought that was me! I yell out to her, "Hadley!" and she stops in confusion and turns her direction once again to me! Poor girl!

Thank you for all your prayers and support! We appreciate it! God has answered our prayers!
We will be enjoying next summer swimming, taking baths, doing some sand, etc! She has to wear her brace 20 hours a day giving her 4 hours of freedom every day that she has not had since 10 months of age! :)

Here are a few pics:

Last bath for another 12 wks!