Lady Bug Hugs

Hello everyone, how are you all? We are having beautiful weather here in the Nati! Getting into spring and the warmer air and being able to play outside!

We've been pretty busy since I last wrote. We followed up with Nephrology. Everything looked really good to them. When we went in her BP was 102/86 still on the high side but not high enough that they felt it needed to be treated with blood pressure medicine. This is a great thing. They want us to follow up with them in 3 months to reassess.

Emma celebrated her 3rd Easter! I got a little choked up in church remembering back to where we were three years ago. God has brought our little family a very long way. Emma got to participate in several Easter egg hunts, which she loved!

Emma is still continuing to love aquatic therapy. She is doing remarkable at it. She is just about to the point where she can get from point a to point b on her own. She is so funny in the pool. She is quite relaxed and not much if any form of motivation can persuade her to move about the pool if she doesn't want to.

She is still doing very well in speech therapy too. Her therapist is very proud of her progress as are we all. She is now counting through 10 which is good. I had her in the pool one day laying on her back and as a distraction we have her count the lights and she started at 1 and worked all the way up to 10. Her little voice when she is counting is priceless.

She is also doing well with OT. Her therapist is proud of the strides she is making. We are working on her being able to get herself out of Pinky (her wheelchair) and onto the ground. She can still only do this though with our help. She can't quite work the seat belt yet. But heaven help us when she gets that figured out.

Emma turned 2 on the 25th. Man how time flies. We of course celebrated Emma on her actual birthday but we also had a Frozen party for her the following Saturday. That little girl is so loved!

We had clinic yesterday. Emma is amazing. She had 3 urology tests that are uncomfortable for her and she was so brave and did so well. I am continually amazed at her strength and fortitude. We followed up with her Urologist and several other doctors, they were all pleased with her progress and we have decided to stop the prophylactic dose of her antibiotic. Praying we don't have an increase in UTI's because of this.

Thank you all for your continued love, prayers, and support for our family but mainly for our little rock star. There is a quote that I love and I am going to hang it in her room but it says "Though she be but little she is fierce" and she is. She is our fierce little girl who doesn't let anything slow her down!

Hi World!

I'm so sorry that it has been so long since I've last posted. We've gotten busy but also Google decided to block me from my blog for several days. They said they have an automatic process that determines possible spam and it was determined through this process that Lady Bug Hugs was spam... hmmm... doesn't make sense to me, I appealed and here I am.

I hope I haven't lost anyone with my long absence. Emma has kept us busy lately. She is such a fun little girl and I have enjoyed each and every day I get to spend with her. She is growing by leaps and bounds. Her vocabulary has expanded ten fold. She is turning into such a big/little girl its so bitter sweet. She will be 2 years old next Wednesday. Where oh where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday Peter and I were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our perfect baby girl. She has overcome so much in her two years. She is a constant reminder of God's faithfulness and provisions to our family. She is the light of our life and I couldn't imagine a moment of life without her in it.

Since I last posted Emma spent 2 nights in the hospital. She woke up one morning crying her little eyes out (totally not usual), she was lethargic and didn't want to do anything but cuddle with me. I took her to the pediatrician and she had tested positive for the flu. I also had them check her urine to rule out a UTI, it turned out she was very dehydrated on top of the flu. They sent us to Children's for fluids and several doses of Tami-flu. Man that stuff must be potent. It worked quickly. Emma was pretty much back to her spunky little self by the second day. They kept us just to keep a watchful eye and make sure she didn't get dehydrated again. We all know how much you can force a 2 year old to drink. YEAH RIGHT...

Emma has been doing very well with her speech, pt, and ot, as well. She continues to progress so well. Her vocabulary has over 110 words now. We are continuing to work on building 2 word sentences. Man that's a tricky one. She's getting the hang of it now though. She says, "go car", "baby up" she counts "1,2,3,8,9,10" and each time its followed with a resounding YAYAYAYAYA!!! She can spell her name too... "E.M.A." she has decided that the second M is just redundant and therefore doesn't need repeating. She might be on to something. LOL!

She had to have a sedated echo-cardiogram done the later part of February. They wanted to make sure her higher BP hadn't caused any damage to her heart and praise the Lord it hasn't. Her heart is perfect. We follow up with Nephrology tomorrow. I'm a little anxious about this appointment because they are going to most likely start her on BP medicine. I have talked to the NP about the cause and they are now believing it is scarring on her kidneys, Last time I posted we thought there wasn't any but they don't have any other conclusions that could lead to her high BP (her neuro was consulted to be safe).

Emma also made a triumphant return to aquatic therapy. She loves loves loves the pool. I was kind of nervous because I've slacked on my end of the deal which was to take her to the pool while we were not in aquatic therapy. I let life get in the way. Her first week was a little rough but she has regained her sea arms so to speak and is loving it.

Thank you all for your continued love and support. We couldn't do it without you. We appreciate your constant prayers for our little girl. Please continue to pray for good health for her. Also that we can get to the bottom of the issue with her BP.

And now onto the pictures.