The post I've been waiting a year to write

This week marks the one year anniversary of Libby's second surgery that she had at 2 and a half weeks old to finally fix her Duodenal Atreisa.  Several days after that surgery, in the midst of despair that she would ever get better and come home (it had been 3 weeks after all and she had shown NO improvement when the average stay for most babies was 3 weeks), I fond this post.  As I read it, I couldn't wait for the day when I could post my own update, when life would be normal, our family would be complete and the surgery and hospital stay would be a distant memory.  I am so happy to finally be able to write that post and to say that day is here!

So one year later here we are!  We've gone from this:

Libby, 2.5 weeks old hours after surgery

To this!

Libby, one week shy of 1 yr old

I get asked constantly by friends who haven't seen us for a while how Libby is doing and if her surgeries and hospital stay have had any lasting affect on her.  I am thrilled to report-NO!  Libby is a 100% normal little baby girl!  She is the expected 6 weeks delayed-she is 12.5 months old yet she doesn't stand, cruise, walk, or talk but once you adjust her age, that's normal.  She's getting there.  We see her getting stronger and smarter daily.  And as far as feeding issues, she really doesn't have any!  She eats 3 meals a day, snacks on crackers, and nurses whenever she wants to.  She is tiny but then again Anne was also small so it's genetics.  She also seems to have a more sensitive stomach-when I've given her dairy or eggs she's thrown them up or spit up more often.  But all that means is we need to be slower and later about introducing that stuff.  She had reflux that we treated with medicine until she was  months old.  She was on the lowest dose possible and we took her off of it as soon as she showed us she wasn't having discomfort anymore.  The only scary blip we've had all year long is when she had a stomach bug (surprisingly, much like the post I linked) a month ago.  She spit up mouthfuls of slimy stomach acid and I sobbed hysterically while rocking her, telling her it was okay while all the while making plans to spend the next few weeks in the hospital getting her intestines repaired again.  Thank GOD that all it was was a normal stomach bug, stomach acid, and NOT a re-blockage (which is very rare but can happen).  Within a few hours Libby was taking and keeping down fluids again and pooping and peeing.  (All signs there is NO blockage).

So I am so thrilled to post this post, to say that we are a year later, Libby is perfect, our family is complete and best of all, life is NORMAL!