Mommy's Little Helper

Yesterday Tanner started doing a couple new things. In the same day! (oh I'm so proud)

While I was feeding him lunch he was reaching for something on the counter next to me. I gave him the lid to the baby food jar to see if that was what he wanted. Yup. He started playing around with it while I was feeding him. I happened to be holding the jar kind of close and all of a sudden he put the lid on the jar! I couldn't believe it for a second until he took it back off and it turned into a game of putting the lid on and taking it back off while I was feeding him. He sat there and ate and capped the jar for probably a full 10 to 15 minutes. Wow.

Then after lunch we were playing around with his Mega Blocks. I got them out thinking he may be wanting to start stacking things. He liked banging them together and throwing them around more than trying to stack them though. I think them clicking together like Lego's was a little difficult for him. (mental note, we need to get him blocks) So I started throwing some of them back into the bag since he seemed like he was getting bored of them.

Then this happened:

Not even 1 yet, and he's already putting his toys away! Although it is a game for him, but never too early to start good habits right?

Also something else that I just thought of that he has been doing for maybe a week or so. I have been working on teaching him to turn around and go down stairs, the bed, the couch and so on, backwards. I knew it would take a while for him to catch on, but he finally did it!

He was playing on the bed with me one morning and he started crawling towards the edge. I started getting a little worried because of past experiences of him nose diving right off the side. (Luckily our bed is very close to the ground. I guess you could say it is kind of an Asian type of bed to get a picture of it. It also has a ledge going around the side as well that he is able to step on. He's very good at getting on the bed himself.) Anyway! Just as I was about freak out and grab him since it looked like he was going to sit up with his butt going off the edge, he started to turn around! He was able to get his legs off the edge and slid down to the ground all by himself.

After my heart went back down from my throat I was so excited that he finally did it. He has been getting pretty good at it ever since. It is very exciting, but I am getting more and more scared of him being able to get around by himself even more. Eep!

Our Experience with CHD

Our Story:

Tanner was born February 3, 2011. As far as we knew prenatally, he was perfectly healthy. After his birth he was still a perfectly healthy baby.

The day we were supposed to be discharged from the hospital and go home with our healthy baby was a day I will never forget.

Our pediatrician came to us in the hospital and told us that he could not feel his femoral pulses (in his legs), and was worried that it might mean something.

So we went to the NICU to have tests done and it confirmed that there was something horribly wrong with our baby's heart.

We were life flighted to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah where they performed more tests and found four different issues with his little heart.

1. Coarctation of the Aorta: Part of his aortic arch had a pinch in it that did not allow enough circulation. Later on, we found that it was not just a pinch but a bigger part of the aortic arch was very narrow.

2. and 3. ASD (Atrial Septal Defect) and VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect): Holes in the septum of his heart. The septum is the wall that separates the right side from the left side of the heart. He had a hole in both the upper and lower chambers of the heart which allowed blood mixture between oxygenated and non-oxygenated blood.

4. Subvalvular Stenosis (also called Sub-aortic Stenosis (SAS)): Ok, this one is hard to explain... it is one of the parts of the wall of his heart where one of the holes are, grew to the side and created a "flap." This flap was now almost blocking the aortic valve and needed to be removed or stitched back so that valve could get circulation and grow.
We ended up being life flighted to the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles to have the surgery done at 7 days old. We were lucky that he has only needed to have one surgery and hopefully no future ones (knock on wood).

This whole terrifying ordeal lasted about 3 weeks (not to mention all the doctor appointments afterward and for the rest of his life). We got home from LA the day before he turned 3 weeks old and we finally had our newborn baby in our own house.

Tanner is now a thriving healthy boy. It almost seems like he never had a problem with his heart at all. I am so happy that he is doing so well, but there is always the elephant in the room in the back of my brain that will always be stressing and wondering if something else will happen as he grows.

Our experience with Tanner's CHD (Congenital Heart Defect/Disorder) was the most petrifying experience of our lives. Another heart mom said this one day and I just love it. She said that she never thought about heart defects or wanted to be a part of the CHD world before our child was born. But now that he is here we would not change our experience for anything.

There is a CHD board on Pinterest that has many more stories of other children and adults that have been affected by CHD. You can read their stories here.

Help spread awareness for CHD week! February 7th - 14th!

51 weeks

As of today, Tanner is 51 weeks old.

That means one more week and this little guy will be one year old!

Taking a Walk on the Wild Side.

Eleven days short of 1 year old.

Are you kidding me?

This is so fun! Yet so terrifying!

Heart Mommy Dinner

I was able to go to a dinner that a bunch of heart moms had put together so we could meet, get a break and talk. It was not an official IHH event, but we were able to get many of us together nonetheless.

If my thinking is correct, I want to say there were probably about 25-30 of us there. Some of them had already left before we thought to get a group picture together, so some of them are MIA. Sorry!

It was so nice to be able to finally meet these beautiful women. Most of them were "heart moms" like me. In which they also have a child or children with a CHD. Some of them have angels that are no longer with us. There are also "heart kids/adults." One came that was a heart kid herself and one of her children also has a CHD.

It was very informing to be able to speak with these ladies about their children and what they have gone through, and have yet to go though. The strength within these women was palpable and extended to each one even more.

I am so excited that I was finally able to meet some of these women. I look forward to many more activities that we are going to be doing together, and for the love and support I already feel from them.

What Happens When Playing Under a Blanket.

Tanner and I got under a blanket and had a grand old time.

Especially his hair.

 So much fun!

And I even got a shot of his 5th tooth!

11 Months Old

1 more month and you'll be a year. I can't believe it.

You are standing, saying "da da" and also cutting our 4th tooth. (sorry no pictures or videos of this yet, you're quite the wiley minx)

I love you so much, I never knew this kind of love was possible.

xoxo
mama

Already a Streaker

Happy New Year!