Merry Christmas!

So, we took Riley to her first visit with Santa. As you can see, she had a really rough time with the whole experience.

Election Night

Wow, what a day! History was made. No matter how you voted, that fact remains. We are very excited. Stephanie got to the polls this morning at 5:55am and there were already about 120 people in line. After being there for about an hour and a half, her vote was cast. John was home with Riley and went a little later. He was actually in line only about 45 minutes. After work, the lines out here were about 2.5 hours long. People were still excited to be there though!

Senator McCain gave such a gracious speech. We were proud of him.

We are entering a new phase in our country and we are looking forward to it!

First Halloween

So Riley got to experience her first Halloween. We didn't go Trick-or-Treating. What would she do with the candy? I know what we would do. :-) And that wouldn't be helpful.

As you can see she was as cute as a little pumpkin. It was kind of warm here, so she didn't get to wear it very long. She got to wear it last Friday night to the Harvest Festival at her daycare. Everyone ooohed and ahhhed over her. In fact, she got a prize for her costume from the director of the daycare. We were so proud! She also got to do several crafts (heavily assisted of course), but it was still fun.

On the downside, she had to go to the doctor Monday because she has another UTI. She is on antibiotics 3 times a day and of course she is not happy at all about that. Bless her little heart! She will finish up this round on Thursday and hopefully it will be the last one she ever gets. That's what we pray anyway.

One Month Later

Now, one month after the surgery, Riley is doing great. We all are. As we now near the holidays, we're looking forward to many firsts . . . Riley's first trick-or-treat experience, her first Thanksgiving and of course, her first visit from Santa.

Stay tuned for more pics to come!

Update on Riley's Surgery

Well, it's Wednesday - the morning after Riley's surgery - and she appears now to be on the mend. The morning of surgery, as you can imagine, is an experience that no parent ever desires to go through, and the hardest part was letting her go. That being said, we knew that she was in excellent hands, and we knew that so many of you were lifting her up in prayer.

While we know that she's not completely "out of the woods" yet, she definitely is on the road to recovery. The first day and night were rough, but Stephanie was able to stay with her and be there with her throughout the night.

Today, she's starting to "talk" again and every once in a while, we even get a smile or two. As of now, we're not sure if she's heading home today or tomorrow, so once we know, we'll keep you updated too.

Thank you all who lifted her up in prayers, and to those of you who came to join our family during this procedure, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

We love you all.

John, Stephanie, and Riley

Labor Day Weekend

The addition of Riley in our lives has been such a blessing. We love her to death.

Steph is now back at work. We've lucked out to an extent where she and I are each able to work from home 2 and 1 days a week, leaving Riley with a good friend of ours the other 2 days.

As many of you know, Riley was born with a spare part in her body - a third ureter (second off of her right kidney) - a duplicated collecting system - and unfortunately it has not developed in a way that has been good for her. About two months ago she went in to have a Renal scan. The results showed that her right kidney was not fully functional and that her healthy ureter off of the same kidney was experiencing reflux . . . essentially that one-way valve connection on the bladder is allowing the urine to move back up into the kidney, which is bad.

After much prayer and consultation, we've elected to move forward with a surgery where her urologist will remove the non-functioning portion of her right kidney, and a significant portion of the non-functioning third ureter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ureterocele. This procedure is one that is not that uncommon, and has shown to have a fairly good success rate.

Over time, the hope is that the area of the bladder that is under stress from the ballooning ureteracele will get relief once the fluid subsides, and at that time the affected muscles will be able to start working the way they are intended to.

With Labor Day upon us, we are now looking at approximately 3 weeks to her surgery. We ask that you keep her and the surgical team in your prayers. She will be in surgery Tuesday morning, September 16th at 9:00 a.m.


Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

6 weeks PP

Today Riley is 6 weeks old. She is absolutely amazing. It's hard to believe that we were ever without her. She has enriched our lives in so many ways. We just stare at her all the time.

She's doing very well with feeding and gaining so much weight! She was 11 lbs at her last checkup on June 16th. She isn't overweight though, just really healthy.

We don't know yet what kind of surgery she is going to have to have for her duplicated collecting system, but she is still taking her antibiotics and doing very well.

I was in labor with her for 22 1/2 hours. I pushed for 3 1/2. She was born at 6:28am. She weighed 8 lbs 7 ozs and was 20 1/2 inches long.

I will try to keep up with this better. I need to schedule it so I don't forget it. We'll see!