Spring in Alberta



View of our street this morning...YUK!



Just when things were looking up...we get MORE snow! Addie and I took a trip down to the farm yesterday for a visit with grandma and grandpa B only to awake this morning to a blizzard. That's right, I said it - a blizzard on April 14th, a time when flowers are blooming in most of the rest of civilization! Grandma and grandpa were quite worried about Addie and I making the trip back to Edmonton this morning, but when you live in Alberta you just have to learn to drive in ridiculous weather conditions. We made it safe and sound, time to put the rubber boots back in the closet and retrieve the uggs for a little more use...<UG!>



Addie loves snuggling with grandpa



Addison had lots of fun with grandma and grandpa, she is really loving being free from that harness, evidenced by how much leg kicking is going on! She is also reallly loving the fact that she can take a daily bath now (her most favourite thing in the world!). She could be in a right fit, but put her in the tub and she quiets right down and starts cooing. She started smiling last week and this week her face just beams when you talk to her, it is very cute.



All snuggly in her warm towel after her bath



No surgery date has been booked yet, we went for our six week check up yesterday and the doc said she is doing great, growing well and meeting all her milestones save for those bum hips! She has started already at 6 weeks old to try and roll a bit, which scared grandma this morning! The doctor is going to check with the Stollery to see if they can do two surgeries on her at once, she was also born with a bit of a skin tag on her right ear that they want to surgically remove, so if she has to go under for her closed reduction why not see if they can't kill two birds with one stone! Once they have that sorted out, we should get a surgery date and be able to start planning for that. On the bright side, she will be so distracted by the spica cast following surgery she won't even notice her ear, although they have reassured us that the surgery on the skin tag shouldn't hurt her at all. I hope this weather improves so we can spend some time outdoors with Addie before her surgery...let's face it, we are all ready for winter in Alberta to be over!



Some Links of Interest for Those Interested

We have received lots of questions about hip dysplasia (and have had lots of questions ourselves) since learning Addie had DDH. Following are some of the sites that we have found or been pointed to that have some additional information:

http://www.hip-baby.org/
http://www.hipdysplasia.org/default.aspx
http://spicacast.com/

As we have been looking for information for ourselves we have also come across many other parent blogs and have come to understand that many many kids go through this and we do feel lucky it was caught so early and are optimistic that before we know it she will be through it and running around in no time!

A Little background

Addison 6 days old all dressed up to go home from hospital

On February 26, 2011 my husband and I welcomed our first child...a beautiful little girl that we named Addison. She came into the world through a difficult delivery that ended she and her mum in the hospital for a week following her birth due to a blood infection her mum developed during labour. That first week in hospital was very difficult because the doctors were concerned that Addie may have contracted the infection as well, so she was very closely monitored, hooked up to IV antibiotics and poked and prodded a lot (poor little bean)! When we were finally able to take her home we were so thrilled, it was such a great feeling to have her home with us and get this family act on the road!

The following week I took Addie in for her two week check up and my doctor started asking me about whether or not there were any hip issues in our family. My husband's sister had hip dysplasia as an infant which was caught at 6 months and corrected by wearing a brace for three months. My doctor decided to send us for an ultrasound that week to check into little Addie's hips and to also check her kidneys as she was also born with a little skin tag on her right ear. Following the ultrasound we got the good news / bad news. Good news was that her kidneys were gangbusters, no issues there but nothing prepared us for the bad news... both of her hips were dislocated and the orthopeadic surgeon was reccommending we put Addie in what is called a Pavlik harness for three weeks, at which time we will do another ultrasound to see where whether or not the harness was working as it needed to.

Addison in her Pavlik Harness

The day they put the Pavlik harness on my little angel, I cried....a LOT. Her dad was also very emotional. It was so hard to see our perfect little girl confined to that harness. It looked like some kind of medieval torture device, but the doctors reassured me that it didn't bother her at all and was not as bad as it looked. Well Addison didn't get that message, as she had two pretty fussy days. She was inconsolable the first day she had it on but by day three she was getting used to it (and so was her mum and dad). Each week we had to visit the doctor at the children's hospital for a harness "adjustment" and after three weeks we returned for another ultrasound. This ultrasound, unfortunately, did not give us the news we were hoping for. The radiologist informed us that her hips had shown no improvement. So, back to the orthopedic surgeon we went. Yesterday the surgeon removed the pavlik harness (which was great!) but gave us information on the next step which is what is called a closed reduction. The closed reduction is a surgical procedure during which they will put Addison asleep, inject dye into her joints and try to position the hip joints into place manually. Following surgery she will be placed in a spica cast which goes from just below her armpits to her ankles...poor beanie!

Finally out of her Pavlik

While I am so happy to have my little squishy baby back free from her harness, I am very scared about the closed reduction and how she will tolerate the spica. Let's face it, I am concerned about how I am going to tolerate the spica! According to our doctor, they will try to do the surgery around 3 months of age. Addison is now 6 weeks old, so I have promised her that she is going to have daily baths and lots of skin to skin cuddling for the next six weeks!