The results are in

Although everyone that's ever known us, with the exception of about 5 people (and 2 of those 5 are under the age of 3), thought that we were having a boy this time around, they were ALL WRONG.  Baby Young #2 is a GIRL!

Some pictures from our low-key reveal (no Pinterest nonsense here, folks):

Goofballs, both of them: 



Side note: Mason, our nephew in the picture above, is absolutely the sweetest boy I have ever met in my life.  He's a rough and tumble sports-loving little tough man, and he has the biggest and sweetest heart imaginable.  His mission in life when Emma is around is to entertain her and make her laugh and smile as long and hard as possible.  I pray that all of you reading this blog will be blessed with children as loving and accepting as he is.  Mason gives me hope that other kids will see far, far, far past Emma's wheelchair and her upcoming back brace (uuuuggggghhhhhh).

And what would life with the Youngs be without another project?  I have Larry Young's vision for how great things can be; yet, sadly, his own son doesn't.  Russell is dreading this, but I have told him that if they can just get it here, I will do the rest.  And my mom is dying to get started on it, too.

 

 

 

I know, I know, it looks like a lot of work...but case in point: I don't have any before pictures, but here are the after pictures of some antiques that were so old that one of them was stuffed with straw and were covered in some pretty hideous fabric.  They needed A LOT OF TLC.

 

 

 

I don't claim to be good at interior decorating, nor do I possess the artistic skills to create something out of nothing...but I DO have the vision.  I can't wait to see how Emma's and baby girl's playhouse will turn out.  There's not a lot Emma can do outside: the wheelchair is nearly impossible to steer through grass, dirt, sticks, and leaves.  And what 8-year-old will want their parents helping them into a swing?  This is her chance to have something really, really cool and fun outside.  The playhouse has PLENTY of room for Emma to maneuver her wheelchair around inside, turns and everything.

 

And the latest fun and cool inside toy: Emma's walker.  It finally arrived, and she wants to walk all the time.  She gets tired pretty easily, and it takes some effort to get her twister cables on, but she loves it.  Here's the first walk of the day (notice the wet hair - her bribe for getting an early bath was to get to walk.  So happy that's what she's motivated by!)

 

 

One more thing...don't forget that the URL to the blog will change VERY soon to http://oneyoungtwoyoungs.blogspot.com

 



How things look these days

Finished and festive, in that order:

 

 

The old laundry room that was once a gross dungeon is now a walk-in utility closet!

Crafting is Emma's new favorite pastime with Nan:

 



Remember...

...that soon I will be changing our blog post URL to http://oneyoungtwoyoungs.blogspot.com.  Write it down or go ahead and bookmark it.

We will be letting the world know the sex of baby #2 on Friday night/Saturday morning, and I will probably change the URL of the blog around that time.

I don't honestly believe that I have hundreds upon hundreds of followers out there; I do, however, believe that we have been blessed with loving friends, family, and acquaintances who have been following Emma's journey and praying for her for almost four years now.  I would never want to cut these people off...these people who have invested so much of themselves in our sweet little girl.  So thank you to everyone who has kept up with Emma, left comments, text messages, emails, Facebook messages, and, most importantly, prayers.

Happy Hawwoween!

How about some Halloween pictures?  It was really hard to get many of Emma the cupcake because she was on the move.  Here are a few that I took (again, bad photo ops) during the process of making her costume and of the final product, along with some pics that I borrowed from other people who took pictures of her, too.

 

 

These girls look thrilled, don't they?  And why I couldn't get a normal smile out of Emma?

 

 

I adore this sweet picture of Rose, the mouse, in her mousetrap.

 

 

Emma's somewhat photo bombing Rose with a peace sign.

 

 

 

And this is the best pic I got of Elsie, the octopus.  You can't see her precious face, but please take notice of the eyeballs on top of her head.

 

 

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Let's start with the good bit: Emma is getting her very own walker!!  She now slides down off the couch onto her feet, and she loves to stand up like that.  She randomly decides she wants to stand up and thinks it's such a thrill now that her balance is improving.  She still doesn't have enough hip, knee, and ankle stability or balance to be able to walk unassisted, but walking with her very own walker is much more than we ever thought she would be capable of.  She is doing amazing things at therapy, and no one ever expected she would accomplish so much.

Emma is finally getting to know the names of some of the kids in her preschool class.  She is a pretty independent player, so she likes other kids, but it's not totally necessary for other kids to be around for her to be happy.  She gives us canned answers about school now, though, sort of like a middle-schooler.  "Emma, how was school?"  "Good."  "What did you do?"  "Played."  "What did you play with?"  "Toys."  "What kinds of toys?"  "Toys."  So even though we don't get a lot of feedback about school, we know she loves it by how excited she gets on school mornings and by how easily she leaves us in the dust once she gets there.

Emma might turn into that kid who says that her favorite subject in school is recess.  She is on a different playground than she was on last year, and there is apparently a great hill on which she loves to climb.  She pretty much comes home looking like this every day:

 

 

And check out the AFO's.  That black spot on the bottom is a chunk of dried mud.

 



She doesn't really scrape her knees up, just gets good and dirty.

What else is our little darling doing these days...she LOVES to sing.  But really only if she knows the words to a song.  She's not one of those creative kids who makes up her songs...apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Ok, so on to the bad bit.  Emma's scoliosis was about as bad last year as it is this year.  I don't want to go into how I found that out and why it was overlooked.  Argh.  So our next step NOW is two-fold: first, a back brace.  Emma had a cast done as a mold for the back brace, and this is another story I'd rather not go into because it was so horrifying.  Let's just say there was messy cast goop from her pelvis up to her chin all the way around her body, x-rays in that cast, and a saw that cut it off from her pelvis moving up to her face.  We will get that brace in a few weeks, and we are NOT looking forward to it.

The odds of a brace working to correct/prevent future damage from scoliosis are slim on children this young and this severe because it's so horribly uncomfortable.  You're supposed to wear it all the time, even though it inhibits movement (you know, cause we don't deal with that already) and it's really, really hot.  I expect that I will have to buy tops a size up to fit over the brace.  Emma's scoliosis is higher than most, so that is an even bigger risk of the brace NOT working.  We have a backup plan with a titanium rib that can be done in Columbia if the brace is a complete failure.  But the rib requires surgery every 6 months for adjustments.  However, it's the best thing going to surgically correct scoliosis right now.  We'll just wait and see how this brace does first.  We will have to periodically take off the brace (which is a PAIN) to check for pressure spots, even though she will have a skin tight Under Armour-type shirt underneath.  Here's what the brace will generally look like, but I have a feeling Emma's will be more "invasive" than this little girl's:

Second step: re-evaluate Emma's syrinx in her spinal cord.  The syrinx could cause the scoliosis, or the scoliosis could cause the syrinx.  Emma will have a full spine MRI the day before Thanksgiving so that Dr. Troup can take a look at everything that's going on with her brain and spinal cord to determine if draining the syrinx will be helpful.  He's been waiting on symptoms to appear for 2 years, and he has always been 50/50 about draining the syrinx in the first place.  I'm hoping he will just go ahead and drain it and get it over with.  But I'm no neurosurgeon, so I will follow his lead.

Ok, that's all the bad news I can handle giving you for now.  Let's leave on a positive note.  Emma LOVES to watch Daddy's team of old guys and the high school boys practice basketball at church.  I couldn't tear her away the first week of practice, and she gets really excited about fast breaks.  The second week of practice was a little easier for me to get her to leave, but a meltdown was very narrowly avoided.

October 21, 2013 - a date to remember

October 9, 2009 was the worst day of my and Russell's lives so far.  Hands down, THE.  WORST.  It was the worst news we had ever received...that our precious baby had spina bifida, a birth defect I had heard of but really knew nothing about.  It was a Friday afternoon.  We were in an ultrasound room of a maternal-fetal medicine office, summoned there after my second trimester blood screening came back with a neural tube defect indicator.  The ultrasound confirmed it.

Fast forward 4 years to October 21, 2013 - one of the best of days of my and Russell's lives so far.  Hands down, one of THE.  BEST.  It was some of the best news we had ever received...that our precious baby did NOT have spina bifida, a birth defect I had heard of a million times and knew way too much about.  It was a Monday morning.  We were in the den of our house, preparing for the day's work and waiting for a phone call.  The blood test confirmed it.

Ok, fast forward a little more to yesterday, November 13, 2013.  We went for another high-level ultrasound at the same maternal-fetal office in the SAME DREADFUL ULTRASOUND ROOM.  Just to be sure that the blood test didn't lie, my belly was gooped up 3 times with gel to take all the measurements and pictures that they possibly could come up with.  I heard that DREADFUL CLICKING NOISE of the ultrasound keyboard when the ultrasound tech took measurements and pictures.  I smelled that DREADFUL SMELL of the ultrasound gel.  It was all too familiar.  And if it wasn't bad enough, we had to wait almost an hour to get back there.  And the one doctor on call was the one DREADFUL DOCTOR I specifically requested never to see again after seeing him once with Emma.  I guess they don't pay much attention to those types of requests four years later.

And what a different outcome yesterday...not dreadful at all.  Wonderful, in fact.  Brain ventricles, heart ventricles, heartbeat, kidneys, spine, hands, arms, feet, legs, etc. all look just fine.  And I hope to never set foot inside that DREADFUL office again.

Oh, one other outstanding thing about yesterday is that Russell and I found out the sex of the baby!  But no one else will find out until November 22.  We have our reasons.  The two of you who read this blog will have to wait like everyone else.

Last thing (and I will post this several times): I am changing the title of this blog to One Young, Two Youngs, Three Youngs, Four.  It doesn't seem appropriate to keep the Life With Sweet Baby Young title anymore because I will have two sweet babies.  I will continue to focus on Emma but certainly won't exclude our new blessing.  In my head, the title is reminiscent of an old rhyme or a song or something I once knew, but I can't remember exactly what it was.  Any ideas? The url for the blog will change to http://oneyoungtwoyoungs.blogspot.com.  Write it down.