Bath Time

Now that Ella no longer has her cord we are able to give her REAL baths and not just sponge her down. It has made things so much easier and much more fun because Ella LOVES her bath. She loves to just sit back in the warm water and relax. Here are some cute pics Taylor took of her bath the other night.

What a Blessing

Our Family

Ella with her Aunt Rosey

Last Sunday Ella had the privilege of being blessed by her Uncle Cooper. Cooper did an amazing job even though Ella screamed pretty loud the entire time. Taylor's mom and his sister Rosey were able to come down from Washington to share in Ella's special day. Her Grandpa Nolan made sure she looked like a princess and bought her this gorgeous dress and Aunt Michelle made sure the brunch was awesome by making all of the food. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to this wonderful day!! It really couldn't have been any better.

Even though the last few weeks have been trying, I can't say enough what a blessing our little girl is in our lives. Every morning when I go to get her out of her crib, she greets me with a big smile like she just couldn't wait to see me again. We love her so much and I could never imagine what we would do if we didn't have her. She was truly meant to be our baby. We love you Ella Bean!!

Growing and Growing

With Grandma Roberts

Sleeping with my Uncle Cooper

My little family all snuggled up

In my adorable snow suit

Snuggling with Daddy

Here are a few new pics of Ella. I still can't believe how fast she grows. Every day she looks so much bigger than she did the day before.

Resting Easy

Things have become a little more relaxed in the last week. Not only have we managed to get Ella on a routine and sleep schedule but, we received the last bit of results from her blood work and all is well. Looks like she just had a really stubborn umbilical cord. Now if we could magically get the plumbing fixed without paying an arm and a leg I think we might even start to see some smiles again :)

Getting Better

This morning I went to change Ella's diaper and when I went to pull the diaper down so it didn't touch her cord, I noticed that it was gone!! Her cord finally fell off!! We still haven't received her lab work back yet to see if she has L.A.D but this is really promising news!! Things may be looking up at the Riley house!

Cut The Cord

Let me first start by saying that the past 6 weeks have been some of the hardest and most trying of my life. Not only did I have an extremely difficult delivery and recovery with Ella, but I have also had to deal with the general frustrations of being a first time mom all while the plumbing in my darling yet extremely old house decided to completely break. (we had the pipe that connects to the main line under the house break) Just when I seriously thought that things couldn't possibly get any more difficult for us I got a scary call from Ella's pediatrician. So here is what is going on...

Last Monday I took Ella in to the pediatrician because she was 6 weeks old and her umbilical cord still had not fallen off. No big deal really. The Dr. put some stuff on it to freeze it off and we were on our way. The cord would fall off in a couple of days and all would be good. Or so I thought. On Wednesday the pediatrician called me back and said that when she saw Ella's cord something wasn't sitting right with her. She said that the cord didn't look like anything that she had ever seen before. Not wanting to freak me out at the time she decided to do a little research. After looking into it further she contacted a pediatric immunologist at Primary Children's. The immunologist recommended seeing Ella as soon as possible because she thought that Ella may have what is called Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency. I had never heard of this before so the pediatrician recommended that I look it up online to get more familiar with it. When I looked it up my heart just sank. Basically this condition is an extremely rare condition where the body is unable to fight off bacteria. This could be why her cord isn't falling off. There have only been 400 reported cases in the world. But the part that scared me the most was that all of the infants who have had this were normal healthy babies. They were not born premature, they were on track developmentally, and had no problems with weight gain or eating. But, more than 75% of those babies died before they reached their first birthday. There is no medication for the condition and the only treatments are stem cell and bone marrow transplants. I know that we still have to do the blood work to know for sure but just the thought is making me sick. It's all I can think about. The immunologist office said that they couldn't get Ella in until May 4th but we are doing everything that we can to get her in sooner. I can't wait a month to know if this is what she has or not.

I know that we all have our trials but I honestly feel like I'm going to have a complete meltdown. I know that many of you think that I may have some postpartum depression and at this point I would say that you are probably right. With everything that is going on right now I don't see how I couldn't. We were finally able to get Ella on some what of a sleep schedule and now I'm not sleeping because I'm so worried about everything else. It's just been so much at once.

Calling All Mom's

Ok all you mom's out there, I am in need of some help. How in the world do you get your babies on a sleep schedule? Ella is a great sleeper in that she will sleep for a good 6 hours straight. The problem is that she doesn't like to fall asleep until about 3:00 in the morning! Up until this point we have just kind of worked around it hoping that we would be able to get her on some kind of a schedule. I just figured that she was a newborn and in time she would get on better sleeping terms. So for the past 4 weeks I would go to bed around 11:00 pm and then around 5:00 am I would wake up and Taylor would then come to bed and sleep until around 11:00 am. This as you can imagine, is not a good sleep schedule for anyone including Taylor and myself. Now I'm starting to freak out because he is going back to work next Monday and I can't be up all night and then be home alone with her all day too! I don't know what I'm going to do. I've tried to keep her up during the day so that she will be tired at night but have you ever tried to force a 5 week old baby to stay awake? It's impossible!! So we decided that we were going to start a routine where we would feed her, change her bum, turn on some lullaby music and just leave her in her crib to fall asleep on her own. We started at 10:30 tonight and she literally spent the last two and a half hours in her crib screaming! I changed her twice during that time so that she would be dry. Each time putting her right back into her crib and turning her music on. Now granted she is asleep now which is two hours earlier than normal however, she is almost ready to have a bottle again so I'm afraid the sleeping silence is not going to last long. This went on last night as well. At this point I'm discouraged to say the least and completely exhausted. I don't know how to fix it! If any of you have some advise for this stressed out first time mommy it would be greatly welcomed!

Cutie Patootie!

Here are some new pics of our little cutie! I can't believe how fast she is growing. She is getting so big so fast. Moxley absolutely loves Ella. She is very protective and always is so concerned when she cries. I'm truly so blessed to have such a great little family!

Just Kickin Back

Taylor went to check on Ella while she was sleeping and found her like this with her arms behind her head. Too cute!

Amazing

This man is AMAZING!! I can not even begin to imagine what I would do without him. Not that I didn't think that he would be a great dad but, I have to say that he is the most amazing daddy to Ella. He is always willing to take on diaper duty, make bottles, give baths, feed her, get up with her in the middle of the night, anything that she needs. All of this is done on top of helping me recover from a major surgery and dealing with my crazy post pregnancy hormones. I'm completely weepy and cry all the time and all the while he just sticks by me and tells me everyday that he loves me and thinks that I'm beautiful.

Babe - Thank you so much for being the most amazingly wonderful husband and dad!! I'm so grateful that you have been able to spend this time at home with me and Ella. I could never get through this without you. You are my best friend and I love you more than I could ever tell you. I know that Ella does too!