UAB visit and Update on Baby D #2

We took Carden down to UAB on Tuesday, 7 Sept 2010 to see Dr. Cogen. She will have to have eye surgery since her right eye turning in is the result of a muscle and focusing problem. Surgery gives her the best option to have normal vision in the right eye. She will still need to wear glasses to correct the focus, but may eventually grow out of them. I’ve been hoping and praying that he would say that all we needed to do was keep her in glasses, but know that she is in good hands. One of the girls in her daycare had the same surgery by the same doctor and you can’t even tell that she ever had any eye problems. It has been nice having another mother to talk with about my concerns and fears. I so appreciate her sharing with me. We have to patch Carden’s “good eye” for a few hours a day to help strengthen the “bad eye” before surgery. Sunday was our first attempt at patching and to our surprise; she did really well with it. She only cried when we first put the patch on and then when we tried to remove it. Deep down I think Jason and I were afraid that she wouldn’t be able to see so it was much more stressful for us.

Jason and I celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary on September 1. We took a trip over to the Shoals Marriott in Florence over Labor Day Weekend and it was so nice to get away by ourselves and just relax. We were able to catch up on some much needed rest.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baby D #2. We’ve narrowed down our list of names to three names—Campbell Ellis, Grayson Ellis, or Harper Ellis. We will wait until we see her before actually naming her, similar to what we did with Carden Elizabeth. We both agree on the middle name, Ellis, but have our preferences for first names. The hardest part of this pregnancy has been trying to figure out names! We would have been all set if we were having a boy! I just can’t wait to see what she looks like. I think the girls will look exactly alike or completely different. Dr. Aguayo is going to perform an ultrasound at 38 weeks to see if we can get an idea on the size of Baby D #2. If she looks like she is going to be big, we’ll induce sometime during the first weekend in October instead of waiting until my due date of the 15th. We made an attempt at maternity photos but Miss Carden was not interested in participating, so we didn't get any great ones of the three of us. She had more fun picking flowers and running around in the grass barefoot--guess we should have stayed inside for the pictures! We have not done a very good job of taking photos to document this pregnancy, so it was important to get a few decent belly shots towards the end of the pregnancy. Maybe Carden will cooperate more when we do new family photos once Baby D #2 arrives.