Russell

It seems that I have been a little unclear about our little guy so here it goes and if you already know then you can just skip on through. When Russell was 10 days old our pediatrician told us he thought Russell had a form of dwarfism called Achondroplasia. We immediately left there and got a full skeletal scan to confirm this diagnosis. To say that we were shocked does not even begin to describe the emotions of that hard day. I did not even know that I could have a baby with this condition. But since then I have learned more than I thought I would ever learn about dwarfism. Apparently everyone has a 1 in 25,000 chance of having a baby with this condition.

Due to this condition we have had to see a lot of specialists to eliminate some of the common problems that Achondroplasia children have. After we get past some of these hurdles, we hope that life will slow down and not include so many doctors. But unfortunately we have some big hurdles to jump first. Tomorrow we are off to meet with a pediatric neurosurgeon to discuss the narrowing at the top of his spinal column. We don't know much at this time so we are pretty nervous about tomorrow. We have been told that he will most likely have surgery in the next 6 months.

We are all adjusting to our new life and this new journey that has been given to us. I know there are sicker babies and Brian and I are so thankful that he can smile and will hopefully live a fairly normal life but it is still hard. This is something I can't fix or change even though I pray all the time that this could all go away and his limbs would just start growing correctly. And when it is your kid you want the world for them and for everything to be perfect. On my good days I can be rational and think this is OK we can handle this and other days it is all consuming and hard. With that being said and even through the lack of sleep he is still such a laid back, happy guy and we are so thankfully for that. So please keep Russell in your prayers and that all is well.

These pictures were taken of Russell in my grandfather's cradle. Those of you that know me well, know that my extended family has always been very important and dear to me. One of the things that I feel that my grandparents instilled in me is the importance of family and tradition. My grandfather and his brother both slept in this cradle, so did my mom and her siblings and my cousins. Now we are on to the fourth generation to use the cradle. All three of our children slept in this cradle the first 6, 7, 0r 8 weeks. Another reason I love this cradle is the bumper pads. My mom made them for me when we were pregnant with Katherine (we did not find out with any of our children so the pumper pads were neutral colors and were used for all three). She made it in a sort of patchwork style. At one of my showers they had the gifts in the cradle and when it was emptied I could finally see the finished product. I started to cry the ugly cry b/c she had used some of the material from my grandfather's favorite shirt in the design. He died a year before Katherine was born. I love that not only did my babies use my grandfather's cradle but a little bit of him is still with the cradle. *This was just a fun shot, he does not really sleep with a pillow nor does he sleep in the cradle anymore. :)