Ada: Age 2

Snippets from my journal entries during Ada's third year:

24 months
At her 2 yr. checkup she weighed 24.1 pounds and was 35 inches tall. That's the 20th percentile and 85th percentile, respectively. The doctor was impressed with how Ada knew her numbers, shapes and colors and said she'd be bored in kindergarten! We need to schedule her next echocardiogram soon so we can have her VSD checked out and hopefully it will be gone!

We bought her some shoes this weekend and she wears a size 7 shoe now! They seem to fit her really well though and give her plenty of toe room and they don't leave ridges on her toes. I like that they have good arch support too because of her flat feet.

Today we took Ada swimming at the pool at the gym. She was afraid to walk on the floor in the locker room and was nervous in the pool at first, but then she loved it. Abe was teaching her to jump off the side of the pool, but mostly she would just step in. She liked to kick her feet in the water. We didn't put her under the water because she is afraid of that. She doesn't like water to run down her face during her bath - it scares her.


28 months
Next week we take her to see the pediatric cardiologist here in town for another checkup. They will probably schedule another echocardiogram for her then too.

Last week I took her to her appointment with her pediatric cardiologist. The EKG was abnormal and the doctor said it could be nothing or it could be an enlargement of a chamber or dilation of a valve and ordered an echocardiogram. We took her to the echo yesterday. She did great through the whole thing and stayed really still. We should have the results back from that in a week or so. She weighed 25 pounds and measured at 34.5 inches.

On Monday we got a call from the pediatric cardiologist's office that they wanted us to come in the next morning to go over the results from Ada's echocardiogram. We figured this meant something wasn't right with the results. Well, we had some good news and some bad news. The good news: Ada's VSD has spontaneously healed and it's all gone for good. The bad news: She has something new that is wrong: a PDA (Patent Ductus Arteriosus). It's very unusual that she developed it now at this age. Normally it is just found in newborns, especially premature babies. It was not seen on either of her two previous echoes. We are going to see the Chief of Staff pediatric cardiologist at the hospital about an hour away in about 6 weeks for his opinion. He will likely recommend she have a heart catheterization procedure done to resolve this problem. She'll have to stay overnight, but overall it sounds like a fairly simple procedure. Might need surgery if the catheter option won't work. But it is not open heart surgery since a PDA is just outside the heart by the pulmonary and aortic arteries. The risk with PDA is getting an infection in that spot which is very dangerous. She also had a chest x-ray done today that the doctor requested. They had to put her in this awful contraption that was plastic that encased her with her arms above her head so that she would remain still. Ada cried and kept saying, "I'm scared! I'm scared!" Course I was behind the wall crying too. :-( It didn't take very long at least. Overall, Ada did really great the whole time we were at the hospital. At the very end she got some stickers to take home with her and that made her very happy. :-) In retrospect, it is a blessing that she had a VSD and that it took as long as it did to heal. Had she never had it or had it healed earlier, we might not have found the PDA. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to be related to Beals and it doesn't have an inheritance pattern so there should not be any risk of Ada's children having the same problem.


29 months
Ada's therapists were here last week and said her toes look less curled and are loser. She still has weak thumbs and poor grasping patterns, so we are supposed to continue to do hand strengthening exercises and to work on her grasping patterns. They suggested an upright easel to encourage her to hold the crayon better. We're going to try to get her one for Christmas. Also, our pediatrician faxed a copy of her chest x-ray showing her scoliosis to the doctor up north. I'm not sure when/if we'll hear back on that.

30 months
We got her a sponge for the bathtub so she can squeeze it and it is a great finger/hand strengthening exercise for her! She can also pull the foil lids off her applesauce containers at lunch each day which is a good strengthener. On Monday we see the pediatric cardiologist about her PDA heart defect. Hopefully we will find out when he wants to schedule the heart catheterization procedure. Her other new development is her wanting to do everything herself. She wants to climb into her bed, her booster seat at the kitchen table, her carseat in the car and so on, all by herself. She is becoming very independent!

2.5 years
Ada is scheduled for her heart catheterization on February 16th - one month away. On Tuesday, the day before, we have to meet with the pediatric cardiologist and he will go over everything with us. She'll also have another EKG done then. Then we go home and have to be back at 6:30am. If all goes well, we should be able to bring her home late that evening instead of staying overnight.

This was a big week for our little girl! On Tuesday we met with the pediatric cardiologist who performed her heart catheterization on Wednesday. He was very nice and we felt very comfortable with him. He explained the 3 different types of coils he could use to fix the hole. She had an EKG done on Tuesday. The doctor said he wanted Ada to stay overnight, which we didn't expect.

So the next morning we left the house at 5:30am and got to the hospital at 6:30am. We were in a recovery room with another patient - a little boy and his dad - who was snoring VERY VERY VERY loudly and it was extremely annoying and grating. I had to leave the room at one point because the snoring was driving me bonkers. I did NOT want to have to sleep in the same room as him that night and the nurses said all the rooms were full, but they'd see what they could do.

The nurse hooked some electrodes up to Ada and took her vitals and then we waited for an hour and read books to her. Finally they came and we went to the cath lab. We met the anesthesiologist (sp?) and he asked us a bunch of questions. Then I handed Ada over to a nurse and we prayed with her for a minute. Then they took her away into the cath lab and we were shown to the waiting room. Abe and I played travel games and card games to pass the time. The whole thing took only and hour and a half. The receptionist in the waiting room gave us updates on her progress every 20 minutes or so, which was very nice.

About 9:30am, the doctor came to visit us in the waiting room and talked about how it went. He also brought some pictures from the procedure. He said it went perfectly. The PDA was small, but not tiny so it was good that we'd treated it. He said as soon as the coil was in, the blood immediately stopped flowing to her lung - meaning less work for her heart and no chance of an infection now. We could clearly see the coil on the pictures. Ada was in anesthesia recovery and he said we could see her soon. About 10 minutes later we were taken up to see her and she was awake. Abe got to peek in for just a second. I got to stay with her. She was mad and very grumpy! She was calling out for me, so they got a rocking chair and let me hold in her my lap. The doctor was there with us and was talking to me more about the procedure. Then he noticed that blood was pouring out from underneath her bandage. He and the nurse took her immediately and placed her up on the little pint-sized hospital bed again. He took off the bandage and got some gauze and applied pressure to her leg/groin for a good 15 minutes until he was sure the bleeding had stopped. During this time, it was everything I could do to not cry and I had to choke back the tears. Ada was crying, "Mommy, Mommy" and I was finally able to squeak out, "Mommy's here" after a few tries (my voice was literally stuck in my throat). Apparently she had bent her leg up too much and it triggered the bleeding. Ada was pretty upset and kept saying "owie" (I think her IV was hurting her) so they had to give her a sedative. That helped. But then it wore off not too much later and she was very grumpy again. She wanted some water so the nurse let her have a little sip from a cup with a straw. Ada kept asking for more and more water, but they didn't want to give her too much for fear she'd vomit. I tried to distract her as best I could during this time. I told her a story and tried to sing to her, but she didn't want that. Finally we were able to take her to the recovery room and got to see Daddy. She was still very grumpy and still asking for water and we were able to give her a little juice. Later she had some jello. The nurses were all very nice.

The family in the room with us was not so nice. The mom and dad were yelling and cursing at each other and that made us really mad that they would use that kind of language in front of our daughter. I reeeally didn't want to have to stay there that night. Later that afternoon we decided to ask our doctor if he'd be comfortable with us taking her home that night and bringing her back first thing in the morning. He said that would be fine. We promised to put her straight to bed when we got home.

During the day I visited the gift shop and bought Ada a stuffed turtle and a balloon and a "magic marker" coloring book, which she enjoyed. We put on some videos for her too and she liked that. Abe and I fell asleep in the bed with her while she was watching "Blues' Clues." We were able to leave around 5pm. When we got home we put Ada in her bed and let her have dinner in bed. Then we got her ready for bed and she was asleep by 7pm. She had fallen asleep in the car on the way home - she did not sleep in the hospital after her surgery at all. The next morning (Thursday) we got up and left at 7am and she had an echo done and then a chest x-ray. Then we waited for a bit and saw the doctor again and he said everything looked great and that we should come back for a follow-up in 6 months. He wants her to have an echo done every few years just to be safe. All in all, it went very well and we are so glad that it is over and that now she has a perfectly healthy heart! And we were so glad we got to bring her home on Wednesday night. It would not have been fun staying there overnight! Ada is doing fine now (Friday) though she does have a few good bruises on her leg.


2.75 years
Ada seems to have so much more energy ever since her heart catheterization. She runs and jumps so much more than before. She is taking a 2 to 3 hour nap still in the afternoon only and goes to bed at 7pm and wakes at 7am.

She is getting better at jumping but still doesn’t jump off a step yet. She loves our new swingset in the backyard and swings and goes down the slide. She also enjoys the tree swing now. She is getting pretty good at dressing herself and getting her sandals on all by herself. She is still taking her afternoon nap and I hope that continues for a while. She seems to understand that there is a baby in my tummy – at least she says as much frequently. Sometimes she says there is a baby in her tummy too (Baby Aaron).


Almost 3 years
Ada officialy “graduated” from her physical and occupational therapy now that she is turning 3. Our main concern is how she is grasping a crayon and whether or not she’ll be able to learn how to write letters when that time comes without great challenge. It will be interesting to see what all this next year will hold for her and how much she changes.