The Girls

Here are some random pictures of the girls. The were all taken within the last week. (See Glenda, I'm working on being back).

Best Friends

Annaliese Turns Three

With company here and packing to get ready for our trip to Venice, I completely forgot to post Anna's birthday pictures. It is so hard to believe she turned 3 last Thursday. She was the little baby that was only two months old when we moved here. She is more English than American. The time has flown by.

Annaliese is the little mother of the family. She adores babies real ones and baby dolls. She loves taking her baby with her where ever she goes. Annaliese is a delight to our whole family. Her name should be Joy because she is a little girl filled with joy and brings joy to everyone around her.

We were happy to be able to celebrate her birthday with Grandma S. and Uncle Mark. We went out to Pizza Hut for dinner and then back home for chocolate cake and presents. I think she had a fun day.

Anna showing off her new princess dress and scooter.

Another Anna Update

It seems as though Anna is finally back to her normal self. The beginning to the middle of last week were really rough as she seemed to be in a lot of pain. She was also waking, crying in the middle of the night about every two hours . It felt like we had a newborn once again. It was rough. By Wednesday or Thursday, she was started sleeping through. Steve thinks she just got herself into a routine and was waking because of that instead of pain. She isn't taking pain medicine anymore, unless she complains of her mouth hurting.

We are also seeing some delightful results from her surgeries. She does seem to be hearing better. She seems to be hearing more of what is going on around her. Her talking has also improved and her voice is even a little softer and sweeter. We've heard from others that her ears would be more sensitive to sound, but we haven't seen that too much though. We took her back to church yesterday for the first time since the surgery and she did want to be held during the worship. I asked her if the music was too loud and she shook her head yes. She didn't plug her ears though.

We are so thankful to have her surgery over with and to be seeing results from it. Thanks again to all who have prayed for her. It is great to have our little girl back to feeling herself.

Anna's Home

We are home from the hospital. We were released around 9:30 this morning, but we had to wait around the hospital for Steve and the kids to get there to pick us up. Annaliese is such a trooper. She is doing really well, quite resilient. She relaxed as soon as we got in the car on the way home and fell straight asleep. We stopped when we were almost home and got a quick lunch. After we got home, we put all the kids down for naps (mom and dad included). Mom and Anna slept for two and a half hours. She's been great tonight, very happy to be at home with her sister. The two of them have been silly together all evening. The doctors told us to keep her on regular pain medicine for three days, because her throat would be sore. She hasn't complained about it too much though. You would hardly know she had surgery yesterday. They also told us to watch out for bleeding. A very small percent of children who have their tonsils out have bleeding between days 3-5 after the surgery. If bleeding occurs, we are instructed to go right to the A&E (emergency room) because they may have to do more surgery to stop it.

Right now our biggest concern is keeping Anna down a bit and we are praying against any bleeding. We are all glad to be back together as a family again.

Now I'll go through the happenings of the last two days.

Anna before surgery in her clown gown we had to wrestle her into. She didn't like anyone doing anything to her and she put up pretty good fights if anyone came near her. Once it was time for her to go in to be put to sleep she had calmed down. In preop, one of us was able to go into the room with her to hold her when she went to sleep. I let Steve do that. They used gas and air and she was out in about 25 seconds. After she was out, Steve left and we went down and got some breakfast. Also, after she was out they then put in her IV.

Mommy and Anna before surgery

Anna showing off her new watches. She didn't want them put on, but she is very proud of them now. She still won't let me remove them. She'll probably have them on for a week or two :)

Anna after her surgery and after lunch. Over here they don't do the ice cream and jello thing after kids have their tonsils out. They say to eat regular, crunchy food because it helps their mouths to heal. For lunch, I got Anna some sausage, smiley fries, jello and applesauce. She didn't seem interested in it as first. Steve headed out to get lunch for the two of us. While he was gone, Anna threw up. The nurses said it was common for kids to be sick after having their tonsils out. They apparently swallow a bunch of blood from the surgery and that upsets their stomachs causing them to be sick. After she threw up, she was immediately hungry. She ate most of her sausage and then proceeded to eat the rest of my sandwich and some chips.

She was wide awake most of the afternoon and sat with daddy while mommy slept in Anna's bed. Anna, finally, fell asleep hard late in the afternoon. We had to wake her for dinner. She didn't eat much, but she drank quite a bit.

Before Steve left, we took a walk out into the garden of the kids ward. They have a playground for the kids. She found a stroller, put her baby in it and took possession of it for the rest of the night. We just walked and walked as she pushed her baby through the whole ward. First thing this morning, we were off to find the stroller once again.

This is a picture of Anna's bed (mine folded down from the closet next to her bed). She was in a room with six beds and five of them were filled. Anna had a great nights sleep, only crying once in her sleep and we upped her pain medicine. Mommy didn't sleep as well. There were two babies that had surgery late in the day yesterday. They had a pretty bad nights sleep. They were crying, breathing hard and their monitors were going off most of the night. I felt so sorry for their moms. I also prayed many prayers of thanksgiving for my healthy children. We are very thankful that Anna is home and doing well. We can't thank you all enough for all your prayers and words of encouragement. We are truly blessed!

Please Pray for Annaliese

Somewhere around 6-9 months ago, Steve and I started questioning if Anna could hear properly. She has also been a bit slower in her language development than the other kids, but some kids just do things at their own pace. Early in the year, we started doing bits of testing on her for example whispering her name when she wasn't looking and calling her from across the room, etc. At times, she seemed to hear us fine, but at other times she seemed as though she couldn't. We decided to take her into the GP to see what she said. Now starts the part of my story that gives a glimpse on how the NHS (National Health Care System) works.
Our first step was to the GP and she agreed we should probably have her hearing tested. She said she would have to find out what that took. I then spoke up and said that we had private health care insurance and that we would like to see this particular doctor (an ENT, who our friends use for their little boy. They really trust him and like him.) She said, "oh", proceeded to take this doctors info so she could send a referral to him. BTW, if we didn't opt to use our private insurance, I don't even know when we would have been able to get her in for a hearing test. We have friends whose daughter has been on a waiting list for a hearing test (not even an appointment with an ENT) for 4-6 months.

After we the doctor sent the referral, we waited. I think it took about 3-4 weeks to get the letter from the ENT's office with our appointment date and time. We then took her to see the ENT back in Februaury. He checked her over and asked a few questions. We then went to another room for a hearing test. Anna wouldn't cooperate with the lady and put the men in the boat when she heard a beep. They were just able to do a vibration test. This showed how much her eardrum vibrated when it heard sound. Her's hardly vibrated at all. We then went back into talk with the doctor. He suggested, because of the size of her tonsils (they are massive), her lack of hearing, and the fact that she snores, to take out her tonsils, adnoids and to put tubes/gromits in her ears. Steve and I were prepared for him saying she needed tubes, but weren't prepared for the tonsil part. We asked him if we could call him in a week with our decision.

After praying about it and talking with others who have had the same experiences, we decided to go ahead and do it all. We called the doctors assistant and she said she would send the referral to the hospital. Then, we waited more, a lot more! It took about six weeks to get our date for her surgery. Then, the surgery wasn't scheduled for another six weeks out, which brings us to next week.

Next Wednesday, June 3, is the date of Anna's surgery. She will be having her tonsils and adnoids out and have tubes put in her ears. We have to leave the house bright and early (5:30 a.m.) to be in Cambridge at the hospital by 7 a.m. Glenda, such a great friend, is coming to stay with the rest of the kids for the day. Thank you, Glenda! Anna will have to spend the night in the hospital because they watch for bleeding after taking tonsils out. I will be staying with her and Steve will come home to stay with the rest of the kids. She should get out the next day and Steve will return for us.

Now for our prayer requests...
1. Pray that the surgery will actually take place. The doctor warned us that it could be cancelled last minute because the hospital is so busy, they may not have a bed for her.
2. Pray for safety through the surgery and for quick recovery. The doctor said she wouldn't be totally well for about two weeks.
3. Pray for Steve and I as we send her off to surgery and wait for her to be out. Pray for peace, comfort and faith.
4. Pray that the surgery would work, she would be able to hear once again and that she would continue to develop with her speech
4. Pray for the rest of the kids to be safe and have fun with Glenda.

I think that is it. We would greatly appreciate all of your prayers next week and following. We will give an update when we are able. Thank you!

Guess Who's a Big Girl?

This week, Annaliese decided she was a big girl and potty trained herself. It sure did surprise me, because up until a week ago, she hadn't even gone (pee or poop) on the potty. She would sit on it often trying to go, but never did. I don't think she knew what to do. On Wednesday morning, I found her sitting on the toilet upstairs. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "I go poop." Sure enough she had. I decided since I was already doing laundry all day I would just put her in underwear. She didn't have any accidents. The next day we did underwear, but she had a couple accidents, but she also pooped on the potty again. For three days straight, she pooped on the potty and not in her underwear. I think I remember that part being the hardest with all the other kids. We are still working at it and she's had a couple accidents, but it is remarkably easy. I love girls. They are so easy to potty train. The boys were all over three and took longer. Sorry, Laura.

A Style of Her Own

Annaliese loves to get dressed all by herself. If I tell the kids to go get dressed, she is usually the first one down all dressed. Usually, she has two shirts on, one being her pj shirt, and almost always a skirt. Her outfits don't usually match either. That is the joy of staying at home, it doesn't matter much. I do make sure she matches when we go out and I usually pick her clothes on those days. She loves to be in dresses and skirts too. These are pictures I took of her last week. It was one of those days when she picked. I didn't get it in the photos, but she had a hot pink zip-up sweater on most of the day too. You can see she is sporting her new 3 pound Primark shoes also. She'll be one that needs mom's guidance on fashion in the future. Or maybe she will be a trend-setter.