and........ We're Back!

After numerous difficulties of all kinds, we are back to the blog! 

First of all, a very sincere thank you to all of you who have loved us so well during this journey.  Every single encouraging word, card, phone call, meal, and donation has blessed us more than you will ever know.  We are forever grateful.

A few updates....

Pearl is doing remarkably well adapting to family life around here.  She isn't sleeping all that great, and that is wearing me out, but other than that, she seems to be pretty happy.  She still prefers me so I feel like I have an extra appendage, but that will improve with time as well.

We have made the whirlwind tour of doctor's offices since arriving home.  We have seen the cardiologist, pedicatrician, ENT and the dentist.  We will see the cardiac surgeon on Friday.  As well as the cardiologist can tell from the ultrasound done in his office, Pearl has typical Tetralogy of Fallot and should be able to have an uncomplicated open heart repair (if there is such a thing).  That was good news to us!  The pediatrician gave us an antibiotic to hopefully clear up this sinus stuff she has going on.  She also sent us to the ENT as she suspected a possible trachea issue, but that was ruled out and we got a precription for a reflux medicine instead.  Long story.  Hopefully Pearl will sleep better with the Prevacid.  We still have a visit to the craniofacial surgeon to discuss her open palate.  For now, all of the dental and palate work will wait until her little heart is repaired.  The cardiologist thinks we can wait a month or so and let her get settled in.  We will see what the surgeon thinks on Friday.  She also has fairly significant delays in multiple areas, so we will be working to catch her up on a few things after her surgery also.  I have seen her make such progress in just three short weeks, I am confident that in 6 months she will be close to where she needs to be.  With the exception of her speech delayys.
I apologize to my faithful followers ( all 3 of you) that I was such a slack blogger during our trip.  I am going to try to go back and document some of our highlights later when Pearl is a little more comfortable off my lap!  We had a very good trip and best of all - no travel issues - that was a first !
We also celebrated 2 birthdays since arriving home.  Pearl turned 4 on the 18th and Lainie turned 6 on the 23rd.  Pictures of that coming soon.  For now, enjoy the beautiful picture of our Miss Pearl.  Taken on our front porch last week.  Isn't she lovely?