Surgery for Sagittal Craniosynostosis

Liam was born with part of his skull fused, also known as Sagittal Craniosynostosis. There are two different types of surgeries that can be performed for his condition. If the baby is young enough (which Liam was) you can have the endoscopic procedure done. In this procedure they make two slits in the head. One is in the middle of the head, one is in the back of the head. The doctor will then remove two inches by six inches of his skull so that his skull can grow properly. This picture was taken the day before surgery...Lincoln and William in Thomas' old clothes.

The day before surgery we went to the hospital to have Liam's bloodwork done and they branded him.

This is right before surgery. Kids hospital clothes are so cute!!

Right when Liam got out of surgery the nurses put a size 1 diaper on him and the next day his entire body had swollen up so bad they had to put him into a size 3.

Some head shots a couple of days later when the swelling went down a little more.

We were in the hospital Wed-Sat because he was having trouble eating. We finally took him off of the heavy duty medication which allowed him to wake up more and eat.

William has done way better than I ever expected with the surgery and recovery! He is such a happy baby!! He got his helmet two weeks after the surgery. The helmet is still taking some adjusting...for his parents, it is really hard to take on and off! Liam is a champ though! We are on a schedule for his helmet right now because he has to work up to wearing it 23 hours a day. Today he is doing 8 hours on, one hour off. Last night was his first night sleeping with it and he did pretty good. He woke up to eat a lot more than usual but he was able to sleep better than I thought he would. Tomorrow he will be wearing his helmet the full 23 hours!

Update: Liam is now a few weeks shy of 4 years old and he has no learning disabilities or vision problems. You would never know he had this procedure done aside from his scar in the back of his head which you can see if we cut his hair short.

He's finally here!!

William Byron Secor was born Feb. 7th 2012. He weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 22 inches long.
This was by far the easiest labor and delivery. I was induced at 8 AM, got an epidural around 10:30 AM and two pushes later William was born at 12:15 PM. My recovery was a lot easier this time around as well. The day after I had him, Thomas and I took a long walk around the entire hospital. Everything seemed to be going way too smoothly so I knew something was coming. William had Jaundice which wasn't a big deal (Lincoln had it too) but the Doctor was starting to get concerned that his Jaundice wasn't going away after the normal first week of life. I am happy to report that after 3 weeks of yellow skin, an at home tanning bed, and lots and lots of heal pricks as of yesterday his Jaundice is finally under control.
During one of our Doctor visits for the Jaundice our Doctor was checking out William and found an irregularity with his skull. The next day we found ourselves at Primary Childrens Hospital with our week and a half year old baby getting a CT scan. They found out that he has Sagittal Craniosynostosis. Basically the top plates of his skull have already fused together where they're not supposed to. If this problem went unfixed it could produce pressure on the brain resulting in vision and mental problems among other things. We met with the skull specialist yesterday and we have surgery scheduled for April 18th. They will have to cut out a 2 in. X 5-6 in. portion of his skull and he will have to wear a helmet for 10-12 months. This has been completely unexpected and kind of scary but we feel that it is necessary and William will be in the absolute best care.
Besides the medical scares William has been the best baby! He only cries when he is hungry or needs to burp. We've nicknamed him Will the Chill which basically sums up his sweet personality. We are so excited for William to finally join our family and we are already so in love with him!!!

Nap Time Naughty

After Linc had been in his crib for awhile playing and not sleeping I went in to check on him and this is what I found...


He had somehow pulled his diaper holder into his crib and taken out every diaper. It's a good thing Thomas just restocked it yesterday. I think he was trying to tell me he had a dirty diaper...either that or he was trying to change himself.

Cookies and Coloring

I've mentioned this before but Lincoln is such a good helper in the kitchen! These are pictures of us making cookies last week.








And playing peek a boo...











And then we colored while we waited for them to bake.

Three favorite sayings...

Lincoln's three favorite sayings...
"are you kidding me?"
"what the heck?"
"are you serious?"
Apparently I need to watch what I'm saying!

Utah's best kept secret!

Thomas had Monday off of work so I decided to take him and Linc to a place called Jump Around Utah. I really want to take our playgroup there but I wanted to check it out first. It is $4 for a two year old to jump for as long as they want and parents are free (it's mainly for kids to jump but parents can help). They have a huge "bubble" to jump on in the middle, 6 bounce houses (two with slides) and a giant 3 story play place...a child's paradise!!
Sorry, these pictures are so dark because I had to zoom in he was so far away from me (Thomas took him out while I watched from the chairs) but Lincoln is the one in the dark blue shirt/ white collar and Thomas is wearing a white hat.


I love his face in this one!

Aquarium

We've spent a lot of time at the aquarium lately thanks to Greg and Lauren for the aquarium passes! This is a picture of Lincoln watching the penguins...



And if he looks a little wet it's because he is, just before the penguin exhibit he was playing with sting rays. Why didn't I get a picture of that you ask? Because I was too worried that if I looked away for a few seconds he might either
1. Try to swim with them or
2. Start drinking the water
Long story short, the sting ray exhibit is so cool!