Coming up for air: A recap of 2012 so far

Well, I told 2012 to bring it on.

I was reminding myself of that as I stripped vomit covered sheets off my bed at 3am on New Year's Eve. Midnight came and went unnoticed as we tried to calm Harper down. We walked her around, we fed her, we sang to her, we let her watch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, but still the crying, oh my god the crying. We were debating whether or not to take her to the ER when the vomiting started. At that point we were sure her shunt had malfunctioned so I covered Harper in bibs, packed her in the car and sent Dave off with her to the ER. Which is how I ended up stripping vomit covered sheets off my bed right as 2012, the year I had such high hopes for, rolled into town.

Turns out, after many tests and as many hours in the ER, it was determined that there was no shunt malfunction, but that Harper had ileus, or basically, really bad constipation. All the anesthesia and pain medication she had been given after two back to back surgeries had caused her bowels to come to a halt, causing a very painful backup. Sounds pretty straightforward, but she was in the hospital all of New Year's Day, came home, spent another night crying and then we took her back to the ER on January 2 and ended up spending two more nights in the hospital.

We emerged triumphant, many poopy diapers later, and returned home for good on January 4, almost exactly one month after Harper's first surgery.

In that month, we spent 16 days in the hospital, endured two surgeries and two long ER waits, moved to a new house, had family visit for the holidays, made it through the first trimester of a pregnancy and fixed up our old house to get it on the market. Without question, it was the most stressful month of my life thus far.

Reunited and it feels so good!

 I've spent the last two weeks regrouping and enjoying having my family all in one place.

Check out those cheeks.

Her hair is coming back!

Harper is doing tremendously well! All her therapies have started back up and I hope that with those pesky seizures out of the way, she will make lots of progress. Her incisions are healing nicely, especially the large one from her hemispherotomy. She has some huge chipmunk cheeks from all the steroids she's been taking, but she is happy and constantly smiling. Honestly, that's all a mother could hope for.

Eliza has learned how to smile for the camera

 Eliza is as feisty as always, toddling around, accumulating a larger vocabulary and generally being a big "helper" around the house.

I'm 18 weeks along now and we found out that we'll be adding a little boy to our family come June! Hmmmm...now that we're not just the Twingates, what should we call ourselves? Ideas?

If you've called or emailed me to say hi in the last month, I truly appreciate your support and I have started to play catch up on my phone and email communication. You'll hear from me soon! The prayers and kind words of many friends and family have meant so much during this time. I am disappointed that I have been unable to truly let people know how their love and kindness have lifted us up and helped us get through this experience.

Now that this month is behind us, we're coming up for air and oh how sweet the oxygen is!

I haven't given up on 2012, either. 17 days down, 348 to go. This time, I think the odds are in our favor.