New Year..New Goals!

I have decided to join the cyber-world of blogging. I feel it will be a good outlet for me to express myself and also a great way to keep everyone informed about what is going on in our lives. New Year...new goals! One of those is to keep in better contact with all my friends and loved ones. I really value my relationships but it's hard as a new mom to really keep in touch with everyone like I use to. So please see this as my attempt to connect.

So with that I'll touch on some recent events in our lives:

Gracie's first Christmas was a very memorable one. We had all our family come here so she could spend her first Christmas in her own house. Christmas has always been special to me but I believe from now on it will be even more special as I am seeing it through the eyes of my child.

Matt's business has been booming despite our economy and we are very thankful to God. He worked very hard and long hours over the past few months so it was nice to have him take a few days off and spend it with Gracie and I.

We've noticed for the past few months that Gracie favors her left hand, which to us didn't seem to warrant any concern. However as she is developing quickly in all other areas (talking, laughing, interacting). We noticed her right hand stays balled up and it appears as if she doesn't even know she has it or use of it. We've had her on her belly more too to encourage her to crawl and have recently noticed her right leg not moving or bending like her left one. So just to be safe we took her to the Dr's.

The Dr said it could be a number of things from muscle weakness in her right side to something neurological. So they have ordered her a MRI and she is going too see a Neurologist either tomorrow or early next week. They are also setting up physical therapy to strengthen her right side. The Dr isn't too concerned because she does have definite movement and control it's just not up to par with her left side.

Many of you remember that Gracie had some breathing issues when she was born and had to stay in the hospital for 10 days to receive antibiotics for an infection that they never found the cause for. She had a spinal tap at 10 hours old and numerous other tests. They determined she had reflux but that wasn't what had caused her breathing episodes. The Dr is now saying that she may have experienced some kind of shock in utero and that we are now seeing the results of that 8 months later with the weakness on her right side. The believe that is probably caused the mysterious episodes after she was born.

Either way, we are thankful to have Dr's on top of things and she is going to see the best pediatric neurologist in the state. We know God has her in His hands and she is going to be fine. We are just a little uneasy about them having to sedate her for the MRI as there can be complications from that. So I would just ask that you keep her in your thoughts and prayers and I will keep you updated.