9 Months

Sierra's first trip to Papas Pizza and her first time on the slide.  Despite the fact that she's mostly around a few people at a time, she did really well with all the noise and people.

She learned that changing the sheets can be really fun!

 Daddy is having fun too:)

She loves her fake horsey, but she was able to ride our neighbors horse for real this month.  I was clinging to her tightly of course!

Being silly before bedtime

Stealing a kiss through the glass

A little reading session after bathtime

Hello

She has three teeth now!

Daddy can sure make her giggle

Yum!

What a huge month.  I feel like Sierra is learning something new and growing up so much each and every day.  She has a ton of energy and is hard for me to keep up with sometimes.  She learned to clap this month, rode a horse for the first time, learned to go down the stairs (backwards instead of trying to dive down them head first) and also get off of furniture (she still is closely monitored for both!).  She can count to 2 on her fingers (it's actually sort of more like 1, 5 but close), she has 2 new teeth, and she took her first steps.  She is not walking consistently, but she will randomly take steps on her own. 

We saw Sierra's gastro specialist on the 14th of May and he scheduled her for a rectal biopsy.  She is doing much better with her acid reflux but still has a lot of "potty" issues.  After talking over some of the things she has struggled with since birth he decided that we better have her checked for Hirschsprung's disease.  Around the 5th month in the womb, nerve cells travel down to the end of the colon.  In some cases the nerve cells don't travel all the way down and this causes complications when the baby is born.  In severe cases a child can't eliminate waste during the first 48 hours and needs immediate surgery.  In other cases, the babies can go, but have a lot of trouble.  They too need surgery, it's just usually harder to diagnose.  Her biopsy is scheduled for the 16th of June at OHSU.  It's hard to know how to pray.  We don't want her to have to have surgery but we do want to find out what is wrong and find a solution.  Our daily prayer is that she will be out of pain and be free of her digestive issues. 

Despite her ailments she sure is a happy girl.  She is also very brave and has tolerated every test/procedure better than we could have imagined.  We'll hope that her biopsy on the 16th will be the beginning of the end of her tummy ailments.