Schedule

We've finally had our schedule finalized.

Tomorrow Lillian has her check up that she needs before getting her MRI. After Todd gets off work, we leave for vacation/family reunion. (He may get off by noon, we'll cross our fingers and see.) We'll be in Iowa from the 1st to the 3rd. Then we take off to Utah. We'll be there the 5th- 9th. We're leaving to head back to New York by noonish on the 9th since Todd has to be back for training. We'll get home on the 12th, he leaves on the 13th for Massachusetts until the 15th. He'll be home on the 16th, maybe 17th, and then leaves for Wyoming. (He'll spend about 2 weeks in training and then leave for Afghanistan from there.) Also on the 17th, I'll take Lillian to Syracuse for her MRI. Then later that month I have to go back to Syracuse for Andrew's x-rays for his back (hopefully he'll be cleared to do gym/recess next year). Then back to Syracuse in September (twice in the same week because neither Dr. will see patients on the same day the other does) for her cardiology appointment and then to see the neurosurgeons.

Todd will be gone for 6 months. So we're planning on him being back around the the beginning of March.

But on the bright side, starting in September, I'll have 5 of the kids in school all day, Sophie at school 1/2 day, and just Lillian at home. So it will give me a little more freedom to make Dr. appointments and such.

Lillian

We've been waiting for Lillian's next appointment. She had seen the Pediatric Surgeon and had a CT scan, but they wanted to refer her to a Neurosurgeon since they think she has Spina Bifida. We finally got a call on Wednesday that before we could have an appointment with the Neurosurgeon they wanted her to have an MRI. So Thursday we went to the clinic to have the MRI done. Well, if any of you know about MRIs, you know that you have to lay still in order for it to work. You also know that it makes a VERY loud noise. So as you can imagine, Lillian didn't even come close to not moving. She was doing regular happy baby moves until it started, and then freaked out screaming once it actually started making noise. (You'd think the Drs would have been able to foresee this since she's only 5 months old.) So now we're waiting for them to call us back on Monday or Tuesday to set up another MRI, this time with her sedated. Most likely they will need to do surgery, which will probably happen after Todd is deployed. But we'll wait to hear from the Dr.s to see exactly what they want to do. Hopefully we'll know soon. I feel bad because it seems like she's the one who's ended up with all of the medical problems. (She also has a heart murmur from a bi-cuspid valve --the same thing I have; but all of the other kids seem fine.)
Todd has given her blessings and feels that she will be ok, but still, it's not a fun position to be in.
She's such a cutie and is so happy and loving. All of her siblings absolutely adore her. We're so grateful that she's part of our family. We ask that your prayers be with her.

Deployment

Well, Todd got notice today that he will be deploying the end of August. There are a couple of things that are different then we previously thought. He will be deploying to Afghanistan instead of Iraq. Even though it's in Afghanistan, it will be a safer deployment than the one we first were expecting since he will be on the staff of the ranking General there. Not many JAGs get that opportunity, so it will also be nice for his career.
The timing completely throws off the schedule we had for going to my family reunion in August, but that's something I'll need to work out now. If I still go, it will be me and 7 children driving all the way to Utah. That would be hard enough without having to take 7 children to the bathroom everytime 1 person needs to go and having to stop everytime I need to feed Lillian. Plus the added money of needing to stop at more hotels now since I can't drive as far. Otherwise, I have to try and find someone who can drive out with me.
Of course, I've also thought about just not going, but all of the kids are excited and planning on seeing their cousins that they haven't seen for awhile. Grrr.