What's going on

It's amazing to think about how much has happened in the last month+...it's gone by fast and slow all at the same time.

The first few weeks we had grandparents visit which was loads of help.

Unfortunately, something not so fun that happened was that Cyrus had to have surgery at 3 weeks old.

We found out at the very end of my pregnancy that his kidneys & ureters were dilated (not normal). After many appointments and procedures, it showed that he has bilateral vesicoureteral reflux - this is where urine is backing up into his ureters and kidneys instead of all draining down towards the bladder. Turns out, we are actually quite familiar with this abnormality because my mom and I BOTH were born with this also (oops, sorry for the bad genes, kid). Because it was found so early and it was quite severe, we had to immediately schedule surgery to perform a cutaneous vesicostomy - this is where they bring his bladder up to his abdomen and make an incision from where his urine now drains from. The way everything is aligned with this basically forces the urine to drain from the kidneys, which will protect and heal them hopefully. It was quite a whirlwind, but we are thankful for so much. The doctors and staff at the Children's hospital here were incredibly wonderful and Cyrus is healing really well. We still have more check ups, ultrasounds, scans and another surgery ahead of us, but for now he's being a champ and seems to be recovering as great as we could have hoped for.

We would love it if you can pray for continued healing for Cyrus. Also, if anyone else is going through this with their child or you know someone who is, I would love to encourage them and share our experience.

Back to the good stuff:

And then, just like that, he was 1 month old!

He is really a lot more alert now. He loves to be held and rocked, going on walks, playing on his activity mat and looking around at the world. But more importantly now he has started smiling at us. I know i'm biased, but it's pretty heart melting.