We just got back from a trip up to Milwaukee. We had a follow up appointment with the doctor there who did Natalie's closure surgery. He saw her in a regular clinic appointment on Tuesday afternoon and then on Wednesday morning she went to the OR for another cystoscopy. That's where they take a scope and go peek into the bladder for a little looky-see at what's going on. She had one of those here at Iowa a few weeks ago. I wrote about it here. Because of all the infections she's been having the doctor in WI wanted to have a look for himself. He also injected a material into her ureters (tubes from kidneys to bladder) that is supposed to help reduce the reflux (backflow from bladder to kidney). So if she does get more infections hopefully they won't affect the kidneys as much. There is more but it is too tedious to explain and I'm guessing the average person doesn't have quite the same level of interest in urology that we have developed. It is actually quite fascinating to me. After a long conversation with the doctor I was very tired and had a slight headache and I realized that the whole time I was leaning forward, squinting my eyes and trying very hard to concentrate and grasp everything he was saying. Basically he is pleased that the bladder looks healthy and is developing well. It definitely needs to grow but he feels like she's doing well and with time as her bladder develops and functions better she should stop getting these infections.

Natalie did great for the procedure. As usual she couldn't have anything to eat after 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday. I set my alarm so I could make sure and feed her at the last possible moment. We had to be to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. and they didn't take her back to the OR until after 7:30 but she did great. She fell asleep in Ben's arms for most of that time. It was a little rough for her coming out of the anesthesia but they say that is totally normal. I don't like hearing that pitiful little cry that says, "i feel so funny and i don't know what's going on." The nurses kept describing it as hangover. This is her 5th time having general anesthesia and she'll be 7 months next week. Yikes. What a trooper.

Most of the time I have been by myself with Natalie at appointments or in the hospital. It usually works out best for Ben and me to split up that way and he is either at work or watching the other two girls. It was REALLY nice to be together for this trip and to have him in on all the conversations with the doctor and to be there to help with Natalie and just to be together.

We had originally planned on the whole family going and making a mini vacation out of it but when the doc decided to do the cystoscopy we figured it wouldn't work out as well. So we dropped Katie and Annabelle off at my parents Tuesday morning and picked them up Wednesday evening. They were very excited to go and had a great time. In fact, Tuesday morning I heard someone come in our room so I opened one eye and looked at the clock.

6:04 a.m. There was Katie, dressed, with her backpack on, suitcase in hand. She had made her bed and everything. She was ready to go to Grandma's.

These are the only pictures I got on my little camera. Not the greatest but at least it's a visual.