Overnight for 2 Appointments

Joelle was breech for many weeks in the womb and due to the breech position often times they have problems with their hips after they are born. Joelle had to get a routine ultrasound at BC Children's to check the hip joint to see if they were in the socket properly. First initial thought the technician said she looked good...but our visit to see the doctor on Friday turned out not to be the case. Joelle is now in a hip brace 20 hours a day for 6 weeks and then we will have another follow up appointment with ultrasound to check the hips again. This is unrelated to her FH. 

The ultrasound technician was fun and loved to joke around with us. We told her about Joelle's condition and she said that we seemed like calm confident parents for having 1 child (yes a bit of a chuckle inside). We told her Joelle was our 5th baby and she stopped her exam and looked at Geoff and I and said "Are you even old enough to have 5 kids!?" A compliment that we still look young I guess!

I booked a hotel in Vancouver as close to the hospital as I could. My brain function and thinking patterns have been exceptional and I accidentally booked a hotel with 2 double beds and later Geoff realized I booked under an american website making it cost way more that I had thought was my good deal. My bad! There was no way I was going to downgrade from our king bed at home to a double so we comfortably slept in different beds...We both agreed maybe we should have bought 2 double beds for our house! Ha! On Thursday we explored parts of Kitsilano and Queen Elizabeth Park. We checked out the Bloedel Conservatory and later went to the H.R MacMillan Space Centre. Both places we've always wanted to take our kids on a day trip, after being to both we realized that going with the 3 of us was a much better idea. The weather was amazing as well as the views. We had some time to get some shopping in as well.

This sums up Joelles experience in Vancouver with us. She is a 5th baby that thinks she's the first child!

Waiting to see Dr. Alvaraz and Dr. Cooper

Her smiles make up for her crankiness.

 Our long awaited appointment came to get further assessed by both doctors. Dr. Alvaraz and Dr. Cooper discussed with us the first steps we should take for Joelle. Her foot isn't sitting directly under her tibia which if untreated won't be able to bear the weight of her body as she grows. At this point they also are uncertain of her leg length discrepancy (LLD) will be, as she grows it will become more apparent so we don't know what the long term treatment will be at this point. For now, we will work on her foot so with that came an ankle foot orthotic (AFO). They cast her leg/foot for a mold that they will take to another clinic to make for her.

Jared is our AFO guy. Jared and his assistant (can't remember her name) was great and very thorough with explaining everything to us newbies. It was a good but very long busy visit. The clinic was buzzing with people coming and going. After her mold was done for her future brace that will be ready in 10 days. We had the privilege of meeting another family with Fibular Hemimilia. It was great to talk to them and meet them and share our worries and fears and the dynamics of dealing with such a rare deformity. They had a 8 month old boy going through it and showed us his brace he needs to wear. We talked quite a long time with them and getting to know them. I hope we meet them again down the road. FH is so rare its 1 in 50,000 births. We have a very beautiful special girl to watch grow up and it will be neat to connect with others who are going through this same journey as us.

Joelle finally asleep with her hip brace on. I miss the

tight newborn snuggles already...she now needs to learn to sleep not all wrapped up anymore.