Happy Birthday Shayna!

And congratulations to your parents for getting through your first year.

A year ago today Nahum and I were enjoying a quiet first day with our new baby girl Shayna after a 12:12am birth.  It was a magical and awesome day for both of us.  Nahum was lucky enough to experience that instant and overwhelming love for another human being.  With the first glimpse of her head, he knew he would do anything for his daughter.   My first thought was, "it's over," as I was exhausted.  For me, Shayna just was and always had been.  It felt so natural for me to have this little person to care for and love.  The details of that care were something both Nahum and I had to work out together.  Luckily she was an easy baby.  She fussed when something was wrong (wet, hungry, tired), we took care of it and she was happy again.

With all that has happened between this day and that day last year, Shayna is still the light of our lives, the greatest blessing we have ever experienced, and brings us more joy than we ever thought possible.

Here's a brief history of the last year:
Feb 18, 2009 Shayna's due date comes and goes with now sign of a baby emerging any time soon.

Feb 26 1am: Labor induction begins because her estimated size is 9lb10oz (+/- 15%)
            6:30pm: Pitocin is hooked up.

Feb 27 12:12am: Shayna enters the world at 8lb13.5oz and 21.5in.

The next couple months are a wonderful, if slightly sleep deprived blur.  Shayna nursed well, complained when something fixable was wrong, and began sleeping through the night at 8 weeks.

March 11 around 3am: meets Grandma Melinda and Grandpa Michael from Pueblo, CO for the first time as a tired Ima dumps a baby into their arms so she can sleep a little.

April 2: Gave Aba her first smile.

April 16: Behaves beautifully on her first plane ride to Berkley, CA.  We spent a beautiful week meeting some of Nahum's old friends from the area and seeing some transplanted Boulder friends as well.   We also discovered on this trip that Shayna gets hot very easily and will tell us.

April 17: Meets Grandma Carole from Death Valley, CA.

April 26: First hike.  To the Cascades with wonderful friends.

May 2: Surprise herself and her parents by rolling over when she doesn't want to sleep.  Unfortunately we only saw the results and not the action.

May 7: Laughs out loud.  What a beautiful sound.

June 2: Put Shayna in daycare for the first time with great plans of getting much done.  I only lasted 1hr before I had to drive back to check on her. She stayed another 1 1/2hrs after than and Aba picked her up.

June 15: Ima officially goes back to work part-time (24hr/wk).  Aba takes Shayna to daycare.  This lasted for a wonderful 4 days then...

June 18 9:30pm: We take Shayna to the ER because she's inconsolable.  While we know she doesn't have colic and feel very strongly something is wrong, we still sat in the parking lot debating whether or not we were just be over concerned, first time parents.  At 10:30, Shayna finally nursed and fell asleep but shortly before midnight results from a heal prick would send everyone panicking.  The nurse practitioner was the first medical person to take her yellow color seriously and with elevated liver enzymes (the things we watch so carefully to this day) and a total bilirubin of 12.4 we new something was seriously wrong.

June 19: Doctor's appointments and checking into the pediatric wing of Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

June 20: We got a swift, and painful for Shayna, lesson on how to stand up to the medical professionals but by this afternoon we now have no problem say "no" to them until we clearly understand what they want to do and why.

June 25: Shayna and Ima take a private jet to CO to Denver Childrens who have are experts in Biliary Atresia and have one of the best teams for doing the surgical procedure that we hope will temporarily get bile flowing out of Shayna's liver again so it stops poisoning itself.

June 26: First surgery and it's unsuccessful.  They do everything safe that they can think in the OR but still have no idea why they're is a blockage or what is causing it.

July 1-Aug 8: Spent a beautiful if stressful summer in Boulder, CO with many doctor visits along with all the visits with our old friends and hiking in the mountains.

July 6: Found feet.

July 16: Figures out mechanism for rolling over at will.
Aug 10: Sits unassisted

Aug 17: Cuts first tooth and begins evaluation Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh for a liver transplant.  Beautiful facility but stressful time.

Sept 1: 2nd hospitalization.  Luckily only 3 days instead of 2 wks (between 2 hospitals) like the first time.

Sept 10: First movie date night for Ima and Aba since gaining those titles.  We saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Sept 17: We all get the flu shot for the first time in our lives.

Oct 1: Figured out how to work both hands together to pick up her new basket ball.

Oct. 6: First Pittsburgh hospital over night stay.  Shayna loses 1kg (2.2lb) of fluid from her belly over night with albumin transfusions and diuretics.

Oct 7: Nahum begins 2 days of testing for Living Related Donor (LRD) compatibility.

Oct 16: Nahum nearly confirmed as a match for Shayna; however, doctors concerned about his cholesterol levels.  Transplant date scheduled for Nov 19.

Nov 3: Shayna enjoyed her first trip to the polls; though, most of the people we voted for lost and Virginia went red again.

Nov 14: Shayna shows cold symptoms.

Nov 16: Transplant officially rescheduled to Dec 1 because Shayna has a cold.

Nov 24: Learns to wave "bye-bye".

Dec 28: Leave for Pittsburgh and 3 months away from home.

Dec 1: Hand my daughter over to the transplant team at CHP because my husband's liver literally looks good to his surgeons.

Dec. 7: Shayna's abdomin is closed and the paralytic turned off.  Michael and I watch as she begins to twitch and move again after a week of no Shayna.

Dec. 8: Shayna's breathing machine is turned off as she is breathing well on her own with a little extra oxygen.

Dec 9: I get to hold my baby for the first time since I handed her over on the 1st.

Dec 10: Moved from the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) to the regular liver/small bowels issues wing.  Hard not having our own personal nurse but much quieter and better for adult sleeping.

Dec 13: First post-transplant smile.  This means her incision site is feeling much better.

Dec 15: Rejection noticed with liver biopsy (numbers had started going up instead of continuing down).  Start iv steroids to combat and hospital stay officially lengthened.

Dec 18: Saw Shayna's old liver.  Large, hard and deep green.

Dec 21: Hilary leaves after 3 weeks of caring for Nahum.  Nahum is sad.

Dec 22: Met and got autographs from some Pittsburgh Steelers.

Dec 23: Got released from the hospital. We were ecstatic to be out but completely overwhelmed by all the meds I was supposed to get into her on my own.

Dec 25: Michael goes home and we both cry inside about it.  It was amazing and wonderful to go through everything in December with him.

Dec 27: Got a visit from some friends from home up visiting grandma.  A nice feeling of some normal-ness.

Dec 31: Patricia's Birthday.  We celebrated the next night with a good movie, Sherlock Holmes.  Shayna tasted her first snow.

Jan 1, 2010: Celebrate 1 month post-transplant with a growing, happy Shayna.

Jan 7: Shayna pees in the potty for the first time.  Within 3 days, she's peeing on cue (me saying "pssss") if she has to go and I have little potties all over the house.

Jan 20: Take Shayna to the pool (3rd time overall, 1st post-transplant) and she LOVED it.  Watching the other kids play was especially great.

Jan 25: Grandma Carole comes to visit and dote on Shayna.

Feb 4: Sits up on her own.

Feb 5: Crib mattress is lowered.

Feb 6: Pulls to standing in crib.

Feb 13: Cruises the couch.

Feb 14: Our first go-home day comes and goes due to both infection and rejection.

Feb 17: Can military crawl forward (no more inch worm) but still goes backward occasionally

Feb 21: Our 2nd go-home day comes and goes due to both infection and rejection.  Luckily the EBV seems to be getting under control and the liver numbers haven't actually gone up.

Feb 22: Cleared for a March 7th return home (pending good labs on March 1)

Feb 27: Our angel turns 1!  We celebrated with with much sugar and processed carbs at the Hertzmans.  It was a nice dual party as their 8-year-old shares the same birthday.  (I forgot my camera so they have all the pictures at the moment.)  Laux, cream cheese, bagels, and 3 cakes.  Plus, I learned how to make hamantaschen, a traditional Purim cookie as today is also Purim.

We would like to again thank all of our family and friends who have made this last year doable for us.  Without you, we don't know how we could have done all that has been asked of us just to get Shayna to her first birthday.  Thank you.

A few minutes old and one-year-old.