Lily's First Trip to the Shriners

We have completed the first out of six to eight trips to the Shriners for Lily's Serial Casting. We were really impressed with the doctors and the hospital. What an amazing organization! I got most of my questions answered and just felt really good about the whole process. It will be neat to see how her foot changes.

Here is Lily with Grandma and Grandpa Heaps. It was wonderful to see them again. We so appreciate their love and hospitality. Here is Lily's cute little club foot. Sometimes she would hook it onto her other foot. It was pretty cute.

Here is her foot after the first cast! It was amazing to see how much it was able to stretch. She wailed (like the doctors said she would) for just a couple of minutes. They said the first stretch is the worst. But after they were done she did just fine and has ever since. The cast seamed a little bothersome at first (to me), but now it's no big deal. She will never know what happened.

So basically, the plan is to get a new cast on every week for 6 to 8 weeks. Then she will have a tiny surgical procedure where they will cut the achilles' tendon to allow it to grow longer and gives the ankle more flexibility. And then she will have some special boots with a bar in between. I think it looks like a mini snowboard. She will wear that 23/7 for a couple of months. No big deal, where is a 3-4 month to go anyway? Then she will just wear it for sleep time until 3 or 4 years old. Apparently a club foot always wants to be a club foot. So this will keep training the foot to stay in the correct position.
I just had to tack on a picture of the other kiddos loving her. I haven't seen one bit of jealously or anger since she came, just fighting over who gets to hold her.
I'm pretty sure the little culprit was Maggie. She can't wait to feed her applesauce. Too bad she will have to wait 6 months. I think that's a long time for a three year old. So when I came to check on Lily I saw this (that's a baby doll bottle, not a real one) I guess it could have been much worse. We are still working on the rule about not going into the baby's room when she is sleeping.