Serena's Progress & Halloween

My last post was somewhat brief, so I wanted to go into a little more detail about Serena's surgery and next steps. As I mentioned, the surgery wasn't as successful as we had hoped bc the hemangioma is a bit more complex than our dr. originally thought.  Instead of having it removed, we have to give her strong laser treatments to lighten the color, and then when she is a bit older and has lost some of the babyfat in her face, the dr. will operate and remove the excess skin.

We are still very optimistic that she will only be left with a small scar by the time she starts pre-school.  I hardly notice her birthmark, but whenever we are out in public, I see people staring at her and kids often point and seem to be scared of her. I know they don't understand so it doesn't bother me, but I just don't want her to have to deal with that when she is in school.

Anyway, this is baby girl right after her surgery:

We then took her back to NYC the following week to have her stitches removed and to have a laser treatment. After the treatment, she was EXTREMELY puffy. It was scary:

The dr. assured us that the swelling would go down in a couple of days, and she didn't seem to be in any pain - she was eating and playing like normal.  It's now gone down and faded a bit (ignore the fruit on her face!):

 

So, the journey continues. She'll have another laser treatment next week.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the babies' first Halloween with some silly (and apparently not very comfortable) costumes:

In other news, Milo is now able to take a couple of steps, and Serena isn't far behind. They both have more teeth coming in (#5 for Milo and #6 for Serena), and are getting much better at feeding themselves. As long as they keep STTN, I will be a happy mom!

This is a really fun age in general. I was not a big fan of the baby stage; honestly, the first few months were grueling. But now they are so fun to play with, and it is so exciting to watch them learn something new every day. The little smiles that greet me when I come home from work each day are the best!