Worrying Gives You Wrinkles, Smiling Gives You...Wrinkles

The last several weeks have been packed with activity, worry and joy. I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster. To start, I celebrated my first Mother's Day with my wonderful hubby and daughter. Matthew got up with Layla at 6:30am and let me sleep until almost 8:00! He made yummy cinnamon rolls for breakfast and let me take a morning nap (unfortunately I was fighting a migraine all day). We then packed up the kiddo and headed out in the unusually gorgeous weather and had a lovely picnic near the water. Matt also cooked dinner and we had a very relaxing evening together. It was a perfect first Mother's Day, which I think he will live to regret, because now he has to try to keep it up in the years to come :)

Of course you couldn't have all of that wonderful with out some sort of stress and ours came in a very scary form. While getting Layla ready for dinner one night (aka stripping her down to her diaper because she prefers to wear her food before she eats it), Matt noticed a sizable lump on her back. Of course I immediately started thinking of all of the horrible things that it could be, which is never a good thing, and by the time I called the stand-in-doctor(SID - our doctor is still on maternity leave) in the morning my blood pressure must have been off the charts! The SID said that she was pretty sure it was a lipoma(a fatty deposit, that is totally benign), but to be sure she told me to call and schedule an ultrasound to get it checked out. I felt a little better but because she wasn't sure, how could I be?

So I called to schedule the ultrasound as soon as I got home but apparently the month of May is particularly busy with people with weird ailments in radiology at the hospital. Side note - I completely HATED the fact that I had to go back to the hospital where I spent 2 miserable weeks after almost kicking the bucket while having Layla, but then to have the exact same radiologist that I had the day she was born(the guy that informed me she was breech) was just the icing on the cake. He kept looking at me like "do I know you from somewhere? have I seen you before?" Let's just say I was happy to get the heck outta there! Anyway, I had to schedule it a week out so I worried for an entire week, then after they looked at the results, I was finally able to breath a sigh of relief. It is in fact a lipoma(based on what they could see, nothing is 100% unless biopsied) and required no further action. Yay! I could finally relax and destress, which was important as the worry lines are becoming more permanent on my face! I'm only 26!!!

Everything was swell again and we could move on...or so I thought. That of course was until our SID called us and LEFT A MESSAGE, that she was referring us to Children's Hospital to meet with surgeons to see about removing the lipoma. First of all, who leaves that in a voicemail?! Second of all, who leaves that in a voicemail when you are then going to be unavailable for the next 3 days?! I was beyond frustrated and upset. I was under the impression that everything was fine and now you are telling me that my sweet, perfect little baby is going to have to be knocked out and cut open?! Not cool. Oh yeah, not to mention, that this was all playing out a couple of days before we were supposed to head home to Chicago.

We finally were able to talk to the SID and she said that it was not urgent that we get it done, but to schedule an appt for when we returned. Again with the waiting! After being home for just over a week, in the insane Chicago heat, we returned and went to our appt at Children's. The surgeon that we met with was very nice and said that he was pretty sure it was just a lipoma and that there were pros and cons to removing it and leaving it. He basically gave us all of the information and told us it was up to us...great. I was really hoping he would simply say it didn't need to come out and she would be just fine...no such luck. So now Matthew and I have to figure out what we would like to do. It is not an easy decision to make, however we have some time and I am trying not to worry to much.

In doing so, I am making an effort to really enjoy Layla, who is very close to crawling and has recently started pulling up on things. She has decided that she would rather stand than anything else, it is quite the battle to get her to bend her knees anymore. Standing is where it's at, too bad she doesn't have that balance thing down yet. She is incredibly amusing and I have done a lot of smiling. Though at this rate, I'm pretty sure that smile or worry, I am going to be one giant wrinkle by the time I'm 30...kids are stressful!