It's a busy week as we begin fall activities and a new rotation. Tomorrow Carey begins his month long rotation in Cardiothoracic surgery. That means that we survived transplant, yay! I know we had lots of prayers going out last month and we are so grateful.

I'm not sure what to expect with CT, we haven't heard much about that service. His call schedule won't change, he is still on call Fridays. I like that schedule because he is off Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. That leaves him available to go to church and our Life Group on Sundays. I'm really hoping that he won't be home as late in the evening during this rotation, he was home about 8:30 each evening during transplant. AGW struggled with that quite a bit and became even more of a daddy's girl! She sure did miss him!

I was very proud of the growth I saw in Carey during transplant. He did have to deal with some conflicting personalities and work ethics (or lack of) and learned a lot about choosing battles and holding his tongue. It wasn't easy, but he never said the things he was really thinking (except when venting to me :) and that probably made the next 6.5 years a lot more bearable.

AGW is still learning and challenging her independence through the terrible twos. This last week she has been a little more testy than usual and is ignoring the word "NO!". She is pushing her limits to see what she can get away with as well as acting out a little in response to Baby Hayes. I have a feeling I'm about to have to become a little more firm with her...

Tomorrow we have orientation at her new school so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. We also have playgroups at the church on Wednesday and Thursday. AGW loves going to play with her friends! It will be nice to have something to do outside of the home and great for AGW to have the social interaction.

We had a check up for Baby Hayes this morning all is well. He's is right on track and the pregnancy is perfect. I'll start having weekly appointments now which means that we are getting close, finally! We do have a surgery scheduled for October 6th, but we're going to wait and see how things look the last week of September (I'll be 39 weeks then) and hopefully we won't need the surgery. If there have been changes in my cervix at 39 weeks then we'll let mother nature proceed, if there has been no progress, then we will continue with the surgery.

I'm still hoping against the surgery (but just praying for a healthy baby either way!) for several reasons. The first (and a BIG worry of mine) is that AGW can't be in the room for surgery or recovery and we have no one to care for her during those hours. She can stay the night with us in the hospital after the baby is born, so that's not a problem, but during the actual surgery I have no idea what to do with her! The second concern is that I am so limited in activity after surgery. AGW isn't going to understand why I can't play outside with her or go for our walks or even go up and down the stairs as much. Not to mention the fact that I can't drive for two weeks. And lastly, I don't think I was as successful with nursing after a c-section and hope to struggle less in that area this time around. So, even though a c-section works a lot better with Carey's schedule, I plan on walking, squatting, eating spicy foods, and whatever else I can find that induces labor naturally. Ultimately, it's not up to me anyways so we'll see what happens!