My first infusion.....

....didn't happen yet! We were scheduled to go forward with my first two infusions this weekend until I got a call on Friday afternoon. Apparently there has been an insurance/doctor's office/third party scheduler miscommunication. Is that clear, or what? The third party company claims that the doctor's office filed my claim last Thursday (1/14) and that initially my insurance approved the treatment. That is why we went forward with scheduling nurses, etc. Then on Tuesday or Wednesday of last week my insurance company pulled the approval and apparently claimed that the first order was for only 30 grams of IVIG (instead of 100) and that they shouldn't have approved it in the first place. She also said that this has happened before with other patients and that it has taken Cigna 3-4 weeks to get back to them with a re-approval.

Being the take charge kind of person that I am I called Cigna on Friday afternoon to see what the heck was going on. Well, here's the real kicker! They claim that they did not receive this claim until 3 days ago (1/21) and that my claim is not marked rush or as a re-submission. Hmm....both of these stories can't be right! They also said that I should hear something in 3-4 business days from last Thursday, but I'll be on the phone Monday morning to try and figure out what is going on.

Bottom line is that it takes 24 hours for me to get the IVIG after the insurance gives us the go ahead. Then I'll have to schedule again with the nurses which might not be as easy as it sounds. The company that will be doing my infusions only has two nurses that even handle IVIG so me getting an appointment depends on their schedules. I hope to get in at least one treatment this week and then we can go ahead with every Monday and Tuesday starting next week. Through this process I pray that I have God's patience and that I react with grace when dealing with the insurance agents and nurses that are responsible for this mix up. Overall we know that God is in control and that whatever happens he is sovereign. Even if we do not start until next week we will still be within the 15-20 week start up goal.

I do have a bunch of good news to report! After posting about my second doctor's visit and giving more thought to giving up every weekend from now until the middle of June I had a change of heart. Instead I thought about testing the waters to see if I could find some stay-at-home moms that could help me on Mondays and Tuesdays instead. While I was typing up an email God kept reminding me of more and more moms that could help me during the week. All of these moms that I kept thinking of our my sisters in Christ and all of them have responded favorably to helping me out on my infusion days. What an incredible peace it is to be surrounded by the family of God!

In other news, this past Friday Ethan and I went to the Tennessee Aquarium with the Farquhars. I'll be posting pictures (I took almost 300) on our shutterfly site after I publish this post. If you do not have the password please email me!

My New Camera!

I got this camera a few weeks ago with my Christmas money and Philip and I have had fun playing with it. We still don't know or understand half of the features, but we're getting there! Mostly Philip lets me read and learn online what we are doing and then I explain it to him.

The first thing that struck me when I was playing with this digital SLR was how hard it must have been during the non-digital days to learn what all the different settings did. For example, I haven't posted any pictures yet because most of them have been series of pictures of the same subject all with different aperture or white balance settings. Or, if you'd like to see them, I do have 15 pictures of Philip all taken within 3 seconds! This camera does have live view so we are able to get immediate feedback on how settings change the pictures. I can't imagine having to pay for film, take 24 pictures, send them off to be developed, and then pay for them when they finally are developed. All the while having to remember what settings you used and how you changed them.

Last night though, we were at Keil's house and I had a great opportunity to take pictures of Ethan and Blaise playing basketball. Here are a few of my favorites:


Mostly I got pictures of the back of their heads. I guess I need more practice with live subjects!

My second subject of the evening was Keil's dining room light fixture. All the light fixtures in his house are hung by copper pipe and the light bulbs themselves are covered by mason jars. I loved the shadows that were made by this fixture:

That's all for this post, I'm sure I'll have more pictures to upload soon.

2nd visit to HIROC

I had my second visit to the high risk OB group on Thursday. At every visit they will be doing an ultrasound to see if there is any bleeding in the baby's brain. This ultrasound went perfectly! So perfectly in fact that we saw other things as well. We are happy to announce that we will be having another boy this June!

After last month's post my BSF leader emailed me and said that her sister had a similar (if not the same) condition with her third pregnancy. Honestly I didn't think much of it, but she also sent me her blog address and sure enough, she had the same condition. If you'd like to read their story you can start here. When they did the cordocentesis her son's platelets were actually higher than hers! I'm excited to get to know her more and hear her advice and stories of her pregnancy so that I can have a glimpse of what is to come. She even mentioned me in one of her recent posts.

My appointment last week was to be my last visit before starting my IVIG infusions next weekend. I say weekend because through the information of Sarah I learned that I can have the infusions at my home! Each infusion takes 5-6 hours (not 1-2 as Dr. Howard had first mentioned). I called my insurance company and they will even cover up to 60 nurse visits in a calendar year. This was news to the OB that I saw on Thursday (Dr. Hennesse) so I'm so glad that I talked to Sarah and my insurance company before my visit.

Before I left the office on Thursday the nurse got all of my information and arranged for an infusion company to call me. I spoke with their representative on Friday and she was concerned with my dosage. Because of my weight I need 100 grams of IVIG every week. She recommended that we not try to do this amount of IVIG in one day. She is going to get back with Dr. Howard or Hennesse and make sure, but she thinks that we will have to do two back to back infusions of 50 grams instead of one 10 hour infusion of 100 grams. That means that two days a week I will receive infusions instead of just one. I'll try to schedule these on Saturday and Sundays so that Philip will be here to help me with Ethan.

I've known since Ethan was about 3 months old that weekly infusions would be the course of treatment for future pregnancies. At this time, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I will have to get two infusions instead of one a week. I'm not nervous or worried about the treatments, I am just having trouble getting use to a commitment of 10 hours a week instead of just 5. I'm also praying that the side effects from IVIG will be small for me. The list includes: flu like symptoms, headaches and nausea.

Thank you again for all the prayers that will be said for little baby boy Boudreaux. Our main prayer is that we will glorify God no matter what circumstances we are called to endure during this time.

Sewing Project

I regretfully have to admit that I haven't really sewn anything since I made my purse. Part of that is because it is winter and my sewing supplies are in the bedroom that is shut off from the heat! This weekend though I convinced my husband that it wouldn't be too much trouble to bring my sewing maching and cutting board downstairs for a little project:

When we were over at Betsy's house last week I mentioned that I wanted to make an apron for Ethan so he won't get dirty when he helps me cook! She let me borrow a little apron that she made for her little girl and after running to JoAnn's to buy some cute fabric I made this double sided apron for my little Snooks.

"You could shovel the snow off the driveway, or why don't you just....."

Leave it to the Cajuns:


***For some reason blogger is having issues with video, so to actually see the video you can check out our flickr site.****


Other pictures from today:
Three water bowls worth of water. The bottom one is actually frozen to the deck. We aren't suppose to see 32 degrees again until Monday afternoon! Happy January!

A year in review and a preview of 2010!!

This last year has been a great one!

• In January Philip and I left Ethan for seven days to go skiing for the first time. All in all, Philip and I enjoyed the trip (even with our outing to the hospital).
• February was a memorable month for us because we got to shout, "We're debt free!!" You can read about our journey here and here. You can listen to my call in to the Dave Ramsey show here.
• For Spring Break in March Ethan and I traveled down to Louisiana and later Ethan went on his first camping trip.
• April was challenging as we began the long road of potty training. We also celebrated Easter with my Nanny and our first Easter Egg hunts.
• May contained more potty training adventures, but mostly I remember the beginning of summer marked a beginning of the end to my responsibilities outside the home.
• Potty training continued through out June, and although I declared him potty trained, I have to say he wasn't independently trained until sometime in September.
• In July, Ethan turned two and Philip and I went on our second mission trip to Slidell and the 9th ward of New Orleans. We were both impressed by what God had to teach us there.
• Ripping up the deck to install a french drain really took over our August plans.
  
• But, in September we had a GREAT time touring London and Paris with my family. I hope to write actual blog-like posts on the shutterfly site soon.
• We experienced déjà vu in October when we found out we were pregnant with our second baby. Also, Ethan went trick-or-treating with his friend Blaise.
  
• In November the deck began to be rebuilt (Phase I and II were completed) and we celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends.
  
• Our first high-risk appointment for this pregnancy was in December and because of my blog post about it, I have found a woman in Knoxville who went through the same exact experience that I will go through! I can't wait to meet her and pick her brain!! We also celebrated Christmas with my family and Ethan went on his first official hike. Whew, we had a busy month

Preview of 2010:

This year I have challenged myself to read the bible from cover to cover. In the past I've tried the "skip-around" plans where you read OT, Psalms, and NT all in the same day. These don't work for me because I can't follow what is going on in the OT vs. the NT. This past year Philip read the bible with a plan that just starts you in the beginning and goes straight through. He has liked it very much, so that is the plan I'm going to try this year. If you'd like to see the plan please check here and I will keep it ahead of our schedule by a month or so. I have the days listed so that anyone can start at any time. Let me know if you want to join our challenge (Philip is actually starting to read through again this year to give moral support.)

Here are some other highlights to look forward to:

• In May Philip and I will celebrate our 10th anniversary!
  
• Hopefully sometime in June we will welcome the second little Boudreaux to our family
• Ethan will turn 3 on July 2nd!!!

I'm looking forward to this year and I hope you are too!

Blame it on Facebook: Now with updated links!

The little one has really enjoyed getting dressed up lately.

So, I've really neglected this blog for at least a year. Earlier this year I had three and a half jobs and was just too busy to update every week, but more recently I have just been obsessed by checking status updates on Facebook. For Christmas, and until I could get some firm rules in place, I have quit Facebook.

This week, I will try to get the blog caught up by posting about Halloween, Thanksgiving, our first snow, and Christmas. I am also excited about the new year and I'm planning on a post about that as well.

See you soon!