Leo becomes a man... sort of.

As some of you now know, Leo underwent surgery last week at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago for an undescended testes that he's had since birth. I know, I never mentioned it before, it just seemed kinda weird to be like 'Oh yeah by the way, Leo's got one ball in hiding...' It's apparently quite common (I think I read about 1 in 100 baby boys these days) and the surgery is considered pretty routine. It was outpatient surgery, just over an hour long, and everything went perfectly smoothly.
And I managed to not freak out, burst into tears, or chew my fingernails off. Impressive, I know. I wasn't really worried about the surgery itself, mostly just the general anesthesia (because you can't give a baby local anesthesia and hope for them to stay still...) Most people handle general anesthesia without problem, but it still carries a risk.
Anyway, he was fine, was disoriented and wailing for the first half hour after waking up (which they said was very normal due to the disorientation and confusion). He gradually came back to normal over the next half hour, then was his normal self the rest of the day. Of course, Tylenol with Codeine might have helped in that arena. Good stuff. And he's been doing swell ever since, just two small incisions to keep clean and a little bruising.

In more fun news, we were in New York City about two weeks ago for Byron's brother Scott's wedding to the lovely Adee, which was very fun. It was an intimate event in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, mostly just close family. Leo of course wore his finest, and was quite popular. More photos of the lovely event can be see here.

Next on the docket - my ultrasound is scheduled for Thursday, at which time we'll hopefully be able to tell if #2 is a boy or girl! Speaking of him/her, they're pretty active already. I'm getting lots of pokes and bumps from them, which is fun. Believe it or not, we're already over halfway thru this pregnancy.... whoopie!

The Next Kern Baby!

Yes, as many of you know, we are expecting Kern baby #2! Mr. Leo is going to be a big brother around March 15th. We'll be finding out whether it's a boy or girl at the end of October. whee!

I'm sure many of you are a bit surprised at this news coming so soon. If we weren't planning to move after Byron graduates in May (to a location/job yet to be determined) then we would have waited a little longer, but I didn't want to deal with switching midwives mid pregnancy. So we gave ourselves a 4 month window to try, after which we would wait entirely until after Byron was done with school to try again.

So here we are - yours truly seems to be quite fertile. :)

We're definitely excited, though it's very different from the excitement of finding out I was pregnant with Leo. It's much more tempered now by the thought of two kids in diapers and the uncertainty of where we'll be headed to after graduation. Also the uncertainty of how Leo will handle having a sibling. But the upside is that there are alot of things I'm not worrying about (since I've already got 'em figured out), like breastfeeding and basic newborn care.

Happily, I've been feeling pretty good so far - a tiny bit of nausea and a little bit of shortness of breath, but that's it. Then again, almost all of my pregnancy discomforts with Leo came at the very end - please God let me not develop that super itchiness again......

In Leo cuteness news, we're headed to NYC next weekend for Byron's brother Scott's wedding to the lovely Miss Adee, and Leo's got himself a fancy new suit for the occasion. We had a little fashion show of the new duds, and he looks just adorable. We'll definitely be posting pictures of that once we get home!