Happy Birthday Laila

Today Laila turns one! And what a year it has been since this little angel joined our family.

So many highs and lows in her first year of life. It seems unreal that so many crazy, unimaginable things have even happened.

We will never forget the high and excitement of her birth and seeing Caia instantly fall in love with her. The high of being on maternity leave and spending the last month of it as a family on our favorite island.

But, then all the unexpected lows brought on by Covid and then ultimate low of Laila’s cancer diagnosis.

However throughout all of it, the constant has been Laila’s smile, strength and laughter. If you didn’t know she was sick, you probably would never know.

We have all learned so much from our little warrior, and continue to learn from her every single day.

As I have said in previous blogs, we knew she was special from the moment she arrived, and she has only continued to prove that point throughout her treatment.

For an update on her treatment, she now receives a double dose of chemo every three weeks. On the off weeks, we have a home health nurse come to check her vitals and take samples of her blood to make sure she isn’t in need of a blood transfusion. She is also back up to her pre-surgery weight of 16lbs, without the tumor inside of her, which is a huge win.

She had a double dose yesterday and the next is September 9th. Our next big check in will be with an ultrasound in October, which will be the only imaging she will have before the end of therapy in December when we have her end of therapy (hopefully) scan.

But to celebrate our baby girl, last weekend, we had a family birthday party in the theme of her favorite movie - Moana.

To make it special we all dressed in costume and had Moana playing on repeat.

So, join us in wishing the most amazing baby girl (sorry, we are bias) a huge happy 1st birthday!

And enjoy these photos from her super fun early birthday celebration.