Scariest day of my life....

We've dealt with hospitalizations before. Layla was in the hospital twice, once at 4 months and once at 5 months, for 5 days each time. We've been there, done that. We know the bloodwork deal, the nurses and Dr's in and out. Since Layla's issues were respiratory related, we had to stay in one of those tents that go over the bed. We thought we were experienced at hospitalizations. We weren't.

Last Wednesday, April 7, 2010 started off as a great day. The girls were in great moods, Layla was playing with Lexi, Lexi was laughing, everything was great. We watched "The Princess and the Frog" twice.. and "Nemo" twice. Great day.

Lexi takes a good nap from around 3:30-5:30.. and gets up to eat. Ryan thought she was still tired, so he laid her back down, but she was fussy. I told him to bring her in the living room to me. He brought her in, she smiled and talked for a minute. Lexi is a very active baby anyway. She is always moving, always kicking or throwing her hands up.

It was about 10 til 6 when she began throwing her head back, arching her back, and turning her head to the side. I said outloud "what is she doing?" Ryan just kind of stared at her and I was saying "Lexi! Lexi!" trying to get her to look at me, but she wouldn't. She wouldn't do anything. I immediately said "there's something wrong with her."

We live next door to his parents. He said, I'm just going to take her over real quick to see what they think. I agreed and started getting Layla dressed because I wanted to be with her. I had barely gotten pants on Layla when Ryan came back through the door and said "we need to take her to the hospital."

I quickly got dressed and off we went. As soon as we got to the ER, they took us back and started. It was, in fact, a seizure. Seizure. I have never experienced anything like a seizure. All of the kids in the family and not one of them had ever done anything like this.

In the ER, they did a spinal tap, a ct scan of her head, and blood-work. She also had an IV and they gave her anti-seizure medication. They came and said they were going to move her upstairs, then shortly after that said they were going to transfer her to a hospital about 45 minutes away that has a pediatric intensive care unit.

The transport team from the other hospital came via ambulance to the hospital where we were and began assessing her also. We told them our story and Lexi spit up. She had spit up the entire bottle, but had continued spitting up small amounts while in the ER. It was then that she started spitting up brown liquid. The nurse from the transport team put an NG tube down her nose and into her stomach and started withdrawing air, until he also removed more brown liquid. It was later we found out this was blood and she had it intermittently suctioned out through the NG tube.

We arrived at the 2nd hospital around 11:30pm and since it was a 'teaching' hospital, they only had residents and no actual Drs. I was VERY unhappy with the first Dr. He wanted to do nothing and wait until the following morning for the Dr to come in. At this point, Lexi is still unresponsive, but not seizing, and moaning/whining. She is moving because she is so uncomfortable and there is nothing I can do. I tried holding her, I tried talking to her, I tried everything.. and nothing helped.

I've never been in a situation where I couldn't comfort my child.

They did a few things that night after we got the pediatric intensive care unit staff involved and gave her something at 5:30am to help her rest. At that point, she'd been up for 12 hours with no nap, no rest, nothing. She got to sleep for about 2 hours until they came in to do more tests. Blood-work, a catheter, and x-rays. I was losing my mind.

They wanted to change her bed and one of the nurses picked her up, and it looked like Lexi was having another seizure.

She was still so restless, just kicking and moving her arms, and moaning/whining. Still nothing I did helped her.

Her Dr came in and that's when things started moving. I had told my husband during the middle of the night that I was not pleased with this hospital. I did not have faith in them at that moment, but I was going to hold out until the morning when the Dr was supposed to come in. If I still wasn't happy, I was going to have her moved to cincinnati children's.

Thankfully, her Dr was excellent and we didn't have to request another transfer. Surgery was consulted because of the bleeding in her stomach and not having a bowel movement. We were thinking bowel obstruction. She was to have an MRI, under the consult of the pediatric neurologist and a ct scan of her stomach. For the MRI, she would have to be under anesthesia.

During the MRI, her levels began to jump and her O2 stats were falling.. she had to be intibated. My baby had to have a tube down her throat to help her breathe.

The radiologist came out to say that they were transferring her to the pediatric intensive care unit and not taking out her breathing tube until they were sure she didn't need surgery. We were allowed to walk with her up to the doors, but they would take her back alone and get her set up.. then they would tell us when we could go back to see her.

Thankfully, no obstruction, no surgery, so they extibated her. I was in the room for that, it had to be the scariest part. The nurse got everything ready in the event that she wouldn't begin breathing on her own. I sat there, silent, staring at my sweet baby just laying on the hospital crib bed.

The next morning, she was doing great. She was allowed to begin eating and she was keeping food down. She had a dirty diaper and I had never been so excited for that in my life. They moved her back to the general peds floor, surgery signed off, and her Dr said that it may've been something viral that caused her seizure, it might have been the very low grade temperature, or the pain from her stomach.

Our plan for Friday was just to rest and be observed, but she did really well. Saturday morning, all test results were in, all test results were fine, and we were able to go home! Lexi and I slept most of the evening on Saturday. Sunday she was back to herself.

Tomorrow morning we see the pediatric neurologist. She is on anti-seizure meds now, but hopefully she won't have to be forever.

Happy 5 Months Baby Lexi!!!!!

I think I say this with every new month, but I cannot believe she is 5 months old. I feel like it was yesterday that I was waiting in the doctor's office for my ultrasound. The 'official' ultrasound to tell us for sure (yea, I know.. not always) what we were going to have. I had an u/s at 14w for fun b/c my first doctor wasn't busy, so he gave me an impromptu u/s. He didn't see anything, so he thought maybe girl, but of course too early to tell. Then at 17-18w, we had another.. and still didn't see anything, but I needed to know about those 3 little lines to make for sure... then the good u/s at 20w.. and it was confirmed. 3d/4d ultrasound showed Layla was going to have a little sister and I couldn't believe it. Now, I can't imagine my life without them. :)

Weekly Post =)

I think to keep myself on track I'm going to try to make sure I at least do a weekly post ;)

oh.. and ok, sorry for the grammer errors, but layla decided to pop the shift key off of the keyboard today and i cannot fix it! gonna have to wait until ryan gets home to have the shift key back, lol ;)

I haven't uploaded the pictures yet, but this weekend I took l took layla to see princesses on ice! it was really nice and i know she had a great time. she loved all of the princesses, but was looking forward to cinderella the most. i was surprised, i didn't think that would be her favorite princess, but just like me, cinderella is her favorite.

Lexi was great on the car ride down, she is such a happy little baby. Almost 5 months old and i really can't believe it. It's hard to think that 5 months ago I was still largely pregnant, lol, ok maybe not that large ;) Sometimes I miss being pregnant, but then I remember how hard it is at the end and how anxious you are to meet your little bundle.

I'll have to do my 'retro post' on her birth story soon! It isn't as wild as some, but definitely not the way I thought it would be either.

This weekend we're heading out of town and while I'm looking forward to it, I'm also wondering how it's going to go. Last time we were out of town, Lexi wasn't feeling well and I was worried she had rsv, but it turned out she was ok. Sick kids are terrifying to me. You don't always know what to do to help them and that makes moms (and dads!) feel awful.

The 8 hour trip... takes us around 9 hours.. or at least it did last time. So I'm not sure I'm looking forward to that either. Last time it took so long because the girls were on different schedules. Lexi was eating every 2-3 hours.. and Layla was peeing every 3ish hours.. or getting hungry. but it was NEVER at the same time! We were pretty much stopping every hour and a half!

Hopefully this time will be better! Maybe I can get them on the same schedule or at least a closer one =)

Retro Post - Our Honeymoon :)

So, the hubs and I were married on May 6, 2006. He had been planning our honeymoon, I think at least, from almost right after the point we got engaged. Basically, as soon as I started planning the wedding (haha, I mean 'we' planned, lol lol) he started planning the honeymoon. He knew from the beginning that he wanted it to be a surprise.
First, let me tell you that it's so very hard to surprise me. I always figure "surprises" out. I ask for hints and then I figure it out with the minimal hint he gives me. I don't know how he did it, but he pulled it off.
He didn't tell a single person where we were going. My parents didn't know, my brother didn't know, no one knew. Finally, he did break down and tell a few people at our wedding reception, which I'm going to retro post about later, but I'm still, to this day, shocked that he pulled it off.

What I knew: we were going somewhere warm and by plane. Hmmmm.. ok. He only told me that much so I could pack. LOL. I don't even think he would've told me that if he didn't have to. :)

We were flying out Monday morning and I didn't find out until we were in line at the airport. And even when he showed me the little document showing our flight information, I was looking at it and having never flown before, I had no idea of what I was looking for! After a minute, he pointed to the top of the paper and it said "cancun!" Awesome!

Here are a few pix from our very relaxing trip to a resort in cancun :)

This is a picture of the resort.. from the back.




This is the view from our room...



This is the view from the back of the resort, looking out to the ocean :)


White sandy beach ;)



The hubby and I on our balcony :)




We had a great time! These pictures make me so excited to take Layla & Lexi to the beach this Summer!! :)

It's been forever!

It has been over a week since I've last typed a blog.. and I want to make sure I keep up with it! If for nothing else, to document things for the girls. We've been busy as usual, but I thought this time that I would blog quickly, but next time, I'm going to blog about our wedding and honeymoon. With our 4 year anny coming up in May, I want to share how great it was with the blog universe :)

We were at the park today for 3 hours! It was great and both girls had a great time. Layla had a friend to play with and I'm sure she'll be worn out later!
Lexi actually sat in in the forward carry of the hotsling while we were there for a little while and she loved it. I was grateful that she sat in it, it gave her a great view and let me use both arms to help Layla =)

Everyday I'm reminded how lucky we are and I don't want to ever forget :)

Monday Monday!

This weekend was once again a BUSY one! It feels like the past week flew by and then the weekend flew even faster. Friday night we had to go to dinner for Ryan's grandfather's birthday and that was fun. I tried a new dish at the restaurant we went to, which is not at all normal for me.. but with it being Lent and this restaurant included meat in just about every dish except for the soup that I got, kind of forced me to venture out, lol! But it was good. Layla had a great time around all of the family.. she is a superstar. She loves to be in front of a lot of people and she acts like a ham. :) Lexi enjoyed it, I think.. she was passed around a little, but when the meals came, I got her back and she went right to sleep.

Saturday was a lot of fun. Lexi got to have a 'daddy day,' she spent the entire day with Ryan while my sister-in-law and I took Layla to the zoo. There was supposed to be a few fun things going on, but we missed the first thing thanks to swim class (that was actually cancelled by the time we got there.. nice) and then the zoo closed a little early that day, so we didn't get to see the screening of the new Barbie movie, but it comes out on Tuesday so I know Layla will see it and get it then... or whenever we make it to WalMart.
She still had a great time at the zoo though.. there is an almost-one-year-old baby elephant that was super cute..and definitely made me miss my little baby at home. But she did great at home with Ryan.

Yesterday was so beautiful outside.. while Lexi napped inside Layla and I played outside. I almost forgot about all the fun outside toys we bought Layla last year. I guess you can say she's a little spoiled, but oh well :) I don't care. I want her to have fun while she's little and be able to experience a lot of things.. and I want the same thing for Lexi.

Who knows what today will bring?! ;)

It's Tuesday?

This weekend went by way too fast. I am all in favor of all weekends being 3 days. 4 days working (for those who work or whose husbands work, etc).. and 3 days off. That just seems more fair.

This weekend I had a breakdown. I thought I lost my camera and I was so sad. My camera bag was gone. We went to one of Layla's 'friends' birthday party this weekend and I thought I'd get some pictures, so I took my camera. Inside the bag was also my video camera.. which I have NEVER unloaded any videos off of.

This video camera is not anything snazzy like my camera, but it means more to me than anything because of the memories it holds. Layla's 2nd christmas, her 1st dance recital, her 2nd birthday, her 3rd and Lexi's 1st christmas, Layla meeting Lexi for the first time. It's just endless. I have never unloaded the videos b/c we are lacking in memory space and I need to clean up our computer and back up files. I'm HORRIBLE and remembering that.

Ryan accidentally left the car unlocked and I thought someone had stolen the camera. We couldn't find it anywhere, my friend looked at her house, didn't see it. It was awful! But ... finally it was found! Yay! The kids had moved the camera bag somehow at the party and my friend found it in a very odd place.

Lesson learned. Upload and backup as soon as you can! That's another resolution that I have now. So what if it's 3 months late ;)