Nola is 4 Months Old!

g
Nola turned 4 months old on Saturday! She's getting to be such a big girl! I need to take her in for her 4 month appt but I know I have to do it late since her 2 month appt was done late. I'd like to know how much she weighs though. I think she looks pretty average myself, but I can definitely tell that her head circumference is super small. I put a headband on her that Embry wore as a baby and it wasn't even stretching the elastic enough to stay on. I have to say, she's quite the 'easy' baby. She really only fusses when she's hungry (and then WATCH OUT! It's a cry of death), needs her diaper changed, or is tired. She has started to get a little bit more squirmy lately though. If you sit her in the corner on the couch or something, she'll stretch her legs out straight to scootch herself down into more of a laying position. She does the same thing when you set her in your lap. She's also grabbing at a bunch of her toys now and kinda putting them in or towards her mouth. I have pretty much abandoned the mittens except she did gash her face pretty bad last week, but I feel that she likes to be able to grasp things at this point. Tony can make her laugh, but of course, I can't. It was the same with Embry...I guess my humor is an acquired taste. ;)

Tony's aunt came down from Maryland Fri night - Sun afternoon. She was in Vegas for a vet conference and stayed a little longer and drove down to see us. It was fun having her around! We played games, went out to eat, went to the desert museum, and watched a movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the desert museum since a)it was free with our pass and b)we got to do the long loop and see the cat canyon etc. Last time we went, we only did the short loop because it was right after thanksgiving and I was not feeling so hot. It's good to be well again!

Speaking of that, I feel like now that I'm pretty much 'back to normal' (whatever that means), that all the effort of friends etc going out of their way to see me, spend time with me, etc is just sort of fading. I mean, it feels like not many people actually think anything happened, or remember, or choose not to remember. Even for me it feels like nothing ever happened except then I go into the dr and am reminded, 'oh yes, I almost died so they're going to take extra special care of my health'. It's a weird transition for me to go from what seemed like everyone caring a lot to some people caring a normal amount. I'm not complaining or upset or anything, I'm just making an observation. It's also come up between me and Tony, like we'll be arguing about something and I'll just blurt out, 'I think life's a little too short to be arguing about this!'

Aaaanyhow, I'm excited that tomorrow I can get rid of all these empty milk jugs that have overtaken my shed (and a good chunk of my and my mom's time) because we'll be using them for the craft at MOPS.

I've gained 15lbs since I got out of the hospital. This is really making a dent in my self esteem. I'm pretty sure it's from the steroids and the best part is my face is super fat. I don't really notice it in the mirror, but when I see pictures, I'm like, 'woah, holy crud, what happened?!'

Still haven't gotten the ttp bloodwork back, or got called schedule the pelvic ultrasound, or got a call to reschedule my rheum appt. Oh and my inr was still low at 1.7 last week. I go in on Wed to have it checked again.

16 Weeks Old

My hips hurt like the dickens. This scares me because before the ICU, I was saying my hips hurt a lot and then after I got intubated they found a bunch of clots in my pelvis. So I told this to the lady who was filling in for the blood dr today and she's sending me for an ultrasound of my pelvic region to rule out more blood clots. I had taken antibiotics for this sinus infection thing and so last week at my coagulation check my INR was low (too thick), but that should be all fixed now. We'll find out on Wed when I got in to get the INR checked again. Anyhow, my dr appt today was rather pointless since the actual dr wasn't there, the TTP blood work is not back yet, and I took both kids with me. They also both decided to poop within like a minute of walking into the waiting room. We were the stinky people sitting in the corner.

Last weekend, I threw a surprise party in Phoenix for Tony's mom, it was her 50th. It turned out to be really fun and I think everyone had a good time. Dang, she's a hard person to surprise though. Especially when you need to cook food for 20 people in her house but she won't leave! Hehe.

The girls seem to be over their colds now (fingers crossed), Tony's fine, and my nose will not stop running. Other that that and the hip thing, I'm good. Oh, pretty sure my hair's falling out again. Let's add insult to injury eh?

Oh, this is a big deal...Nola started laughing! It's so cute. She's trying to roll over too, I'll keep you posted about when that occurs. :)

15 Weeks Old

15 weeks old
on 2/14/11

Nola is 15 weeks old (or there abouts) and today was her first Valentine's day. I'm sad to say, we did nothing special except for the fact that I dressed the girls up and took pictures. Couldn't let the day go by without photos!

Nola is sick. She's got the cold that the rest of us have. Confirmed by the ped this morning and of course making me feel like I was wasting everyone's time by being paranoid, but whatever. She'll cough and cough for like 5 minutes straight and turn all red, it was concerning me. I also mentioned how she spits up EVERYTHING. I swear, she consumes maybe 10% of what she eats, it's ridiculous. So the ped gave us a sample of formula that has rice cereal stuff in it to see if it will stay down better. 3 feedings and 5 soaked bibs later, I'm gonna go with no, but I'll keep trying. Although, good news, when I was in the appt, I got a voicemail from my old OB saying that she got my note and she would call again until she actually got to talk to me. YAY!

I'm still sick with this cold thing, or whatever. I'd say it's more like sinus infection/bronchitis. I just finished my antibiotics today, so hopefully I'll stop snotting all over soon. Embry is also still sick, but not nearly as bad as before and she's about halfway done with her antibiotics for her ear infection. I got in to see the main hospital dr tomorrow and to give more blood for the hematologist (which hopefully the lab won't mess up this time). Then I need to sign forms to get all my medical records from st joe's hospital sometime too. I'm not complaining, but I am SO TIRED. I told Tony today that I needed to go to bed at 5:30. Now of course it's 9:30 and I'm still up, but you get the idea.

Oh funny story. So I can kinda pick embry up now, like to my waist height, but it's really difficult. So we went to a friend's bday party at a restaurant on Sat night. She was totally fine until I tried to leave. I had my purse, her backpack, and tony's burger in my arms. Then she decides to lay down in the middle of the walkway (inbetween the soda machine and the condiments), close her eyes, and say 'I go sleep now, ok?' I had to laugh. It was pretty hysterical. I got her to stand up a couple times only for her to get back on the floor and do the same thing over again. Then finally I picked her up and hauled her out the front door, no easy task, and scolded her. Needless to say, she went straight to bed when she got home.

Oh and Tony's surgery on Friday went very well. The most painful part seemed to be getting shot with the lidocaine air gun. And, bonus, I got to watch! Ok that sounds weird, but I love stuff like that, surgery that is, or medical procedures in general. Interesting stuff and oddly, Tony wouldn't let me take a picture of him with the drape over his lap. I can't for the life of me figure out why ;)

3 & 1/2 months Old

Nola is 3.5 months old now. I realized today that I need to have her 3 month pictures taken...cue the cha-ching sounds symbolizing dollar bills rolling out of my pocket. Buuut it's just not fair to have professional pics taken of Embry every 3 months and then not of Nola. I already feel guilty for not getting her weekly pictures done while I was in the hospital. I also can't find any pictures of me on life support, not a single one. I'm feeling a little disappointed tonight so this is probably not going to be a very uplifting post. I just got called home about 5 minutes after leaving for a girl's craft night because Embry was throwing up all over the place. She's been sick for a while with a cold, but then on Saturday I cancelled a playdate at Chick-fil-a and a trip to the zoo because she was running a fever. Later that day I took her with me to run some errands (first time taking her alone since the hospital) and she was fine until we got to Costco where she cried 'mommy mommy, I need go poo poo!' and then threw up all over me in the check out line. I also feel bad for my response which was to ask the cashier and cart person for some paper towels that I had just bought and they didn't respond so I yelled 'paper towels please! I just got thrown up all over!' which wasn't very nice but it seemed like if there ever was a time to yell, that would have been it. Then of course, I apologized about 300 times before leaving. Embry kept saying on the way to the car, 'I'm ok mommy, I'm ok' which was very cute, but overshadowed by the smell of vomit soaking through my shirt. On the way home I just kept thinking, at least I'm alive to smell it...

Then Sunday she seemed a lot better and didn't have a fever and hardly coughed at all so we took her along to a superbowl party. She did great there and acted like her normal self. Today she had a fever again and then got all riled up when I left tonight and like I said, threw up all over. Pretty sure she's just getting way too upset and coughing and then throwing up. At least I hope that's what it is because I've got some weird cold thing going on too and I really hope that vomiting does not come along with it. The nurse practitioner at the clinic wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic in case it turns into something more, we don't want to take any chances. I also got my blood pressure patch reduced again. One more reduction and it'll be gone, woohoo!

Nola still seems to be doing fine and hasn't caught anything yet, fingers crossed. She's smiling a bunch now and almost laughing. She's enjoying her swing more and wasn't liking her playmat very much this past week, but I think that might have been cuz it was off in the corner. I think she might have red hair, but Tony doesn't see it. We have red heads on both sides of the family so it's a possibility although it is a recessive gene.

Today was my first day at home alone with both kids, at least until my parents showed up at 11am. It went really well and I even got some stuff accomplished. That would be due to the fact that Nola was very well behaved and Embry was watching 'Dora' pretty much the whole time. She's obsessed. I mean you have to literally yell her name to get her to turn her head away from the tv when Dora is on. She's also learning lots of spanish, as in, the other day she comes up to me and counts to 10 in spanish on her fingers. It's ridiculous. I mean it's good, but I really don't like her watching that much tv. Then again, I used to watch (and still do) a LOT of tv and it's not like I'm a dummy or something so I guess it's not really that bad.

So, this whole hospital thing...it kinda feels like it never happened. I went through some of the bags that hadn't gotten unpacked a few days ago and I was sitting there holding the Christmas lights that were hanging in my room, thinking, 'geez, all that really did happen'. I just can't wrap my mind around it. I kinda feel like everyone expects me to be doing all the same stuff I did before I went to the hospital too. I'm sure it's nothing to do with anyone else and it's more just the way I perceive it, but that's probably part of the reason I don't feel like I was ever actually sick. Then I'll laugh and get a sharp pain in my side and remember, oh yes, something did happen to me.

I never got the results of the TTP test back. The lab messed up and said they never got the order (even though I handed it to them, they took my blood, then they called my dr to make sure they ran the right test). So the dr is getting it set up so I can go into his office, have my blood drawn, and have his people deliver it right to the place that runs the test. They're supposed to call me to schedule a time, but I haven't heard from them yet. The dr said he's not too concerned though since my other blood tests look good and I'm not feeling bad or anything. I made an appointment with a new primary care physician for this friday, so wish me luck that this one is better than the last one...not hard to be! Tony also goes in for his surgery that day, so I'm hoping all goes well with that and it's quick and painless like everyone says it's supposed to be. I'm sure he'll be fine, but he's normally the one that's always good and healthy around here so it'll be umm interesting to have roles reversed for a while.

We went to Phoenix last weekend which was a lot of fun. I was a little sad that I didn't get to go in the pool or hot tub since that was something I was REALLY looking forward to, but I opted to take a nap instead...aren't you proud of me?! I got to see some family that hadn't seen in quite a while and catch up a bit. It was really nice. We went out to dinner for Allison's birthday and we played games and watched 'Easy A' (one of my new favorite movies, thanks Kristy!) We ate at Culvers a lot (yum) and met Jamie there for lunch one day. I wish we could go up there more to hang out, but it's pretty much just going to be a weekend thing from here on out since Tony's vacation time is pretty much spent for the year. We'll be going up next weekend for Dorothea's birthday, but we can only stay one full day so it will be quite a short trip. :(