A Stitch in Time...

Sleeping after the ordeal

Well, Sunday was an eventful evening.  I was giving both girls a bath, and they were playing with toys as they usually do.  Cecilia plopped down from standing, and she started crying.  I assumed she landed on a toy and hurt her bottom, but when I picked her up to comfort her, there was some blood in the water.  I grabbed her towel and laid her down in the hallway to assess the damage.  When I saw a pool of blood in her vagina, I told J that we needed to take her in.  He got Genevieve out and dried while I grabbed some paper towels to put pressure on Cecilia's injury.  I grabbed her a diaper and a shirt and held her while Genevieve got dressed.  J pulled the car out and got the girls in while I packed the diaper bag and grabbed a few things.

In the waiting room at urgent care

I really wanted to go to Phoenix Children's Hospital, but it is quite a drive from us.  We opted to try the pediatric urgent care affiliated with PCH.  We got in to be seen pretty quickly, but it seemed to take forever for the doctor to come in and examine Cecilia.  While the nurse was asking questions, I could see that Cecilia's diaper was becoming quite red.  When the doctor opened her diaper, it was filled with blood.  The three paper towels I had put in there were soaked, and she was still bleeding.  The doctor said he couldn't get a good view of the actual damage because of the bleeding, and he suggested we go to PCH.  We put a clean diaper on Cecilia, and that's when I almost passed out.

I knew the signs of fainting as I had done it once before and almost done it about 3 times before.  Immediately, I sat down.  I became extremely hot and sweaty.  My skin was clammy, and the walls seemed to be closing in on me.  My vision blurred, and my muscles went weak.  My hands tingled, which is something I don't remember experiencing before.  While I didn't wish for them to take so long to discharge us since Cecilia was still bleeding, I was thankful for time enough to collect myself.  At least now I know with 100% certainty that I will never have a career in the medical field!

J drove about 95 mph to Phoenix Children's Hospital. Genevieve sang. I prayed.  Please don't let the injury be very bad.  Please help the doctors and nurses take care of Cecilia quickly.  Please help J and I to be calm.  Please don't let us get in an accident.  Thank you for my sweet friend Dina who would be coming to pick Genevieve up for us.

Cecilia fell asleep on the way, but we weren't sure if she was sleeping or passed out.  I kept seeing her foot move or her head move to the side, so I wasn't too concerned.  Soon enough we arrived at the emergency room.  J parked, got Cecilia out, and headed in through the emergency entrance as I got Genevieve out.  Through the whole event, I was trying to remain calm for Genevieve.  I didn't want her to be freaked out or overly worried. She was jumping around and acting like her crazy self as we were getting checked in.  She didn't have a nap this day and had gotten up very early, so she was bouncing off the walls, which didn't help J's nerves at all.

While in the waiting room, I nursed Cecilia.  Her eyes were rolling back in her head, and she looked very pale to me.  I wasn't sure if her eyes were rolling back just from being exhausted or if it was something more.  When we got into an exam room, we met our nurse Claire.  Almost the first thing out of her mouth was "Does she look pale to you, or is that how she is?"  I told her that she is fair skinned, but she did look really pale to me. Claire said her lips looked really pale.  She left, and we met her assistant Deb.  A child life specialist (or someone with some such title) came in to try to provide entertainment for Cecilia, but she could care less.  She didn't want to play on the iPad.  She didn't want some stranger talking to her.  She wanted mommy milk, and she wanted her owie to go away.

I'm not sure about the order of all of the events, but we had to hold hot water filled gloves on her arms to help her veins pop out in case they needed to put in an IV.  They were also talking of the possibility of a blood transfusion.  I think they may have used a blood clotting pack of some sort on Cecilia, but I can't remember if they ended up using it or not.  They talked about it.  By now Dina had arrived to pick up Genevieve, and we were so grateful that she had somewhere fun to eat, play, and get ready for bed.

When they assessed the damage, they said it was a laceration much like an episiotomy that would go straight from the vaginal entrance towards the anus (midline episiotomy?).  They determined that she would require just a couple of stitches.  Thank the Lord that it was nothing more serious, but I still felt so bad for my little angel.  My heart broke for her many times during this night.  I had stitches after she was born, and let me tell you, that was no picnic.  A one year old should not have to go through that!

Fighting to get comfy in Daddy's arms while she is monitored

They wanted to monitor Cecilia and give her some time to calm down before they did the sewing.  She nursed a little.  She watched nursery rhyme videos on YouTube while eating some snacks.  She's teething on top of all of this and has hardly eaten anything in two weeks.  I had just given her some ibuprofen before the accident happened in the hopes that she'd want to eat some dinner after her bath.  It wasn't too long before they came in, cleaned her up, gave her a shot of lidoaine, and put in her two stitches.  J and I held her hands and loved on her while a nurse held her legs in a froggy position for the doctor.  Of course Cecilia cried through the whole thing, but it was probably more from being held down; she hates that!

They said to just keep the area relatively clean and dry.  No baths for a few days.  The stitches would dissolve, and we should follow up with her pediatrician on Friday just to be sure that everything is healing correctly.  I breastfed her again as we waited to be discharged, and she fell asleep nursing.  Poor thing.  Nurse Claire said she'd probably sleep well tonight, and we joked that she didn't know our child very well.  I prayed for her comfort and good sleep though.

Cecilia fussed some as we put her in her car seat, but she immediately went back to sleep.  We made the drive to Anthem to pick up Genevieve who was watching cartoons and playing at Dina's after having a short rest in bed.  Dina said she kept saying "We're just resting right?"  Did I mention how thankful I am for Dina?  Of course the freeway exit we needed was closed, so we had to detour, which took a little longer.  We arrived at Dina's a little before 10:00 PM.  I collected Genevieve, Dina gave me a hug, said some prayers for us, and then we were off.  As soon as we got on the freeway, Geneveive said, "Mom, can I take a little nap in the car?"  Thirty seconds later, she was asleep.

As soon as we arrived home, J carried Genevieve to bed.  I unloaded the car, and J came and transferred a still sleeping Cecilia inside in her car seat.  J and I got something to eat, and then we both went to bed.  I slept on the couch near Cecilia to wait for her to wake.  I am grateful that I got a good hour and a half sleep before she woke at 12:45.  I gave her ibuprofen, changed her diaper, and took her to bed with me where she actually did sleep very well.  Praise God for a healing rest for both of us.  Now, if we can just keep her a little less active so she can heal.  Yeah right!

Here We Go Again...Kind Of

Splotchy face due to acne and eczema

As I mentioned in my previous post, I knew we were dealing with food allergies again when Cecilia was only a week old, but it took me 2.5 months to really get serious about them.  Seeing blood in your child's poop is a little scary.  Also, seeing unexplained hives on your child is no fun either.

Most of you know that I take lots of pictures of my girls.  I started documenting Cecilia's skin issues pretty early on.  I had often wondered if her skin was merely newborn acne and her erythema toxicum neonatorum, also known as a "newborn rash", or was it eczema and hives?  I now know that it was eczema and hives with some newborn acne thrown in.  Her pediatrician tried to tell me the hives were just part of the newborn rash, but when they continued to crop up well past the newborn stage, I was suspicious.

Hives I noticed after her bath, though I had been using
 the same body wash on her for months

More hives on her back

I removed all top 8 allergens from my diet, so that means I did without milk, soy, wheat, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.  I also decided to give up oats and tomatoes since Genevieve had issues with them.  I didn't want to let go of chocolate, though I'm not a huge fan of it, but it seemed that it caused Cecilia to reflux pretty badly, just like her big sister.  After grocery shopping for my old stand by foods, the diet was a little easier to handle.  I ate gluten free brown rice cereal with fruit and coconut milk.  I ate various meats, rice, veggies, fruits, quinoa, and some other replacement items (like top 8 free snack bars and cookies by Enjoy Life).

One morning I ate a gluten free waffle with Sunbutter and banana for breakfast, and by that evening I had a gassy baby who kept spitting up.  Then she had a mucousy poop that smelled like acid.  Uh oh. What was it?  The Sunbutter?  Something in the waffle?  I had suspected flaxseed when I used it in some cookies as an egg replacer, so maybe that was it.  I hate all of the detective work! The next morning, Cecilia had two more disgusting diapers.  I have pictures if anyone wants to see, but I will spare you by not posting them. Do you know what it's like to be afraid to eat and paranoid that everything is going to hurt your baby? It's pretty miserable.

By the time Cecilia was around 5 months old, I felt as though I hadn't figured much out.  Her symptoms were more difficult to read than Genevieve's, and I was having trouble connecting the dots.  I suspected rice and corn, so I decided to eliminate them.  Not too long later I thought, "Nah.  It can't be rice."  I added it back in.  One day I had rice cereal for breakfast, two cookies made with rice flour, and rice cereal for dinner (busy day).  That night, I had a miserable baby with disgusting poops the following morning.  I went and looked at the ingredients of the gluten free waffles I had eaten that produced similar stools from Cecilia, and there were about 3 or 4 different rice ingredients including rice flour and rice bran.  I guess it could be rice.

We also continued to deal with skin issues, and I was having trouble linking her eczema outbreaks to anything in particular.  I really should have kept a more thorough log, but I struggled to do anything other than taking care of the girls.

At one point I even began to suspect garlic but again thought that was silly.  I tried to eliminate it, but it is in so many things.  One day, I shared some roasted potatoes with Cecilia.  They had a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder on them.  I actually wiped one off and gave it to her to eat.  Within seconds of eating it, she had a tiny hive on her face.  Maybe I wasn't crazy to suspect garlic.  The next morning, I made more potatoes cooked only in olive oil.  No hives.  Great.  It's probably the garlic, I thought.  Do you know how much stuff has garlic?!

Tiny face hive

In an effort to shorten this post, I will condense my detective work.  At nine months, Cecilia had skin prick allergy testing done.  They numbered her little back, placed food/animal serum at each number, and then scratched her skin.  After about 15 minutes, they read the results.  The large hive in the picture is histamine.  They are looking for the other ones to be as big or bigger for a positive result, however, according to my research, hives are often much smaller in children under age one.  The results must be interpreted a little differently, which I don't think happened for Cecilia.  It's hard to see from my pictures, but she received a weak positive result for garlic and rice.  I think a few others looked positive as well (avocado, soy, wheat), but they weren't according to the test.

White dot = histamine
Blue dot = rice
Orange dot = garlic

I continued to avoid the suspected foods to give myself time to adjust to a garlic and rice free lifestyle.  Once I got to a place of relative comfort, I would start adding back foods to test for a reaction. I added a little onion powder to some sweet potatoes, and Cecilia started developing a hivey rash on her chin and neck.  I gave her plain sweet potatoes the next morning, and there was no rash. Onions and garlic are related, so it's no surprise that she may have issues with onions too. Okay, onions are in even more things than garlic!  The hard part is that food labels don't have to list garlic or onions, and when you contact companies to find out if their "spices" and "natural flavors" contain either of these two, they can tell you that it's a trade secret.   

Hives/eczema on her chin and neck after eating sweet potatoes w/ onion powder

Another view that is apparently really hard to see because it's a phone pic

Two weeks after allergy testing, this happened.  Guess what caused it?  Peaches.  We gave her Benadryl and put her in the bath.

Hives on her face, neck, torso, arms, and legs

She kept rubbing her eyes in the bath

The next morning, this was my poor baby. 

Eczema flare

Genevieve never had a reaction this bad, and Genevieve never had eczema as a baby.  This was new territory for me.  G did get similar hives when she ate eggs, but they never progressed beyond around her mouth and some on her torso.  This was a bit scary for me.  I do feel pretty confident that I need not worry about anaphylaxis, but I can't be 100% certain.  

Cecilia never spits up anymore, unless she is reacting to something.  At that point, it's usually the first sign.  It's typically pools of spit up throughout the day as well as lots of silent reflux (acid that comes up but is swallowed back down).  

spit up all over a shirt that was on the ground

Now that Cecilia is one and is at a relatively stable place with her allergies/symptoms, I am doing food trials.  I started with dairy because I was never really sure it was an issue.  So far, so good.  She does have a few tiny patches of eczema on her torso that I don't think were there before I introduced dairy into our diets, but for now, I am just keeping an eye on them.  I have seen no other symptoms, so that gives me much hope.  I think next, I will trial eggs and then wheat.  Wish me luck!!  Here's to hoping that I don't over indulge in these once forbidden foods and gain 15 pounds in 6 weeks like I did when Genevieve grew out of her allergies.

It's Been Awhile

Our family when Cecilia was just one week old

Our family at Cecilia's 1st birthday party - 2 days shy of turning one.

Well hello there blog.  I almost forgot about you.  Okay, not really.  I just haven't made time for you.  Sorry.  To say that this past year has been busy would be an understatement.  I would describe the past year as hectic, overwhelming, crazy, joyous, beautiful, silly, and pretty amazing.

I am so glad J and I decided to add a second child to our family.  I know God has really been making me grow and stretch, and most of the time I am thankful for that.  Other times, I wish he would grow me and stretch me in different ways, but He knows what I need more than I know what I need.

Fussy baby

When Cecilia was exactly one week old, I knew we would be dealing with food allergies again.  We had her newborn photo shoot, and she WOULD NOT stay asleep.  She didn't like being moved and messed with.  She also wouldn't eat well and just continued fussing/crying and passing gas.  By the end of the 4+ hours of the shoot, I was crying.  I was disappointed that we didn't accomplish a lot, and I was actually embarrassed that I didn't have things under control.  Our amazing photographer, Doni with Live Loved Photography, asked us to come back the following day to try again.  She didn't want Cecilia to beat her!  I am very grateful because she really did get some sweet shots of Cecilia, but I am not surprised because Doni is truly a baby whisperer and photographic artist.

At this point I was dabbling in being dairy and soy free, but it was proving to be a challenge with meeting my nutritional needs and taking care of two girls.  J didn't feel as though Cecilia's issues were diet related, and because I wanted to believe that too, I continued to eat whatever. Her poop didn't seem too abnormal (like Genevieve's was), but the fact that she refluxed so badly she would gag and choke concerned me.  I know babies spit up, but not like this. This wasn't okay with me.  We tried Zantac for 6 days, which seemed to help some, but it also made Cecilia have insomnia.  This too was not okay!  We had enough trouble getting and keeping her asleep!

Again, I tried a total elimination diet like I did with Genevieve, but after four days I was starving, literally.  I just didn't know how I would do this having to make everything from scratch and having two girls with very different needs to care for.  I remember the moment I caved.  We were out at the mall for some reason (hoping Cecilia would sleep on the drive since she'd been up almost all day, but she didn't).  We were all hungry, and I got a delicious sandwich from Paradise Bakery.  It was so good, and I felt so guilty.  It would take hours or nursing, rocking, bouncing, and patting to get Cecilia to sleep.  Sometimes she'd sleep for 3 hours, and other times she'd sleep for 3 minutes. Sometimes she'd let me lay her down, and other times I had to hold her for her naps.  It really depended on how bad her reflux and gas were.

Thanksgiving was fast approaching, and I was stressed about what we would do.  How in the world was I going to make a nice meal for my family with a colicky baby?  There was no way I could invite my family over because I was completely unprepared to host.  I sometimes couldn't even shower.  I was also completely unprepared to go out of town with both girls.  Enter my sweet friend Dina.  She invited us over to her house with her family, so I accepted her invitation.  We went and all had a great time, staying well past everyone else went home to just hang out and visit.  It was a nice, stress free holiday.  The next few days with Cecila weren't great, but what else was new?

One of the bestest friends a girl can have.  I love ya Dina!

J had to go out of town on business for a few days after this, so my life was about to get a little harder.  I don't remember much from this except one night I could not get Cecilia to calm down and sleep.  I thought I'd bring her and Genevieve out for a drive, which sometimes worked.  I figured we'd drive through somewhere and grab dinner while Cecilia slept a little bit.  Nope.  She screamed nearly the entire 30 minutes we drove around, so I drove us home and ordered pizza.  I loved every second of eating that pizza except feeling guilty again because I knew there was some food hurting my sweet girl.  Everything changed the next day.

I changed Cecilia's poopy diaper, and I noticed a few tiny red specks in her poop.  I knew it was blood since she was only 2.5 months old and exclusively breastfed.  When I continued to see specks of red in every poopy diaper, that was all I needed to completely change my diet.  I knew I needed to heal her little gut, and nothing was going to get in my way this time.  More on that in the next installment.  Maybe I'll finish it before another year passes.

The Art of Sharing

So, I haven't written in awhile.  I've been a little busy, but I'm not sure why.  Oh yeah, I have an almost three year old and a 5 month old (who thinks sleep is for the weak).

As I was walking and bouncing a sleeping Cecilia, I was thinking about how I've neglected writing down so much of what's been happening.  The girls make me laugh and cry pretty much on a daily basis.  My friend compared life with a "threenager" to repeatedly slamming your finger in a drawer.  That describes it pretty accurately.  I will write a separate post on that later.  Maybe in another 5 months.  This post is about what just transpired, and I don't ever, ever want to forget it because it made me laugh really hard.  Of course it has to do with my dear, sweet Genevieve.

I was rocking a sleeping Cecilia in my darkened bedroom when G quietly bursts in and hands me one of her apple slices.  She often will come in and check on me if I've been trapped in the bedroom for awhile.  I thanked her, and she was on her way after I told her I'd try to be out in a few more minutes.  I was hoping to lay Cecilia down on the bed to sleep, but then she started crying.  I began nursing a half asleep baby when G came in again, smelling suspiciously like my cookies.  Genevieve said, "Mom, you have to share your cookies with me."  Well, now Cecilia was awake.  That's just how it goes in our house.  I said to Genevieve, "Did you eat one of my cookies?" to which she replied with an affirmative head nod and an "Uh huh!"  She was so proud of herself.  As we walked down the hall, she kept talking about how I had to share my cookies with her and Dad.  I told her that she gets to eat yummy chocolate peanut butter cookies that I can't have, so I don't always have to share my special cookies with her.  She then said, "But I shared one of my apples with you."  I immediately burst into laughter.  Thaaaaaat's why she brought me an apple slice.  She shared one of her foods with me and then helped herself to my cookies.  This girl is too smart.