Not many pictures documenting this month, but lots occurring.
For starters, we had our 20 week U/S last week, and as expected, it's a BOY! Eeks, not sure how to raise one of those. He looked great, seems to have all his parts, and unless something happens I assume it'll be the last look we have at him until birth. The quality of the pictures wasn't that great, but it looked like a human, pretty similar to Henri did at that age, although the nose looked more like mine. Now the great name debate begins and I doubt this child will have one at birth. Currently it's Bo Mark (Steve's name) or Bonaparte Mark (mine). Obviously mine is the better of the two, so..... :)
Next, we've had a vocabulary explosion with Henri. Not just the words she's saying, but all the phrases and chatter. She is literally never quiet, and while aggravating at times, her stream of consciousness can be pretty hilarious. You also realize what words you use all the time without knowing it. For example, H now comes in my room in the morning and it goes like this: "Good morning, Mommy. Hi! Henrietta had lovely dreams. Get up Mommy. Mommy take You hand?". Up to now H had the right pronouns but lately she's been referring to herself as "you". So requests to be held are "Mommy hold you" which sounds much more pathetic and likely to be honored than "pick up". All new outfits are proclaimed to be "so cute!" the minute they're tried on, and "really" is used a ton ("really tired", "really hungry"). She's also obsessed with her children's New Testament and it's not unusual for us to read through the whole thing in one day. So now she can tell you what word comes next for most of the stories. John the Baptist is a favorite, and to hear her say "John baptize in the Jordan River" cracks me up. Henri's just developed the toddler's paranoia about unclean hands and declares a lot of stuff as "dirty" (not that this extends to picking up her toys, mind you....). Even in the hospital she was taking a wet washcloth and scrubbing down the rails of her crib. Which brings me to:
(This is long: the short of it is that Henri is fine and probably just needs occasional monitoring for life)
I'm a pretty typical paranoid first time mom. Henri doesn't have many babysitters because while I trust people in general, I don't trust anyone with
my kid. She eats clean (usually), I research everything like crazy before we go with it, I have definite ideas about how her behavior should be. What I'm pretty laid back on is health care. Yes, she's up to date on shots but it took about a year longer than most. I have called the nurse on call a few times, but generally wait 2 weeks of illness before I do. Cuts, bruises, sores...I just deal with them and tell her to brush them off. It's probably because I work health care that I have this arrogant idea that I'd recognize something if it was wrong. You'd think me not realizing I had blood clots and couldn't breathe should have clued me in that I can be clueless, but nope. So, on Monday H came home from daycare and when I picked her up she started to cry and pull to the left. Steve said no accident had been reported (and believe me, they call and write about
everything) so we figured she'd just run into a wall or something like kids always do. Next day it was the same, you couldn't pick her up under the arms. I checked her all over for bruises, felt her collarbone, nothing, figured she was just sore and it would pass. That night at bath time I realized she was holding her right arm out more and that there was a lump under the armpit/shoulder. She was using the arm but not FROM. So I called the pedi nurse and said I thought she'd dislocated her arm and was told to go to to the ER since it was going to be difficult to replace after all this time. Cue feeling like horrible parents for not noticing this for 24 hours, and anticipating abuse screenings, etc for what is generally a yanking injury. H was acting her normal self, having a grand time in the bath, and of course it's now bedtime.
We went to Cambridge and were seen right away (I'll rave about their ER later, but we've always had a great time there....as much as you can in an ER) and the nurse took one look and said "that's not dislocated, that's an infected lymph node". Took her temp, 101.7.
Worst Mother of the Year My kid has a swollen lymph node (and I'm
paranoid about cancer so you think I'd be aware of this) AND a fever, didn't even suspect. They drew some blood (which she held perfectly still for and just cried a little) and then had an xray.
Even though it was now 2 hours past bedtime she was in a great mood and sweet to everyone. She got showered with stickers and popsicles and coloring books and they even let her keep the O2 monitor which she was in love with. And then the doctor came in and said "I have good news and bad news". Um.....ok. Good? She hadn't dislocated her arm (I figured that since they told me should would have been in constant pain and not using it). Bad? Her heart was the wrong shape and place, and her trachea (which is supposed to be straight) had a sharp bend in it. Add the lymph node and my heart stopped. Nothing causes a deviated trachea except cancer or the heart pulling it out of place. Neither are great options. We were given the choice of immediate transfer to Children's or MGH ICU and I picked MGH right away. Children's is great, but if you're telling me there's something seriously wrong with my kids heart, I'm obviously going to choose the top hospital in the country (with the best surgeons as well). And they have a great cancer center if that was going to be a factor. Add in no sleep since Sunday as I'd been on call and pregnancy hormones and the tears wouldn't stop. I'd like to think I wasn't obnoxious, but the stupid moisture wouldn't stop leaking. Steve wanted to pray for healing, but I figured H was this way since God had made her that way so saw no reason to pray for that. He made a mistake? Instead I asked that she not be scared or in pain, that we'd get excellent doctors who knew what they were doing, and that I could just hold it together. They started an IV in her arm (2 very diggy attempts; H cried but held perfectly still and they were amazed at how well she did). H fell asleep right after that in my arms and we waited for the 2 hours it took to get the transfer set up. After lots of review back and forth Cambridge was able to get her admitted straight to the children's floor. The accepting doctor was an infectious disease specialist (for the lymph node and fever) and the cardiologist on the case thought she could just go to a regular unit. An ambulance came and H woke up. She was a bit groggy but pleasant, and they gave her a teddy bear that had on green scrubs. The "nice men" (EMT's) became a best friend, and she enjoyed her ride very much. Steve got there just as we arrived in the room (not much traffic at 0200). H got oriented to her room by her nice nurse, Jessica, who had set up her crib with a gorgeous hand crocheted blanket that looked very much like the one she sleeps with every night and a new stuffed pig (she got to keep both at discharge). Some residents came in, gave us the plan for the night (repeat chest xray, constant heart monitor, IV abx) and that we'd meet the team in the morning. All of that was accomplished fairly quickly so by 0400 Henri was tucked into her crib and Steve and I were snoozing on the fold out chairs. Everyone was really quiet that came in, and in fact I didn't hear them start the meds.
Next morning H woke up in a great mood at 0800, played in her crib, got pancakes for breakfast, and was fascinated by her glowing toe (the O2 monitor was on it). ID, cardiology and a ton of residents came in and gave us the plan for the day (blood work, echocardiogram, possible CT depending on echo). Echo happened by 10 and prelim looked great. We then went to the toy room and Henri was in heaven. They had everything you can imagine to play with, and play she did. There are child life specialists there to enrich your child, as well as numerous (highly screened) volunteers who will entertain your child for you so that you can go take a nap, get food, get out for a bit. We went back to the room for H's IV abx and lunch, and then we all tried to take naps. That afternoon, we got the summary: her heart, while not shaped like others and more to the left than normal, appears to be working just fine. She's developing well (if small) and hasn't had breathing issues, so we're going to just leave it be for now. Obviously we'll watch her more closely, and I anticipate repeat echos as she gets older, maybe a few visits with the cardiologist, but for now she's OK. The trachea wasn't explained by the heart, so they're doing more blood tests to look at cancer markers just to be sure, but it's thought that this is just her as well, and again, unless she starts having trouble breathing, we'll let it be.
The lymph node and fevers? Well, cat scratch fever. She has every symptom in the book for this. Except she's had no, none, nada, zilch exposure to a cat. So while we wait for that panel to come back (it'll take weeks) she's on a large spectrum abx. They had originally planned for us to stay one more night but she was acting fine and I promised to bring her in the second the node got larger, so we got to go home last night. Phew. H has been a trooper about gulping down her very very nasty meds (she just coughs when it's down), is giving me excited blow by blow accounts of all the fun stuff she got to do at the hospital, and other than a sore right axillary seems the same as ever. We have an appointment with the pediatric office she normally goes to tomorrow, and now it's just a waiting game while all the lab results trickle in. I'm still worried about cancer, but the node hurts and there's only one, so I'm optimistic.
So, that's been March. I haven't had many births at work, just a ton of hours, and am feeling very burnt out on it. Looks like I'll be going to RI for a few weeks to get my menopause visits in, then who knows. Bonaparte is a pretty active baby and I feel him regularly. We have special moments at 0200 normally. We're all looking forward to Easter this Sunday; H gets to wear a new dress that her Aunt Payte got her, and I have a few eggs for her to find, as well as a fun basket. We got to see Aunt Allie last week at her farmer's market and Henri keeps talking about the great bread Allie made her (little piggy stuffed herself on the samples). Today's my mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!) so hopefully we can see her sometime soon.
As for the few pictures I've taken (out of order since phone loaded 1st and then the camera ones):
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| Mastering chopsticks. A great way to eat a leisurely meal and have her stay entertained and quiet. |
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| Flowers! Before they got buried again by snow |
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| We found a beautiful old stone water tower |
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| Loved the doors on it |
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| A favorite activity |
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| Allie at the farmer's market! |
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| At Cambridge ER. Blood had been drawn so she had a bunch of stickers at this point. And her O2 probe. |
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| We switched off "resting" on the stretcher with her |
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| Our view from our room at MGH. Rowers in the morning and evening, great sunset, planes for H to watch....pretty luxurious |
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| In her "sleepy bed" on Wednesday morning. See the lovely blanket she got? |
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| Total Daddy's girl |
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| How she looks in the morning when she gets me up. Cat hat, jean jacket, her dad's ID badge and Bobby |
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| Headed out for a walk |
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| The only place we can think of that she'd get cat scratch; the neighbors cat walks across the snow, H eats snow. Maybe from there? |
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| A great set up for a market. Warm in the greenhouse and swamped with customers. |
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| Bread maker elite |
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| We both had happy, full tummies |
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| As it took place in a green house, they had a little pond set up with a gnomes and such, and in the water was a plastic turtle that H was in love with |
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| The turtle. Still a topic of conversation |
That's about all I can think of. Really, really reeeeeally hoping for a boring end to the month! :)
