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Little Chana is back home! The test so far hadn't come back with anything, and with no temperature and her acting like a normal baby, the doctors figured there was no reason for her to be in the hospital. If it was something serious, the tests would've showed *something*. If you read all about petechia, then you'd know that it can sometimes be indicative of something very bad, like Leukemia and Meningitis. If it were Leukemia, CV"S, her platelets would've been low, her white counts would've been much higher and her blood would've looked funny. Her platelets were fine and her white counts were nearly normal today (14K). If it were Meningitis, CV"S, she would've had a fever, been acting sick and her tests would not have all been clearly negative after 36 hours. It's possible that it was a reaction to her 4month immunizations (which she had last week), but it seems like a bit of a delayed reaction to them. It is also possible that she has/had a minor virus and that the only real symptom of it was this rash and her white blood cell counts. Other than that, she's totally healthy. YAY!!! And, the doctor says it's ok for us to take her to NJ for the wedding this weekend!!!!!! I'm really excited to see some people I haven't seen in a very long time and I'll be sure to tell you all about it when I get back. Oh, and my birthday is on Saturday. WOOOOO!

What a Day...

Yesterday around 5:30pm I noticed that Chana had a bizarre rash (which is called Petechia, and if you read the wikipedia on it you'll probably have a heart attack like I just nearly did...) Anyway, I had never seen this kind of rash before and didn't know what it was called, so I called the Pediatrician. The doctor told me to come on in and have it looked at. So I ran my butt over to the doctor's office, and it was now nearly 7pm. They took a look at it and said "go over to Children's Hospital because it could be something serious and we want it looked at". Greeeeat. So I rushed her to Children's ER, where they took a blood test (it took them several sticks, because she's so chunky, and finally they got an IV line in her arm). They also did a lumbar puncture to take a look at her spinal fluid. So far her blood looks fine, except for an elevated white blood cell count, and her spinal fluid looks good too. But, they cannot definitively say that it's all good until 48 hours have passed. They need to rule out a bacterial infection, and the tests for that take 2 days. But let me tell you, you NEVER want to hear the word
"meningitis" come out of a doctor's mouth...NEVER. I mean just thinking of it makes you want to pass out. *shiver* Yeah, that sucked.

Anyway, as of now Chana does not have a fever or any other signs of being ill other than elevated white blood cells and this funny rash. The doctors believe it's probably a virus, but they have her on antibiotics, and she'll be under observation until all the tests come back. *sigh* So not fun at all. For all of you Jewish types out there, her name is Chana Brocha bas Elana Miriam if you would like to daven for her to have a refuah sheleyma.

Click HERE for more Hebrew & Yiddish word definitions

200th Post!

Wow! Can you imagine that I'm already at post #200? Anyone remember my 100th post? It's the one where I posted about the twins being a boy & a girl. Looking back at the pictures from that ultrasound, the one of my son's profile actually looks like him...sorta. They were so tiny at 18 weeks. Little did I know at that point that two weeks later I'd be on modified bed rest and hoping to keep them in at least until "viability"! I don't have anything nearly that exciting to report for post 200.

I forgot to mention that both twins have seen the neurologist and have been given clean bills of mental health (for now). We'll go back for a follow-up in 6 months, but the doctor doesn't suspect he'll find anything troubling. I'm so relieved, because Dovid wasn't breathing for the first 3 minutes of his "life" (in quotes because he was nearly not alive for those minutes). And no oxygen can mean VERY bad things for one's brain. Chana also was oxygen deprived, but not nearly as much as Dovid was...and she started breathing right away. B"H there is nothing to worry about at this point. YAY!

My sister-in-law has decided to extend her stay at least until May 14th, although I'm really pushing to see if she'll stay even longer. I'm terrified for the day when I'm left alone with the twins and I need to be doing all 24 hours worth of feedings. YIPE!!!! At least they are getting MUCH better on that front--both had only 7 feedings yesterday! Much, much better than 12 each! At least if you can do the feedings back-to-back (which most of these weren't), 7 extended feedings doesn't take up *too* much time. Unfortunately that's only in a perfect world. My twins don't always get hungry at the same time (or nearly the same time) so it can turn into 14 regular feedings instead of 7 extended ones.

*Please skip the following paragraph if you don't want to know about my son's...errr...digestive system*
Dovid has been going longer and longer without a poo. When he was born it was once a day, then it was once every other day, and now it's once every three days. I got nervous today because he hadn't had one since Friday evening, so I called the pediatrician. The nurse there said to take a rectal thermometer and pretend to take a temperature...then watch out! So I did that...poor little guy was NOT happy about it at all...and neither was mommy. :-) A few hours later my hubby was feeding him and you hear this GIANT poo sound (and smell to go with it) across the room! Well I was just delighted. (Especially because my hubby took care of the diaper, which had basically exploded all over everything.) Luckily it was a normal mushy baby poo, so no worries of constipation. Hopefully he'll become more regular so I don't have to freak out when I don't see one in a few days. *sigh* The trials and tribulations of motherhood. :-D

Speaking of motherhood, Mother's Day is coming up! My very first one!!! I'm really excited even though my hubby is going to be at work and I don't really expect he'll get me anything exciting. I'll be lucky if he remembers to give me a card--although I have been dropping not-so-subtle hints of the upcoming holiday. We'll see what happens.