A Big Weekend...

Yes, we had quite the eventful weekend. On Saturday, Leah decided to push herself up from laying down to a sitting position for the first time!! 6 months of OT and she has finally decided to start bearing weight on her arms! What's even better is she is starting to get frustrated if she can't get herself to sitting up. Leah has always been so laid back, she has never really cared about where she was or what position she was in. Her lack of motivation has made it hard to work with her on gaining strength. Now, she is starting to care and wanting to move to different positions and places. It's amazing how little things can mean so much. Stephen and I have had to sort of disregard all of the timelines for reaching milestones with Leah, but it's hard not to compare her with other babies in the nursery at church, or at daycare. We see so many other babies who are younger than Leah and are doing so much more. It's very easy to be discouraged by this and to think that she will always be behind. So, things like this give us hope and remind us that she is making progress and she will catch up. That was not the end of the weekend, however...

On Saturday night, I woke up around midnight to the sounds of Leah vomiting in her bed. I got her, gave her a quick bath, and put her in our bed while I changed the sheets on her bed. While she was in our bed, she vomited. By then I had made her bed, so I put her back in her bed, and she vomited in her bed again. So, I put her back in our bed, where she vomited again. You think I would have learned! Anyway, I finally put her back in her bed with a bath towel under her, and Stephen and I slept on the mattress alone. I refused to put another set of sheets on our bed at 1:15 in the morning. Leah had no fever, no diarrhea and she wasn't acting like she was sick, so I just assumed something she ate didn't settle with her. Especially when, in the morning she drank her first bottle and had breakfast with no issues. She had her second bottle, and right when she was getting ready to eat lunch, she vomited again. At this point, I called the pediatrician. Her suspicion level was raised because Leah had no symptoms of any illness other than the vomiting and was concerned that it was her shunt malfunctioning. So, we headed to the ER to have X-rays and a CT scan done. After about 6 hours in the ER, 5 X-rays, and a CT scan (all of which required Leah to be restrained), we finally found out that it was not her shunt malfunctioning. In fact, the doctor told us that her ventricles looked smaller on this CT scan than they did on her MRI from March. Praise the LORD! We were so relieved that we would not have to be going through another surgery. They checked Leah's urine to see if she had a urinary tract infection (which she does not), gave her some anti-nausea medication, and after another 2 hours, they finally let us go. It must have been so traumatic. She has woken up both of the last two nights since the hospital screaming and crying. We think she is having nightmares. Poor baby. She had not vomited since Sunday afternoon until today. I got a call from daycare saying Leah had vomited and that I needed to go get her. And they told us she can't go to daycare tomorrow. So, she is staying home with Daddy in the morning and then going to Mrs. Janie's house to play in the afternoon. Fortunately, Leah does not seem to be affected by any of this. She is her normal happy self. Praise God for our sweet little girl.