Elizabeth on the Mend & the Ultrasound Update

Great News First:

• Elizabeth is doing great after 7 days on heavy duty antibiotics. Her ear infection better and her cough is much improved. We think she's well enough to finally get back to preschool! (the picture is one from last fall, but it's one I love!)

• We're having a wonderful time with my mom here for the last week. While all the girls battled "the plague," I tried to stay off my feet and Matt worked crazy hours at work, she's been super helpful, and exactly the support we needed. We get to keep her until Friday, so we're incredibly thankful.
• We found out today that we are being blessed with another baby girl and she's growing perfectly! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

The Latest on the Girls:

• Elizabeth's ear infection was a result of her tube falling out, so on April 5th she'll go under anesthesia and have the tubes in both ears replaced.

• After 4 days of no improvement and the onset of fevers, we discovered our sweet Hannah Mae had ruptured one eardrum and had an infection in the other! The poor thing was also having lots of wheezing along with her cough, so while at the pediatrician she got a nebulizer treatment (the photo)...unfortunately, it didn't have an effect, but she was a great sport about the whole thing. After just 3 days on antibiotics she's a new baby! We're glad to have our little one happy again.
  
  

  

  
  
• Ruby's recovering from the plague as well and Granna's keeping her busy with her smart phone...apparently Angry Birds is addicting...who knew??

Here's my favorite quote from the week so far:

Ruby was making an extremely loud and annoying noise for about 20 seconds. Finally, Granna said, "Ruby! I'm going to go insane!" When I asked Ruby if she knew what "insane" meant, she replied, "Yes....No....Does it mean 'Stop?'" That child is brilliant.

The Ultrasound Report:

• Unfortunately, the clot hasn't changed in size or position. As of right now, since the baby seems to have all the room it needs to grow, the biggest risk is that I might start to bleed and the void left by the clot (the size of an orange) would cause me to go into pre-term labor. Obviously that's something that we want to avoid.

• We were seen by my new high-risk OB today. As I'd hoped, he was able to give us lots of information and options, and in addition to a few prescriptions for medications which should help decrease the pre-term labor risk, he lightened my bed-rest restrictions. He felt comfortable with me getting out of bed more, and returning to mild activity levels. This means I probably won't need full-time help once my mom leaves and instead we can work to find part time help with housework & for the parts of my day that require the most lifting and activity. Obviously, this is really great news!
• Lastly, Baby Girl had an abnormal finding called an echogenic bowel (it glows a bit on the ultrasound), which is most likely the result of swallowing some blood that leaked into the amniotic fluid from my clot. It's also considered a soft marker for Down's Syndrome and a few other things, but with no other hard or soft markers showing up on the ultrasound and a perfectly good explanation since I have a whole lotta blood hanging out near our sweet girl, we agreed with our OB that we'd skip the amnio. We're not worried...but having experienced an "abnormal finding" or two in our lives, we'd appreciate prayers that Baby Girl continues to be healthy and grow well.
  

That's the report for tonight! Thanks for coming along on our crazy ride. We so appreciate you.

Feelin' Crummy

This is Elizabeth in a fun dress from Grandma Harms. It's been quite cold here, but the girls put them on and wouldn't take them off for 3 days!

It's been a few weeks since Elizabeth has needed her own update, but before things get crazy, I thought I'd email a quick update and prayer request. The cold that Elizabeth has had for the last two weeks has hung on long enough to give her an ear infection and allow some mucous to collect in her lungs. She started complaining of pain (rare for her) last night and sure enough had fevers all day, in addition to a gnarly sounding cough. Praise God I'd already arranged for my friend to be here for the day to help out and she was able to stay with the little ones while I took Elizabug to the pediatrician and to Children's for blood work. We were also thankful our Infectious Disease Dr. was able to weigh in and suggest she start another round of the heavy duty oral antibiotics that allowed us to leave the hospital early last time. So, for now, and hopefully for good, we're home, but Elizabeth is feeling, in her words "crummy".

Would you please pray for good rest for her, that the antibiotics would give her system the boost it needs to clear both the ear infection and protect her from pneumonia, AND that we get to stay home from the hospital?? All three of the girls have colds now, but so far, Matt and I have remained mostly symptom free. We hope we sent Grandma off in good health (a few days will tell) and Granna arrives late tonight. YAY! Thanks so much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. Your emails continue to encourage us. Meals from friends continue to nourish us and the prayers you offer up are surely sustaining us.  I'm once again without wireless on my laptop (sheesh!) but will send out an update on the bed rest situation after we get a peek on Baby H & the clot next Tuesday.

Grandma's Here!

And just like that, all is well.