Every Germ in the House

Well today was Y's followup appointment with her dermatologist and he thinks "she looks a million times better." I already knew this but it was really great to hear it from the dermatologist. They looked at the results from the culture came back negative for bacteria and fungus. That kind of confused me because we knew it was infected but if it was neither of those then what could it be? Well he said that just means it was infected with "every germ in the house" - which is good, because it means that it's nothing serious that caused it and nothing to worry about. Now this doesn't mean that it was literally infected with "every germ in the house" but that was just his way of saying that it's nothing serious, nothing to worry about, to just relax. We do know that it was originally eczema though. He wants us to continue to put they hydrocortisone on her body twice a day for another week and on her scalp twice a day for two weeks and he thinks at that time she will be completely better. I'm excited that her hair is finally growing back!!! She will go back at the end of summer just to see how she is doing and how she made it through the summer months. He thinks that it is likely that she will have sensitive skin and may have allergic reactions to foods, fragrances, and other things but we'll cross that road when we get to it, IF we get to it. So all is well on that front.

Peas Please

It's really late and I should be in bed but I've been meaning to write this post for a couple days now and have just never gotten around to it, so here I am! On Thursday, in an effort to get Y to sleep through the night again, I started feeding her 3 times a day - cereal twice and vegetables once. Upon her first taste of peas I got this really scary face:

I was not really convinced that she liked them at all but she kept opening her mouth for them and eventually ate about half of what I thought she would eat. The next day I tried again and she gobbled them up really fast! I've started to make my own baby food and I'm excited that I just got my new baby food cookbook in the mail. My other one is okay but extremely basic and didn't give as much info as I wanted so I bought "Super Baby Food" and although it's a lot more organic and natural than we tend to be I like a lot of the other stuff that's in the book so I'll just pick and choose what I want to do. I also just ordered the complete starter kit for Baby Signs and I'm excited to learn some of the sings so that I can begin to incorporate them when talking to Y. I'm certainly not going to use every single sign that they teach but will again pick and choose the ones that I want to use. This way Y and I can communicate before she can talk and will hopefully be a lot less stressful when figuring out what she is trying to tell me. Y is doing much better in her sitting up with and without the help of the boppy. On Sunday I took a few pictures (okay, I took a ton of pictures but I'll only share a few here) of her sitting up with her boppy. She is also doing much better with rolling over but is still struggling at times. She'll get there and I'm not really in a huge rush for it to happen. She goes back to the dermatologist on Thursday when we will find out what infection she had and then maybe can narrow down what caused it. For now though, here are some pictures!

To Nana B.'s House We Go...

I was beginning to feel just slightly burned-out so I decided I wanted to get away and so Sunday after church we left for Canada to go to B's parent's house (B now has Mondays off instead of Saturdays). It turned out to be a great decision and was really just what I needed. I got a day (and a half) of relaxation and I must say I feel replenished. Sometimes I just get tired of our apartment and want to get away. While I was there I wanted to have my hair trimmed and get a bang (which I haven't had since high school). I really like it, I'm sure it'll be much easier to maintain and looks great curled, straight of in a ponytail! Here's a picture:

What do you think?

As for Y, she is continually getting better. We've also been doing a lot more tummy time and she's getting much better at it. She is really working on rolling over and she can do it but she just lets her arm get in the way. She hasn't figured out that she needs to lay her arm flat in order for it to work. She sometimes does it and when she does she can roll over, but she has yet to make the connection between the position of her arm and her ability to roll over. As for sitting up, she's pretty good at it and has actually been doing it for a while now - the problem: whenever she sits up on her own she wants to lean forward to eat her toes. When she does this, she tips over. We just have to get her to sit up straight and she could do it. That's all of the updates for now, until next time...

6 Months Old

Yep, our baby is 6 months old already, time has really flown by! This has without a doubt been the most stressful event of my life but that should really be no surprise. Given it all I will say that this has also been the greatest experience of our lives (I think it's safe for me to speak for Brandon on that too). I am enjoying every moment and have a lot to look forward to. Anyway, as for Yanna's rash she's doing a lot better now. The rash on her body is leaving now and the place on her scalp is healing and the old dead skin has shed to reveal new healthy skin - so we're making a lot of progress. I could definitely tell it was healing over the past several days because it had been itching her really badly to the point that she would awake in the middle of the night crying while moving her head from side-to-side trying to scratch it. She ended up sleeping in bed with us for a couple of nights which meant that I got very little sleep. I'm am happy to announce that last night she did sleep the full night in her crib again, whew!!!

She is 16 pounds now and around 27 inches long. She's not yet rolling over or sitting up completely on her own but it's something we're working on. It's probably at least partially our fault since we haven't been very persistent with tummy time and letting her sit up on her own. Most times we would either have her in our laps, on the floor on her gym on the her back, in her exersaucer, in her jumperoo or in her swing. So now we've been throwing tummy time into the mix and she doesn't mind it as much as she used to. She has rolled over a few times but not enough to really have figured out how to do it. Either that or she just doesn't want to do it. Anyway here are some tummy time pictures as well as some pictures that I took today on her 6 month-day!

Tummy-Time:

Happy Month-day:

Video:

Update

So I wanted to type up a quick update because I know a lot of you check the blog on Sunday. Y has been responding really well to both creams that were prescribed by the dermatologist. The rash that covered her face and body seems to be clearing up slowly and as for the place on her head it seems to be healing nicely as well. We're still not totally there yet and we're keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn't reoccur as it has in the past. We're being optimistic!

As for the whole thing about the Mongolian Spots, I called her pediatrician to ask more questions and he simply laughed and said that he had never heard of such thing and assured me that many of his patients have Mongolian Spots but are all fine. I was satisfied with that answer. Not that I don't think the dermatologist knows his stuff but I was definitely comforted to know that in all his years and in all his patients he's never dealt with such a case.

Well it's late and I'm tired so I'm going to bed but I wanted to post an update for everyone. 143.

The Most Stressful Job...Ever!

I used to think I worried too much. That was before I had a baby. Now that I have one I only wish I worried as much as I used to - now it's magnified...BIG time. With that said, I'll begin my tale.

About 3-3½ weeks ago (around the time Y turned 5 months) I decided that it was time for me to allow Y the opportunity to self-sooth her way to sleep. Well for the most part it worked, the only problem is that her way of soothing herself to sleep is to turn her head from side to side over and over again. I dunno if this friction caused it, but eventually a bump showed up on her little bald spot. It was just a teeny tiny little bump at the time and after a couple days it became a couple little red bumps but I didn't think it was anything to be too alarmed about but I did decide that maybe I should rock her to sleep somewhat (as in wait until she's so drowsy she won't notice me putting her down). Well by the time Saturday night came and we were giving her a bath, B and I both expressed how well the spot looked and it seemed to be healing really well. The next morning was a different story though. During her morning feed I was rubbing her hair as I normally do and when my fingers hit her bald spot I felt something really hard and rough. After finishing the feed I checked it out to find that it was scabbed over and very crusty. I asked a couple of residents (medical) about it and all thought that it was eczema which was no surprise to us because both of us have eczema. We took her to the doctor on Monday, he thought it was infected and gave us a prescription to use. It worked...kinda. On Saturday morning I noticed that small bumps were starting to appear on her neck and around the infected area and called the pediatrician, we scheduled an appointment for Monday. Needless to say it seemed to get better by the time Monday came but the small bumps from her neck were now on her perfect little face. During her appointment her doctor wasn't 100% sure what it was and referred us to a dermatologist (by the way, Y is now 16 lbs and 26¾" long). Now between Monday and today I was pretty positive that whatever reaction she was having was due to me and the proteins from the dairy I drink transferring to Y through my breast milk. Well today the dermatologist basically told me that I would have been lucky if that had been the problem - because then it would be easily solved. It is not, however, the problem. And actually they're not completely sure what the problem is. The rash that has now spread over her entire body is secondary, meaning that it is a result of her immune system trying (probably with little luck) to fight off this bacterial infection of some sort. I say "of some sort" because that is what they don't know yet. The spot in the back of her scalp is what the immune system is fighting because it is apparently infected a bacteria. Today they took some samples from the location and will be doing some cultures in order to figure out exactly what it is and how to get rid of it which will take 3-4 weeks. Meanwhile we got a prescription for a cream for her body and another for her scalp and they said we should notice a difference in a week.

Now it'd be great if the story stopped here, but it doesn't! Y has Mongolian Spots pretty much all over her backside: upper and lower back, butt, shoulders and even a few on her legs. When she was born I thought they were bruises from the birthing process but her pediatrician pointed them out to us and explained what they are. He also wanted to note it in her file so that no one could accuse us of child abuse if they saw those spots (and believe me people have asked about them)! Well apparently studies have been done that supposedly link children with a lot of Mongolian Spots to children that have weak immune systems (says the dermatologist). The dermatologist was somewhat concerned about this especially since on 2 occasions it seemed to be getting better only to find that it actually got worse. So now, not only am I worried that they're not sure what type of bacteria this is and thus also not sure how to treat it, but I'm also worried that my child may have a difficult time getting over future illnesses. Do I really think she has a weak immune system? No! But she's only had 2 colds so there hasn't been a whole lot to test it, but I do shudder at the thought nonetheless.

I must add though that through it all, Y has been amazing. She has a cold, bumps all over her body, a very nasty infection in her scalp, and we're pretty sure she's teething...and through it all she just laughs and plays all day. I think it affects me more than her. We're lucky parents! Anyway, sorry this was so long but I'm a sucker for the details. And if no one else appreciates the details, I know one person who does...Yep, that's you Aunt J! :-D

I'll try to keep you all posted!