A new year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
We had a great New Year party, Natalia was a party animal

oh! and the food!!! My sis and her husband made a delicious feast: Prime Rib, Ceasar Salad, baby potatoes in butter parsley, cauliflower melt. All I can say is W O W !!!

Sofía, Isabella and Natalia looked adorable posing in their New Year's outfit.

I'm going to miss my brother, sister and gang terribly!!

Sadly things are slowly getting back to normal, my sister & her family have left and now we're left with our normal routine slowly creeping back into space. For us that meant having Natalia's first medical appointment of 2008: she had to have a holter monitor on for 24 hrs after her last ecg came out with some inconsistencies. After her cardiac arrest she had some indication of Long QT syndrome so she's been having ecg's every 6 months but this was the first time we were called in to have the Holter. We went to her Cardio's doctor office and a technician placed the very sticky leads on her, Natalia was a champ, and we were off. No kidding, in & out in 20 minutes!! She had to have her normal activity which now a days is:

I have a video I tried to upload but blogger wasn't cooperating, I'll try to post it later, but YEAH!! she's bearing weight and taking tini tiny steps when you hold her!!! We are extremely exited!!

Back to the holter monitor: then I just took the leads off in 24 hrs and have to yet take it back to Cardio. We'll have the results in 7 days.

I still haven't gotten around to thinking about resolutions... maybey I should, like Natalia, just take it a tini tiny step at a time, that's a good resolution!

In a Nutshell

It’s been quite a bit since I’ve posted and so much has been going on, I’ll try my best to update you.

PART 1

Late November Natalia was doing awesome, she was mastering sitting w/o support, and this was her favorite activity: Mirror play!!!

Then suddenly one day she stopped tolerating her feeds, I slowed her rate down all the way to 40 /hr but she still has ghastly stomach cramps and seemed to be producing A LOT more gas than usual. She would scream in pain and jerk all around, these fits lasted about 40 minutes and I believe that she just got so tired she slept even with the pain.

After one day of this she got a slight fever, I called her Ped and she told me to go to the ER just to be sure. And, as Murphy ’s Law is, Natalia was fine during the ER stay. She was even LAUGHING!!! I couldn’t belive it. We were there for around 5 hrs and they finally decided to discharge us, I was so frustrated because I knew that she wasn’t all well. When the discharge papers arrived I started to dress Naty to go home before I signed them. And then Natalia started having a fit. I mean, it took 2 nurses to hold her down and she’s tiny!!. Thankfully one of the Doctors was there and saw just how terrible her pain was, they admitted her immediately.

Our hospital stay lasted 1 week; she got better very slowly because this time nobody could, by ANY means, get a line in her tiny veins. All her meds were via gtube. She was very weak but finally after 4 days her blood culture came back negative so the game plan changed and they stared weaning her back to Nutren Jr.. that took another 3 days. In the end we were discharged with her feedings at a very slow rate, no solids and a case of c-diff.

We had her 15 month well check 1 day after her discharge: 14.7 pounds and 26 inches. This puts her well above the 50th% in the cdls growths charts.

We also had an appointment with her GI doctor, who was happy with Natalia’s recovery but still ordered an upper GI and a swallow test just to double check that her Fundoplacation is holding up consistently. I’m glad she’s having those studies done again since I know how important gastric & swallow issues are with CDLS. These are going to be in Jan 08.

A week after she was discharged we also had an appointment scheduled with the pulmonologist to try to get the synagis shot for her.. By then Natalia had the sniffles an a slight cough. Everything went great with the pulmonologist, she said her lungs look great but still authorized the synagis. When we asked about the cough she said it was just that: a cough. And just as things usually go: the day after that appointment Natalia started to have this whooping cough that made her cry every single time. This lasted another week, and is finally dying down. She still has a cough, but definitely the worse is over. We can finally both sleep. :)

PART 2

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Both my brother and sister came to visit for the holidays. We seldom see each other since one lives in NY and the other lives in Wisconsin. Their presence made this holiday very special. My brother stayed only for a week, he left just before Christmas. I'm glad he and Gaby (his wife) had the chance to get to know Natalia. We're a pretty close knit family and if there is something I would love is for my brother ans sister to know just how lovable and teriffic my baby girl is.

This is my brother Elias and his wife Gaby with Naty in her PJ's

My sister is still here with her family, she has adorable twin 4 yr olds who are pure dynamite! They are tons of fun. They love to play and cuddle with Natalia, and she enjoys the atention. I think it's time to think about giving Naty a brother or sister, she enjoys other kids company alot!

This was Christmas dinner with my parents, my sister Delia with her husband Jafet.

Chrismas morning was a whirl, imagine two 4year old opening present and jumping all around, Natalia jus took it all in.

Then it was time for her to open her presents, I belive she loved them!!

Hope you all had a teriffic Christmas!!!

We're back!

Well, finally life is begginning to be back to normal. Natalia spent a week in the hospital :( she had a stomach infection. I first noticed her breath started smelling funky, a day after that she started gagging at every meal, and I knew she had some kind of stomach issue because she stopped eating her solids. After a day of gagging and very scary episodes took her to the ER, which means, by my experience, that she is automatically admited. The doctors tend to take everything with Naty with the utmost care because of her medical history: cardiac arrest, pneumonia, c-diff, etc etc.
Juat wanted to touch base with the blog, and I'll soon post some pictures and talk more about this. Darn! i don't even have time to peek at my favorite blogs!
byebye.

ENT & Thanksgiving

Yesterday we had an early ENT appointment to rule out fluid in Natalia's ears. She has another ABR (hearing test) next Dec 3rd after the first time we were sent back and the second one that was canceled because o fluid in her ear. So we are good to go... no more fluid in her ears!!! Now we have to keep her completely sniffle-free until after the ABR.
Natalia was in an excelent mood, "talking" all the way home. When we got home she became vey entertained with her activity block (thanks Clari!). I'm thrilled that she's having fun with it now, she feels like such a big girl when she's sitting alone playing.

We are planning on having a quiet Thanksgiving at home. But that's no excuse not to dress up... Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Just us girls

Today Natalia and I had a relaxing, mellow day. We're home alone until tomorrow so we made the best of our quality time. During week days I see Nati just a few hours a day because of work so I miss her daily rutine. But today, even though we didn't leave the house, it was great to have her all to myself.

First we watched Baby Einstein videos

I'm soooo proud, she's doing so well with her sitting

aaaaahhhhhh.....

an early dinner, yummy!

...it's all in a day's work!

Taaa Daaa!!!

I'm thrilled, after almost 2 months we FINALLY have a new camera!! Here are the first pictures, don't expect too much, it was late but I couldn't wait to try out my new toy. : )

This is Natalia's "I don't care if I have crazy hair, don't brush my hair" hair.
I know, this crib would probably be banned for overstimulation, but Natalia likes to have variety, and I'd do anything to get her to fall asleep late in the evening.

I'm planning a fotoshoot this weekend, I'll post them by Tuesday. Have a great weekend!!

Some old, some new

Good news from Amazon: I just got my refund in so we'll be getting a new camera any time soon.I really want to share her pumpkin pictures but I haven't received the pictures from my friends who're supposed to send them (hint hint). Here are some pictures from last year. I'm glad this year Nati did enjoy herself, mabey I was able to erase last years traumatic Halloween experience...

Everything started ok, she was placidly sleeping until...

Mom decided it was time to dress up as a WILD CAT (costume courtesy of Aunt Delia).

Then all hell broke loose!!

Here's a closer look, this 2 month old was WAILING!!

Not even her friends could make her stop

OFCOURSE!!! She hates hats! After we took her wild cat ears off she was good to go. And fell sound asleep.

Can you tell how tiny she was? That costume was size 1 preemie from preemie.com. Take another look at the first picture, that bib was normal size and looks huge on her.

Here are a few pictures my father took of Natalia this weekend, please excuse the poor quality, they're from a phone camera.

Big smile for the camera... I mean phone

Although it seems she's bored out of her wits, take my word for it, she was having a blast. hehe
I think she prefers to pose for a real camera.

Hope your Halloween was fun. ;)