Concentration...

 

Deck the Halls for Halloween...

So I have to admit that I'm not a real fan of Halloween itself. It's always kind of creeped me out a bit. But I do love decorating for Halloween! Every year I look forward to pulling out the skulls and potions and witch wear...the only thing I don't like is the fake spider web that must cover the whole thing! It's a pain in the neck to work with but in the end it makes all the difference!

Here's what you see when you walk in to our home:

Here's a few close ups:

And the Family Room:

There you have it! I'm happy with how it turned out and most importantly it makes me happy to look at each day. It's funny though how much I love my decorations now while knowing that I will be completely sick of them and just itching to move onto Christmas decorating by the time Halloween actually rolls around!

P.S. I joined this post up with Show and Share Day over at Just a Girl and the Halloween Mantle Linky Party over at A-Z Go check them out!



     

Making Ghosties...(a tutorial)

When I was in elementary school I remember making ghosts using cheesecloth and sugar water. I watched that little ghost yellow a little more each year until finally it found a new home in the city dump. This year I remembered my beloved ghostie and wanted to make one with my own kiddos. I found instructions for a version of them on the Family Fun website and was so excited! The other day we gathered everything we needed and went to town...

First we gathered aluminum foil, liquid starch, cheese cloth, various vases and bottles and a large bowl.

Next make balls of foil and attach them to the tops of the vases/bottles. They will form the heads and "hands" of the ghosts.

Cut cheesecloth into squares according to the size of ghosts you want...

Pour the starch into the bowl and soak the cheesecloth in the starch for a minute until fully saturated then wring out the cheesecloth...

then drape it over the foil topped containers in a ghostly shape...

Also, tuck some foil balls under the edges of the ghost to make it look "floaty" when it dries...

Take a break to play in starch and make funny faces...

Let ghosts dry for 4-5 hours (Family Fun said 24hrs. but we found that they were ready before that.)

And the big reveal (-drum roll please-)....

Ta-Da!

We still haven't decided whether to put faces on them or just leave them looking mysteriously faceless.

Well, there you have it! I love how they turned out and I hope that these ghosties will not yellow like my sugar water one did. If they do it's ok, this was easy enough to make every year!

  

     

Part 6...The End

I know that there are those parents of babies who have had major health issues and have had extended stays in the hospital who are probably annoyed that I had such a hard time with a 10-14 day NICU stay, but I'll admit, it was really tough for me. I had not expected this at all and to have her with me one minute and then back in the hospital the next was such a shock to me. I've never been good with change and this was not how I had planned it!

For the next week or so the doctors went back and forth on whether she would have to stay for the 10 day round of antibiotics or the 14 day round. We went back and forth to the hospital trying to balance time with Em as well as the other two at home. For my birthday on July 8th we went to dinner before the hospital and the whole time we were eating I just wanted to go hold my baby. That day they also told us that it was looking like 14 days would be what she stayed for...Happy Birthday to me. The EEG had come back normal and the cultures had not grown out at all but the 3 other spinal taps that had been done (under sedation thank goodness) showed steady improvement in the quality of her spinal fluid. Still, it was frustrating to think that maybe it was not Meningitis after all and that her fluid had just been colored from the brain bleed, which had not caused any problems and would heal itself without intervention. At one point we had talked to our Pediatrician, whom we love so much and consider a good friend, and she also told us that if it was her child she would have done the same thing. Why couldn't we just get a straight answer from the NICU docs as to how they were so confident that it had really been Meningitis?!

Every time I kissed Em, put her back in that little hospital crib and walked away I cried. I knew she was in good hands and I knew that compared to the other babies in her NICU room she was the healthiest and I was so thankful for that. But it had taken me so long to actually decide to have another baby and I had been so excited for so long to meet her and the kids were so  in love with her that to have her gone after being home for such a short time was really hard on our family. When I was home it felt like she didn't really exist and when I was with her I didn't want to let her go. There were moments when I was completely consumed with the need to hold her and she wasn't there. When I was with her I would rock her and look at her IV's and monitors and get frustrated that I couldn't just hold her or change her diaper without having to untangle her before and after. I would watch her sats religiously while I held her, tracking her heart beat and oxygen and learned which alarms were ok and which ones weren't. It seemed like I would always arrive just after they had bathed her and that would make me sad. Feeding her while I was there was always so exciting because it made me feel like I could finally do something for her. I would hold her and cry because I was so afraid that she wouldn't feel loved or bond with me like she needed too. Even then I knew logically that those were irrational fears but they were fears all the same.

The kids came up to visit her once during her stay and loved the Kids' Room where there were crafts and video games to entertain them while they took turns going to the NICU with Matt or I. They learned how to "scrub in" and how to be careful of tubes and wires while holding her. They loved the nurses and Madison even got to pick out clean bedding and make and decorate a name card for Em's bed. They thought it was exciting to eat in the cafeteria and took full advantage of being able to choose interesting combinations of food for dinner.

We had to learn infant CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver on a fake baby before they would let us take home the real thing. When Matt joked that he figured it would be more efficient to use his foot to pump the babies chest while doing CPR the nurse was not amused and I figured they may keep her for a while after that just to teach us a lesson!  She also had to pass a carseat test that proved she would not quit breathing on the way home.

In the end she stayed for 10 days, not 14. I about threw a party when they called and said to bring the carseat when we came because she would be going home the next day instead of 4 days after that! Taking off the monitors and putting her in her little pink jammies with guitars and music notes on that Madison had picked out while I was pregnant was so fun. Saying goodbye and walking out of those NICU doors with my baby was like a dream. They told us to keep her away from too many public places and too many people for the next few months and then we were free! The last doctor that we talked to, the one who discharged her, really sat down with us and let us ask question after question without being condescending or rushed. She was wonderful. She was the one that finally told us that Em's chart had showed that her protein and sugar levels in her spinal fluid along with the color and white blood cells are what made a strong case that Meningitis was present. Nobody else had told us that....for 10 days!

I remember thinking to myself, while Em was in the hospital and I ached to hold her, that I would not take her for granted when she came home. I promised myself that I would enjoy every minute with her. I think I made pretty good on that promise, well until she turned two I guess! It's hard to remember on the hard days how much I just wanted her here whether she was difficult or not! But bad days or no I am so very thankful that she is here, that we didn't wake up to find that she had passed away without any warning. My heart hurts just thinking of that possibility! We will never really know if she had Meningitis since the bacteria never grew. She still twitched occasionally after we brought her home and even Matt finally got to see it one day and admitted that it was a bit worrisome. Thankfully she has no side effects from her ordeal. Blindness, deafness and mental retardation can all be caused by meningitis. She was a bit behind with her motor skills and had some sensory issues when she was about a year old (which are also frequently found in kids who have had Meningitis at some point in their early lives)  but with therapy those things resolved and she is now actually ahead of the curve for her age.  She knows her shapes, can count to 20, recognizes numbers 1-9 and is learning her colors. Of course, I'm pretty sure that she has learned all of these skills from Dora, Elmo and my Iphone apps but hey, I'll take it!

I'll confess, I still wonder sometimes if it was all for nothing. It was really tough to feel so alone with such a wedge between Matt and I, it was horrible to watch her suffer and well, we'll be paying the medical bills from those 10 days until she is in Kindergarten! But when I think of what life might have been like without her here it makes every penny we will shell out worth it.



P.S. Thanks for coming along for the ride...




 

Part 5...10-14 Days

*I'm sure by now you are all wondering when/if this story will ever end. I'm sorry if my blog has become a bit boring as I reminisce and I promise that I will finish up soon. If you are not really interested in the rest of the story I won't mind if you dump me until next week when my regular blogging will resume. Thank you for your patience...*

The next morning I was woken up by Em's NICU nurse shortly before my phone alarm was set to go off. She had an update for me. I could feel how swollen my eyes were from crying and lack of sleep and hoped that I didn't look as bad as I thought I might. The nurse explained that Em was doing well and that they had started her on the IV antibiotics she would need for the meningitis. She told me that she no longer had a fever and was in fact having a hard time keeping her own body temperature up so they were going to keep her under a warmer until she overcame that obstacle. They had also put her on just a little oxygen as her sats kept going down. They were going to be doing an EEG later in the day to look for signs of seizure activity and the Neurologist was going to be coming by that morning to evaluate her. She mentioned that one of the other nurses had mentioned around 7:00 that morning that they were surprised that I hadn't come to check on my baby yet and she had informed them that I had not gotten to bed until 5:30am and needed some sleep. Man I was grateful!

After she left I went into the bathroom to inspect my appearance and oh boy...scary! My eyes were so swollen and my skin was blotchy. My hair was a mess and if I am really honest, I really needed a shower! I went out to the room's fridge and pulled out a couple of cold juice cans and laid down with them on my eyes. I sat there for a while and then called Matt to let him know that we were in the NICU and that I needed some toiletries brought up before I could, in good conscience, face the outside world.

When Matt arrived I gave myself a sponge-bath of sorts in the bathroom, requested a couple of rubber bands from the receptionist which enabled me to make pigtails out of my disheveled hair (luckily I had also worn a hat the night before so that went back on too) and I brushed my teeth. It's amazing how just doing a few simple things makes a person feel a little more centered in a stressful situation.

When we were ready to go see Em we were instructed as to how to properly "scrub in" for the NICU and then we were taken back to her little heated crib still in the quarantine area. She was about the same as she had been when I had kissed her goodnight in the early morning hours and it was wonderful just to touch her little toes again. Shortly after we made it to her bedside the neurologist came in along with a social worker. The social worker sat down by me and informed me that she was there in case I needed to talk about the situation with her. She told me that she had been informed that I was having a really rough time with all that had happened and wanted to know why I felt I was having such a hard time with it. I told her that I was ok, just worried about my baby, and of course....I started to cry. What I really wanted to tell her was that of course I was having a "rough time"! I was worried about Em, I felt terrible about all she had been through and  I felt completely alone in the situation and to top it all off I was post-prego hormonal!

Anyhoo, the Neuro came in and examined Em and a very strange thing happened. Every time she would stroke the right side of Em's head her whole body would twitch. The Dr. said it wasn't normal but that she couldn't explain it. She said to go ahead with the EEG and that this new twitching could be from the meningitis as well because the infection could be irritating her nervous system making her extremely sensitive to touch. She told us that Em would be in the NICU for the next 10-14 days on antibiotics. What?! We thought they would give her a prescription and send us home later in the day. Matt questioned the Dr. again as to why she even needed to be there if her cultures had not grown out at all. The Neuro was rather condescending to Matt and essentially gave him an "I'm the doctor so don't question me..."  kind of answer which didn't make matters any better for Matt. The nurses all assured us that she wouldn't be going anywhere for a while and that I should go home and get some sleep. We left the hospital with Matt more frustrated than the night before and me walking away from my baby with more tears running down my cheeks.

Driving home was one of those experiences where you try your hardest to stay awake and wonder how you got there when you pull into the garage. When I got home I took a much needed shower and fell into a much needed sleep. When I woke up a few hours later it occurred to me that it was July 4th. The other two kids had been at my SIL's house (bless her!!!) since that morning and I knew that they would come home excited for fireworks. I knew that we would have our annual cul-de-sac 4th of July party and everyone would be eager to see the baby...who wouldn't be there. There would be questions and I would have to answer them, hopefully without crying, while all I wanted to do was show off my beautiful new baby. The night was better than I thought it would be and we actually didn't end up going back up to the hospital that day and just enjoyed the holiday festivities with the older two while knowing that our baby was in good hands. It was hard on Madison not having Em around since she was already completely in love with her and had waited so eagerly for her arrival. Obviously nothing had gone quite the way she had imagined it would since the minute her new sister had been born!

Oh and P.S. - How cute is my sweet daughter for highjacking my blog to tell me that she loves me?! I love you too sweetie!