the latest

So, Bella is doing really well. Her body seems to be responding to this antibiotic pretty well.
She's scheduled to have surgery on Monday and if all goes well we get to come home Tuesday. She's growing so fast! She's been smiling a ton and "talking" meaning cooing and aahing and every once and a while she'll let out a squeal! It's so cute. This morning at around 3am she woke up! I begrudgingly pulled myself off the sofa and went to her crib hoping to get her back to sleep...when I peeked over her she met me with the biggest smile and a squeal it was so cute. My bad mood instantly vanished. A good reminder that she's the most precious thing in the whole wide world!

We're back...

So, being at home didn't last long. As soon as Bella took the new antibitoic she started violently vomiting all over. I've never seen anyone vomit across the room like she did. It scared me to . I freaked out and called theh hospital they rushed us back to Doernbecher's. It's looking like we're going to be here for a while this time. We'll know more in the morning. I absolutely this. It took so long to get an IV started in her. They had to call in 3 different teams of doctors. Bella was screaming so loud and crying so hard that she was purple and no sound was coming out. I just held her little fingers and bawled with her. Even the nurse was having a hard time standing there. I wish I had the power to fix everything. I wish I could assure her that there won't be anymore painful things. It's pretty rotten. She was given a blessing by her uncle and in it she was told that it would be rough for a little bit but that she was strong and her spirit was strong and that soon enough she would be healed. It was a pretty strong blessing. Almost identical to the one Joe gave her when we were here the last time. I know she's being watched over, I just need to keep reminding myself of that fact.

Happy New Year...in the ER

Well, our new year sure started off with a bang! It started out pretty good. Our friends Bryan and Sarah invited us over to their place and we played Settlers (Bryan killed us all) and then watched "The Interpreter" (very intense movie) Right before midnight we noticed Bella was feeling pretty warm. We took her temp...sure enough she had a fever. So off to OHSU ER we went. Bryan and Sarah sent us off with a bottle of sparkling cider so we could at least celebrate.
It wasn't as bad as the last time. These nurses and Dr.s at least seemed to know what they were doing. She has another really bad kidney infection. Fortunately they let us go home because she seemed to being okay otherwise. She has to go back fri. anyway for an appt. I was so glad not to have to be admitted to the hospital. As far as we know she's still having surgery this monday.

Man, I never want to be in the ER on New Year's eve ever again! It was awful around 2:30-3 all the drunk driving accidents started pouring in. We were in a room right in front of the ambulatory entrance and the triage. So, we saw everything! One girl had overdosed on drugs, another guy got in a fight and you couldn't even recognize his facial features it was so bad, one guy was drunk and got in an accident and bit his tongue off. Then we saw someone die on the stretcher. It was pretty sad. One minute they were wheeling him on the next he was being covered with a sheet and wheeled to the morgue. We felt a little shell shocked and were so glad that Bella had no idea of what was going on. It made us grateful for the standards we keep and that we won't ever have to be any of those people.

I hope everyone had a great night and here's to a better year!

Surgery Number One

We're finally getting somewhere with Bella's kidney problems. Yesterday we went to OHSU to have a scan done of her kidneys. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It took about an hour total. The one good thing about her having this IV line in her arm is that they didn't need to start an IV yesterday. They were able to draw blood from the PICC line. No needle pokes!

Today we went back and met with the Urologists thayt are treating her...funny tangent....so, It was time for Bella to nurse but I couldn't nurse her because they were coming in to look at her. So, my milk is coming in like crazy and soaked my nursing pads through and my shirt. I decided to change them. Well, right as I lift my shirt up and take down my bra one of the residents walks right in! I think he was more embarassed than I was. Leslie (Joe's mom) and I started cracking up!

Okay back to the serious stuff...It looks like her right kidney is doing fine but the left kidney is on its way tp shutting down in a nutshell. January 5th is her first surgery. It's kind of a "mini-surgery", I say that because they don't actually need to make an incision. Thank heavens! They will go in with a laser scope through hher bladder and poke a hole in the cyst. She'll have to stay in the hospital for one extra day as long as everything goes okay. Back to Doernbecher's we go. I feel unusually calm about it all. I'm confident that they know what they're doing and that Heavenly Father knows what's up. Besides, this is icing on the cake compared to the next few surgeries.

On a happy note...Christmas is in 2 days! Whoo-hoo! Joe let me open a present early last night...it was a Twilight Poster! He won't let me put it up in the living room! I told him I'm going to frame it and surround it with spotlights.

Here's some recent pictures of my bambina:

Her snow suit from Grammy. We call her a pink Ewok


My lil christmas elf!
" I look ridiculous! Get this hat off of me!"

"I SAID TAKE IT OFF!"

We got to come home

We finally got to come home last night. One of the nurses was concerned that we'd get stuck there if there was ahuge snow storm so they let us go home. It was an exhausting week.

This is what's going on:
At 4am wed. morning I went to get Bella to feed her. I knew she wasn't feeling well because all day tues. I had to wake her up to eat. This never happens. She wouldn't cry, she would only whimper. I called the Dr. that night she said just to watch her and check for fever. Well, wed morning before I even picked her up I could feel the heat radiating off her body. I took her temp it was 101. I called the nurse back she said get to the ER ASAP. So we did. When we got there her fever had spiked to 103. Very dangerous. She was pretty listless. They then spent two hours!!! Yes, two hours trying to get an IV in her arm. It was the worst thing ever. She screamed and screamed. They were diggin around with the needle trying to get it in her vein. She was so dehydrated that her vains were like limp noodles. I eventually lost it and broke down in sobs. Here's my tiny baby in pain and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it but sit and watch. They finally got the IV in and needed to cath her. Another hour of her screaming and me crying. Finally they called pediatrics. They were able to get the cath in but come to find out the stupid nurse that put her IV in didn't get it in the vein all the way and it blew her vein and fluid had filled up in her leg and foot. It was awful looking.

After almost 5 hours of trauma she just passed out on Joe's chest and whimpered in her sleep. They came back and told us that she had a severe kidney infection. Which is what we'd been featring since she was born. They rushed us to Doernbecher's children's hospital next to OHSU by ambulance before her kidney's failed. There we met with the team of pediatricians and the urologists and had a whole bunch of scans and ultrasounds done.

Basically her right kidney hasn't changed much since utereo. It has a cyst on it that prevents anything from coming or going. Her left kidney is the major problem. It is severely inflammed and backed up. The tissue surrounding it has signifigantly depleted and it's on its way to shutting down. The bad thing is that they can't do anything until this infection is cleared up. We have an appt. on Dec 22nd for a renal scan. They will inject dye in her kidneys to look at their functionaliy and then will know from there how to proceed. In the meantime she has a PICC line in her arm. This is an IV cather that is threaded into her arm and through her chest next to her heart. I have to give her antibiotics through it 3 times a day for two weeks. I never want to have to go through this ever again. It was absolutely heart wrenching to watch someone so tiny go through so much pain and stress and all I could do was watch. It just seems so unfair. I wish that I could trade her places. At the same time I know she ust be one heck of a fighter because I know Heaven;y Father wouldn't have given her this trial if she wasn't. I'm pretty sure my faith is the only one that needs some tweaking. Not hers.

Keep us in your prayers. We appreciate all the phone calls and emails that we've received. We have some pretty awesome people around us.

Bella Update

So we're at Doernbecher's children's hospital with Bella. She had to be admitted and transferred by ambulance this morning. Basically her kidneys are not working and she has a really bad infection. We're waiting to hear back from doc to find out about surgery. We could possibly come home sat. if not we'll be home Christmas eve. I'll update more later. I jmust wanted to let y'all know what's going on and why I might appear MIA for a while. Keep us in your prayers please.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

This is my absolute favorite time of year! I love the smells, the sights, the sounds and the magical feeling that lingers in the air. We got our Christmas tree on monday and decorated it that night. I love walking into my living room and seeing it. It makes me smile. I was talking to my sister and parents about christmas and they're all so stressed about it. Mostly money concerns. It makes me sad because it should be the exact opposite. Hopefully I can do my best and cheer them all up. I feel like Will Farrell in the movie Elf, I just get so excited about christmas! We bought Bella a couple of christmas presents, It was very exciting! Granted, she could probably care less, but I'm stoked about them!

Thornton's Tree Farm

Speaking of Miss Bella...she's a month old! It was kind of sad in a way and exciting in another because she's starting recognize our faces and smile. She can lift her head up really well. She's just a doll! She's a rough couple of days though. The antibiotic she's on for her kidneys makes her tummy really upset. I've pulled a couple of 24-hour and once a 36 hour shift with her. The other night she would not stop crying. No matter what I did she just screamed. So, I put her in the car and we drove, eventually stopping at Target. I carried her around in the baby bjorn carrier until they closed. It was the only way she would sleep. Needless to say, when I got home I told Joe he owed me one heck of a back massage!

For the most part she's a really good baby. She loves music. I put on different kinds for her to listen to. Right now we're listening to Madeleine Peyroux. She tends to favor jazz.

This is Bella listening to Jazz

We're pretty stinkin' happy. My days have become much more simplified. I'm still getting used to not always being on the go. I'm sure it's for my own good. Plus, I love hanging out with Bella. I could sit and look at her all day. Our bedtime song is "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". I think I sang that song about 30 times yesterday. She never gets tired of it. She's my biggest fan! Life has changed significantly and it's pretty good. Joe just found out that he's graduating 6 mos. early. In a way it's a little scary for me because I was thinking we would move the summer or fall of '10. Now there's a chance we could be moving Dec. '09. We're either off to San Francisco or Minneapolis. I DO NOT want to move to Minneapolis in Dec. It's a good day if the temp. breaks positive integers! On the other hand I don't really want to live in San Fran. I love visiting but ti's sooo expensive. The cheapest apt. we found was $2500/mo we could buy a nice house on Lake Pryor in MN for that much money. Who knows...maybe we'll move to France! I would love that! La france me manque beacoup! Je veux courir dans les champs des coquilicots! I don't think I'm that lucky. I'm doomed to either lose various appendages to frost bite or worse get eaten by a moose in MN or Go bankrupt from spending all my money shopping in San Fran!

Hey wasn't this post supposed to be about Christmas! We're playing the Holy Family at Joe's parent's ward christmas pageant. Pretty cool. Hopefully Bella won't scream! We get to wear period costumes. How cool is that! Well, merry Christmas to everyone!