When you are born in the fall and live in Cleveland your opportunities for spending time outside are few.  This weekend we went to my parents home in central Ohio and Gage finally got to see what all the sunny fuss is about.  He got to sit on the front porch railing with Grandma and watch cars drive by in his shorts and bare feet.  My parents live on a busy road so he was very entertained (and very cute).  So, let’s bring on the great weather so Gage and I can finally take some walks and shed this cabin fever we’ve had for a few months.

I’m including this second pic with his aunt Amy just cause it is too cute not to 🙂 

After Gage’s health scare we decided to wait an extra few weeks before introducing solids.  And by solids I mean a tiny bit of rice cereal mixed with quite a bit of formula.  There is still the possibility of a metabolic problem so we have to be extra careful when introducing new stuff.  Thought I’d share some of the fun…

I’m not sure if he actually swallowed any, but we’ll try again tomorrow. 

I feel as though I need to acknowledge my Buckeyes loss on Friday night.  There.  I’ve acknowledged it, let’s move on.  That in addition to all the stuff coming out about our football coach has not made this the happiest week for Ohio State fans.  But on the plus side, Gage has recovered and is ready for next season.

Gage has had a great weekend with family and basketball.  My cousin Bill and his wife Jenny came on Friday and watched Ohio State win in the first round of the tournament and today, the three of us (2 OSU grads and one current student) went to the arena and watched the Buckeyes dominate.  Gage didn’t get to go to the game, but he did spend most of the weekend watching basketball with the guys. 

Next Sunday may not be another basketball post, but I can’t promise anything.

It’s not secret we are college sports nuts here.  I love my Ohio State Buckeyes and Jason loves his Michigan State Spartans, but where does that leave Gage?  My Buckeyes are poised to be the #1 team in the NCAA tournament, WooHoo!  And with a win over Purdue, the Spartans have also solidified their place in March Madness for the 14th year in a row.  So Gage is choosing to double his fun and make both of his parents happy…

I don’t think I’m wrong when I say he looks happier as a Buckeye! 

We’ve watched a lot (too much) basketball here this weekend as both of our teams went far in the Big 10 Tournament, but that will only get worse over the next few weeks.

Every year since we’ve known each other Jason and I have had a March Madness bracket wager.  The winner gets to choose the next 5 movies we see at the theater.  We have been to the movies twice in the 4  1/2 months since Gage arrived, so the winner will have to find a sitter for movie night too! 

So, will you be watching the tournament and filling out your brackets?  Who will you be rooting for?

I want to thank everyone who left a comment or sent an email telling me you were thinking of and praying for Gage.  It meant a lot to me.  We had our last doctor appointments this week.  Poor Gage (and Mommy) had an hour and a half EEG.  This meant 24 wires glued to his head.  I thought the 40 minutes it took to attach them all was excruciating, but the next hour and a half when he was supposed to be still without me touching him was, um, interesting.  Didn’t they know he was only four months old?!  Well, after a ten minute meltdown in the middle and about 30 minutes of me singing his favorite songs over and over (Old McDonald and Jesus Loves Me are staples) it was done.  We then had two neurology appointments that same day and there was good and cautious news.  His EEG was normal and we’ll just have to wait and see if it happens again before they can test for more metabolic disorders.  We also met with the GI pediatrician and she wants to do one more blood test this month, but she said she was looking at a healthy baby, hooray!

So, we still don’t know what happened.  At this point it might be that we never do and that would be a great thing.  I am still vigilant but not nearly as terrified as I was two weeks ago.  I mean look at the guy on the left, how can I not focus on that fact that he is happy and well?

And, drumroll please, Gage laughed for the first time last night.  He gave me and then his dad several belly laughs apiece and I can’t believe how giddy we were over them.  It’s amazing how that sound can make stress just go away 🙂

Gage has had a good week.  He’s been acting like himself, fussiness and all, and I’ll take it!  He has a few more tests this week and then we may know more about what caused his hospital stay.  I’m praying they don’t find anything bad and can give him a clean bill of health.

Since my parents were up this week we decided to go to our local Portrait Innovations and have some family pics taken.  I am not happy with any of the ones I’m in, but I’ll share a few of the others…

So, at 4 months old you can see he’s not exactly smiling on demand!  And the fourth one is the last one and how we knew our time in front of the camera was done.  It was fun and I’m glad we have some fun photos of Gage and the family.

Hopefully next Sunday the post will be full of good health news for Gage.  Positive thoughts and prayers are appreciated 🙂

Watching four doctors, three members of the ambulance team, and more nurses than I could keep track of  surrounding your 3 month old son trying to insert a breathing tube will change you.  Watching them fail three times will probably stay with me for the rest of my life.  The fourth attempt was successful and then came numerous failed attempts to put in a second IV before getting us in the ambulance to transfer us from the pediatric ER to the Cleveland Clinic downtown. 

As I sat in the front seat of the ambulance with Gage in the back racing toward the Cleveland Clinic where Jason and my Mom were waiting it was hard to have a coherent thought past the overwhelming fear that had taken over my body.  Just that morning Gage had been smiling and talking to me and Grandma, but he started vomiting  a few hours after I fed him.  We went to the doctor’s office and then straight to the ER .  He hadn’t stopped throwing up and he was so lethargic I was scared.  The doctor tried to reassure me, but the fact that she wanted to transfer us said enough.  Once we arrived downtown he was taken directly to ICU.  This was Monday. 

They did two CAT scans, an upper GI test (he already had an ultrasound and body x-ray from his last trip to the ER), EKG, 24/7 heart monitoring and blood tests done.  He had teams of doctors, neurology and GI consults and yet no one could tell us why he had stopped breathing.  On Tuesday they took Gage off the ventilator and it took him six hours to wake up.  On Thursday they moved him out of ICU as he started eating on his own.  By this time he had been on so many drugs and stuck with so many needles I was sure he would never be the same.  But babies are resilient.  On Friday Gage was acting like his old self, but there was still no answer as to what had happened. 

The hospital’s best people tried to take blood from Gage and only two were successful enough to get any blood and that is not enough to run all of the test they want.  We have a few tests pending, but the doctors think that they are long shots.  And if I want to have all of the tests run I’ll have to have them try to take more blood.  Watching them try to insert a breathing tube multiple times was the most difficult thing, but watching three doctors try to get blood from our boy on Friday with no success was a nightmare too.

So, they don’t know what happened or why and on Friday they want to send us home.  I am terrified of leaving without an answer.  If I don’t know what caused it how do I know how to avoid it?  What if it happens again?  When I realized that even another night in the hospital would not answer these questions I agreed to take him home on Friday night.  Gage, Jason, and I had not left the hospital since Monday, but as we drove home it seemed like a month.

I am so thankful for Gage’s recovery.  So many people were praying for him and I choose to believe that our prayers were answered and the reason that they can’t find anything wrong with him now is that it’s been fixed already by someone more powerful than a team of doctors.  But those are only in my most positive moments.  The rest of the time I am in a state of worry and panic.  My mom will be staying with us this week and that is a huge help.  It is nice to be home with our son who seems to be more recovered than I might ever be. 

Yesterday Gage was home for his four month birthday and he enjoyed spending time with his grandparents.

This has been the hardest week of my life and although Gage is doing better I cannot say the same for myself yet.  I am hoping one of the tests may tell us something, but there is the very real possibility that they won’t and  that is going to be difficult, but that fact that Gage is home and doing well is enough for me.

I took this picture on Wednesday as Gage was waking from a nap in his crib and I was going to write a post on the very slow transition from bassinet to  crib, but that will wait for another day since Thursday saw us head to the doctor because he had been throwing up after I changed his formula that morning.  I wasn’t worried, I just wanted to make sure he was okay since Gage does not throw up (well, only one other time at the doctor’s office).  But when we got in to see our pediatrician she was worried.  She didn’t think his getting sick had anything to do with the formula and after a test to check oxygen in his blood (?) she panicked a little and almost put him on oxygen, which would had required a trip in the squad.  But a second test showed a normal result so she told me I could just drive Gage to the ER.  Now, I’m starting to get a little worried since she didn’t even want me going back home or stopping anywhere.

Once at the Peds ER we waited almost half an hour for a room and another hour after that to see a doctor.  I’m glad they didn’t consider us a red alert emergency, but still.  After having blood drawn, an x-ray, ultrasound, and an IV with fluids we were sent home 7 hours later with the diagnosis of a stomach bug.  Gage was a trooper and I was very proud of how well he did.  He had much more patience than I did!

Then Friday I called the nurse with a question and she told me to go back to the ER.  I thought she was completely overreacting. I mean c’mon, we were just there!  She was concerned about dehydration.  I was concerned with getting Gage to eat, sleep and stop crying.  I did not take Gage to the ER.  Then a few hours later, the HEAD nurse from the doctor’s office called because she was “concerned for Gage” and thought I should take him to the ER.  I explained that he had just been there and had not been dehydrated and had even been given fluids, but she didn’t want to hear that.  She wanted me to call her back in an hour to give her an update on his eating and diaper wetting.  She was starting to get on my nerves, but I did call her back to tell her he had eaten and wet a diaper.  Should have been good news but she still wanted me to go to the ER because he was so young and even talked to another doctor in the office who thought the same (our pediatrician wasn’t there).  So, I call Jason, head back to the ER, valet the car (again) and get put back in the same room with a few of the same nurses as the day before.  And do you know what happened when the doctor checked him out less than an hour later?  Nothing.  No dehydration, Gage even smiled at the doctor, like he got the joke.  And they sent us home with an expensive bill (I’m guessing) that I plan on forwarding on to the nurse who wouldn’t quit making me feel like I was endangering my kid if I didn’t take him to the ER. 

The moral of the story is that you should always trust your mother’s instinct.  But I’m so new at this that I didn’t completely trust mine and a needless trip to the ER was had by all.  Gage is doing better and has been smiling, talking and playing with toys (such as it is).  Here’s a picture of the small bruise on his arm from the IV, his only lasting indignity of the hours in the ER.

Gage is ready for his first Super Bowl.  It comes at a good time since in the last week or so he has been watching tv with Mom and Dad and enjoying it.  It’s actually quite cute to see him studying the screen.  Now we need to start paying attention to what we watch!  As much as he likes tv I’m pretty sure he’s more excited about the commercials, especially the ones with his peers, than the game, but isn’t that at least half of the audience?! 

As for Jason and me, we’ll watch, but at this point I don’t know who I’m rooting for.  Just because I don’t like Big Ben does that mean I have to root for the Packers?  The Packers also have 4 Buckeyes on team so that has to count for something.  Okay, I’m sold, Packers it is.  But I do reserve the right to change my mind as the game progresses…

What about you?  Will you be watching the game or the commercials?  And who will you be rooting for?