Taking Naps

This can't help but make you smile!

After changing Carter this morning, I was goofing around and dancing for him to get him to smile and I got this!

What we've been up to...

After my last hospital admission, Eric decided to take a 2 week vacation so he could study for the Step 2 of the boards. So, for the past two weeks, he's been studying hard (well, as hard as you can when you have two adorable little boys in the house who you have to love on all the time!). He started a two week anaesthesiology rotation this week that he really likes...good thing since that is what he wants to do!

We went to a baptism orientation at our church for the boys last week. We are so excited they will be baptized on September 13th. It should be a lovely service and we are having people over after at our house to celebrate.

I've been seeing my doctors on an out patient basis since I got out of the hospital. The pathology report from the D&C indicated I had chronic endometritis. Dr. McKernan was surprised as I didn't have symptoms for that, but by doing the D&C, he was covering all his bases to figure out what was wrong with me.

The week after I was discharged, my wbc was 4.4 (normal range is 4.1-10). We were so happy because it seemed that the D&C did the trick. By the end of that week, though, it was down to 2.9 and a week later, it was 2.7. My last appointment with the hemotologist was on Monday and my count was back up to 3.9.

According to the hemotologist, it seems like my wbc dips are cyclic and appear to be tapering off. I surely hope so! As aggravating as it is that no one knows why this is happening, I just want it to be gone! It really messes with your head when you're constantly worried about getting another fever and having to go back to the hospital.

The boys are growing and getting really chubby. They had their 2 month well baby check last week. Carter weighed 12.8 lbs and Brandt weighed 10.13. If we work really hard, we can get them to smile, but they are not smiling on their own yet. The dr said that they are a little behind developmentally, but are doing really well and normal for being premies. Although it makes me sad they are growing up, I can't wait for them to smile and laugh!

Tummy Time

Here's a video of the boys doing "tummy time." Since we've started doing it daily, the boys have really improved! The boys can now prop themselves up on their forearms and keep their heads up. This video is from one of the first few days. Brandt is trying hard, but is very unhappy about it. Carter, well, just wasn't really into it that day!

Please forgive the really bad filming. It was my first try :)

Recent pictures of Carter and Brandt

Here are some pictures of the boys from the past few weeks. I'm constantly grabbing for the camera because they are changing so much! I don't want to miss anything!

Here's Brandt in his outfit from his Auntie Laura. The boys got dressed up for our outing to Babies R Us.

And here's Carter in his outfit.

Brandt loves to be held and cuddled. Look at how he's watching Eric. True love!

We walked in to find the boys like this one morning. Somehow Brandt had wiggled himself sideways into Carter and was very upset. Carter doesn't seem to care one bit.

I love how alert the boys are after they eat. Here's Carter being cute.

We've started making the boys have "tummy time." They aren't big fans and spend the time making their unhappy grunting noises and usually just fall asleep.

Way to go Carter!

That a boy, Brandt!

Both the boys were really cuddly in ther blankets this morning. Somehow they both scooted down in their chairs until their blankets were like hoods.

Brandt is hiding! :)

Home for the weekend

Goodness...I don't really know how or where to begin. I have a condition that no one can figure out. I've had several doctors say they are going to write an article on me because I just don't make sense:(
When I was hospitalized on Thursday, July 2, my wbc's were at 1.1. Dr. McKernan wouldn't do my hysteroscopy or laperoscopy not because my wbc's were so low, but because I had sores on my legs. He wanted to verify they weren't MRSA (they weren't). The point of doing the procedures were because I'd had a low grade fever and he wanted to make sure there was nothing infection in my uterus or in my abdomen. I stayed in the hospital over the weekend where they gave me neupogen shots to stimulate growth of my wbc's. The rest of my blood levels began to drop (red blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit, platelets). I also received a CAT scan which showed that my spleen was double its normal size.
On Monday, Dr. McKernan performed the procedures and although he noticed I had some old tissue in the uterus, there was nothing that was infected that would cause my blood levels to drop like they had.
The next day, all of my blood levels increased and we thought that perhaps it had something to do with the procedures. I stayed in the hospital another day (so now it was Wednesday) just to make sure everything continued to increase, but my wbc's increased and everything else decreased the lowest they had while I'd been in the hospital.
I had a blood transfusion and received two units of blood so that I could go home for the weekend and hopefully just follow up out patient. I will also have another CAT scan next week to see if my spleen is going down.
Please pray that the doctors figure out what is going on with me. Right now, it looks like my marrow is producing everything, but it's getting eaten up by my spleen. This would make sense if I had an overwhelming infection, but I don't. There's a big long list of reasons why the spleen gets enlarged, but I don't fit into any of them. The next step would be to take my spleen out, but I am very apprehensive as the spleen doesn't just go bad and start eating up blood. There has to be an underlying problem to make the spleen do that.
The doctors tried to get me tranferred to another hospital over the weekend because they couldn't figure out why my blood/spleen was acting the way they are. No other hospital would accept me, though, because it just seems like my problems are OB related. I was fine when I went into the hospital to have the babies and a week and a half later, I was not. Now that I've had the laperoscopy and hysteroscopy, we just have to see if my body normalizes now.

Please please please pray for my healing. It is so scary when the doctors don't know what's wrong, and I'm really sick. They just keep running different tests, but everything comes back negative. Please pray that I can be optimistic. I'm heartbroken that I haven't been able to take care of the boys. I'm scared that I'm going to be hospitalized again and I feel I won't be able to handle it.
Also, please pray for my family. This is really taking a toll on Eric. He hasn't been able to sleep because he feels like he should be researching and trying to figure out what is going on with me. My mom hasn't been able to visit me because she's been taking care of the boys.

No! Not again!

I was admitted to the hospital again yesterday because of low white blood cells. I'd been running a low grade fever for a few days and my OB/GYN decided that he'd do a hysteroscopy (D&C with a camera) just to make sure that there wasn't anything going on inside my uterus.When they drew my blood in pre-op, my wbc count was 1.1 (same as what it was when I was hospitalized last month).

Please pray that they figure out what is wrong. No one knows if this is due to an infection that is killing my wbc's or if it's my body killing them off.