Just wanted to give everyone a quick update. Alexandrea is doing well and feeling better. The first few nights home from the hosp were a little rough. On Tuesday night, she had 2 spells of projectile vomiting. This is not fun in the middle of the night, but have not had any more since. On Wed we went back to the pedi and her weight was back up but, not quite all the way . She weighed in at 11lbs 5 oz., most of this was though due to the high amount of iv fluids they had her on. We Will go back again in a week to see how she has gained.

here are a few pic of our little lady.

Thanks to everyone for all the warn though and prayers during this time.

Much Love
Becky, Lars and Alexandrea







Alexandrea loves to watch her fish aquarium and mobile.

She is such a goofy fun baby!

All Smiles , getting ready to eat her dinner! Such Pretty blue eyes,

Her hair is also starting to grow, you can barly see it standing up on her head.

Weigh in at the Dr's , loves to watch herself in the mirror already, oh no I am in trouble when she gets older.

I did not do it! Playing innocent., I just love the look on her face.

Home Again!

We are home! We got home around 8 tonight. Alexandrea is still cranky but overall is doing much better. The bad new is the diareah form this flu bug can last up tp 2 weeks. , her poor little bum is so sore. During her stay yesturday, she barely had any wet diapers. The labs that she had done did show some dehydration but not bad, but as the day went on and no wet diapers the more we all realized how dehydrated she became . When she was weighed on saturday , she was 11 lbs 8 oz, at the pedi office she was 11 lbs 2 oz, chck in at the hosp 11lbs 1 oz, She lost nealy 1/2 lb in just a matter of hours. ,Due to Alexandrea being so small, this is not good fr her. It was pretty rough.
Last night I did come home from the hosp to try and get some sleep, as I was just exhausted after no sleep the previous night. I knew she would be in good hands. We spoke to Alexandrea's nurse right before we crawled into bed and her fever had spiked to 104. The nurse gave her some tylenol and held her for a while, When we spoke to the nurse again, he r fever had dropped back down to 101. We did not get much sleep but we did get a little. When we spoke to the nurs in the am, They said soemone was always holding her as she did not wan tto be put down. Hmm i though tthis wa pretty funny as I think it was the other way around, granted Alexandrea was more clingy but the nurse also made the complement, we don't get to many opportunities to snuggle little ones. So seh was spoiled last night. So hopefuly Alexandrea will sleep through the night withoug wanteing to be held.

Thanks to everyone for all the warm thoughts and prayers as it means so much to all of us

Love Becky, Lars and Alexandrea

and again

My sweet baby girl is in he hosp again tonight.
On Sunday afternoon, she came down with diarea, We must of changed her diaper 8 times in 2 hours, We finally got her calmed down and in bed and started on her continuous night feed. Around midnight I checked on Alexandrea, to me she felt warm, So I check her temp, 99.9, We had just been at the pedi office days before, he had talked about stuff going around and Decided to go ahead and give her some tylenol and will call the Dr in the am. I crawled into bed alittle bit later. Around 2 am I hear Alexandrea start coughing and then the following of her heaving and a scream of pain. It is no fun when this happens, It is such a visous cycle for us. We were trying ot figure out whether is was her normal thing or was it tru vomiting. After several min, we determined it was more than her normal thing. She also nwo felt hotter, Again check her temp, now it was up to 101. We place a call to the on call Dr who reaasurad us ,. Said clean her up, wait a little bit and offer her pedialite or milk if tolerated.
For Alexandrea milk is prefered due to her weight issues, as pedialite is just empty calories, Alexandrea needs every ounce and calorie. We get her bed all change Lay down for a bit, get up offer het milk, she drinks 2 oz and 1 oz pedialite.
As soon as out dr office opened, We called, They wanted to see us shortly.
We tooker Alexandrea in and had to see the on call Dr.
After examining Alexandrea, it was decided it would be best to admit Alexandrea, due to her weight issues and dehydration and wanting to stay on top of this before it took her down. Her measure output the rest of the day was very low, her labs were off showing the begining of dehydration. She also continues to have a fever.

Please pray for Alexandrea to heal quickly

9 months

My sweet baby girl is now 9 months old . Wow , where has the year gone.


We did go to the dr today and weighed in at 11lbs 5 oz. still growing slowly though, she is sucha busy baby though, I think I am going to be in trouble once she starts cruising.

<

Sitting!

she is pretty much sitting up but only for a few seconds

she was enjoying eating peas and oatmeal YUM!!!

Alexandrea's big brother had to go back home today to Oklahoma

We miss you buddy and can't wait to see you again.

She was quite the giggly happy baby at 5 am , but oh so grumpy later. Since Chris was minor traveling alone, we knew that only one of us would be able to go behind security and escort him to the gate, what a surprised when we were all able to go to the gate. Anyway , it has been really hot here all week, even at night it has not really cooled off. When we arrived at the airport , it was chilly at 430 am , we get all checked in and head to security to head to the gate. I removed Alexandrea from her car seat to take her through. She started her cough/reflux thing, and you know when it gets to a certain point , she will spit up. Lo and behold she spits up, uug, I manage to keep it off of me but she did manage to spit up all over the brand new airport carpet. Our new airport terminal just open here in March . All I had to change her into was a onsie I think she won the hearts though of all the security in that area,as they were all coming over and see how cure she was and just amazed a this super happy smiley baby.

It was just too cute.

Natural Bridge and Crater Lake

today we drove and went to see Natural Bridge , It was hot and beautiful! It is about 70 miles from our home

one of the calm spots, but do not let it fool you as the water is flowing under this in a lava tube very quickly

sorry , got it sideways but wow the power!

the natural bridge , there are 3 blow holes two, if you click on the picture, you can see a spray of ater coming out of one of them

Crater Lake

Christopher was almost ready to fall in!

A patch of snow and its August

Crater Lake is known for getting about 500 in of snow a year

A Truly Specatacular Sight!!

trains

We went to our Railroad Park today and rode the mini trains. We had a great time and this brought back many memories from when I was a kid going to his place and now I get to take my little one and Chris. So much fun.

Artwork and Skunks

Alexandrea's Great Aunt Lillian works a alot with pottery and tile, helped create this with her assitant.

We went to the fair and look what he did

yes your eyes are Correct, hes's holding a skunk

and then ......

Weigh In!

hello

Today we went in to the pedi for a weight check Little Miss Alexandrea weighed in at 10 lbs 12.9 oz. She is doing well so far on the night feedings and gaining a little more rapidly. So far she has managed to pull out her tube though everyday, So we have had to put in in on a daily basis. this is not a fun procedure for mom, daddy or Lexi. I am just thank ul that so far she is drinking enough by bottle that we have not had to worry about tube feeding anything during the day with bolus feeds. Our Pedi Dr C was pleased with her gain so far and hopes we continue on this path. We will meet with him again in a few weeks and again re-evaluate.

A wordless post!

Feeding tube!

Wow what a whirlwind week this has been so far and it is not even over. Sorry for not updating sooner but we have been rather busy and have not alway had access to a computer.

Last week Alexandrea pretty much was refusing to eat, She would normally take 5 oz bottles , but would only drink 2-3 oz, we waited a couple of days just in case she did not feel well, 2 days later, still refusing. We called the pediatrician, who had us bring her in, after some discussion, he placed a call to a pediatric gastro Dr in Portland, who wanted to see her as soon as posssible. We drove to Portland on Sunday, this is not a easy task with a hubby who cannot drive since he is legally blind, a 10 year old who says i'm bored (even with a game boy) and them asking "are we there yet" and of course Alexandrea and having to stop to feed her and figure out a way to pump in private.

The drive was a long drive, lots of traffic, when we got to eugene there was a accident in the southboud lanes, but it driver's gaulk, and slow down, finally got out of that mess only to hit standing traffic at read albany, it took 30 min just to go about 5 miles, finally got going again, for us to see a sign that read "accident ahead 20 miles, mile post 282 expect delays" , so again standing traffic on I5, We were so glad to finally reach the Ronald Mcdonald house where we would be staying.

On to our sweet baby girl Alexandrea, They really do not have clue to why she is not gaining weight like she should, they went ahead and put in a tube for her feedings, since she was not eating well, they adjusted her formula in her breast milk she get to 30 cal (normal breast milk is 20 cal per oz) We have seen numerous specialist including a gastro, neurologist, genetisist, nutrtioninst, speech therapist, cardiologist, family practice to have her evaluated too see if there is anything they feel might be going on, she has had numerous tests,of the test she has had done, all have been normal so far, they do one blood test that she has aomething higher in a certain thin in her white blood count but said that this could be due to a virus , but will have to keep this monitored (she has had a slightly snotty runny nose).

It is so hard to see her go through this and even more frustrating when they have control and she is tube fed and does not gain weight,

So we are hoping for weight gain tomarrow
more to come later

Sweetness

I was looking through some pics, i just love this big smile, ahh it just melts the heart.

here is another sweet pic


rolling over and giving big smiles!!

playing with toys

30 seconds later, sound asleep!!