Brenna's 4 months old!!

So time flies when you are having fun huh? Brenna has been doing better since she got out of the hospital. She went back to the doctor on Friday for her hospital follow-up and her 4 month checkup. The dr is happy with her progress and only hears a slight wheeze on her right side. We've cut back on the breathing treatments and she is going back to the babysitter tomorrow.

At 4 months old Brenna weighs 12 lbs and is in the 20th percentile for weight - this is up from 10th percentile at 8 weeks old. She is also 25 inches long - that puts her in the 75th percentile for height! To compare (which the doctor specifically told me not to do) Jacob weighed 14lbs and 3 ozs at 4 months old and was 25.5" in length.

Here are a few pictures from this week:

Jacob showing off for the camera..

Daddy giving Brenna a breathing treatment.. Brenna sleeping right through it all

Brenna getting ready to eat her first food. Not quite sure what to expect and is looking a little scared. I find it odd that with Jacob they specifically told me not to give him any food until he was at least 6 months old. Apparently there is new research that indicates that food allergies are avoided when introducing foods earlier. Squash here we come!
Looking sad.. Mom what are you doing to me?

Hmm.. maybe this is good!

Nope, initial reaction was right. This is not very good and I'm going to spit it at mom! LOL

Brenna's 4-Day RSV Hospital Stay

As most of you already know Brenna was admitted to the hospital last Sunday. We debated all day Sunday if we should take her in because she was worse than when we saw the doctor on Saturday. Finally at 6pm we called the doctor and described her symptoms. We were told to go to St. John's Children's Hospital for an evaluation.

Matt stayed home with Jacob and my mom and I headed in for what we thought would be a quick ER visit. Not so much.. We were admitted after they confirmed her oxygen levels were low. Not so bad timing as all the weather reporters were predicting a huge snow storm to hit St. Louis. Unfortunately, the mega-storm never came but our little girl had high respiratory rates (rapid breathing), low oxygen saturation levels and crackling and wheezing in her right lung.

The next few days revolved around supportive care including breathing treatments every two hours and oxygen. We tried several time to lower/eliminate her oxygen but she wasn't having it until Wednesday. Brenna was so good during it all - every nurse commented how happy she is and on the huge smiles she was giving them all no matter how much she was struggling.

We are home now and will follow-up with the doctor tomorrow (Friday). Below are a few pictures from the last 4 days.. they were taken with my phone so I apologize for the fuzziness.

Brenna and Nonna - Nonna was our only visitor since the weather predictions were horrible. Nonna was also nice enough to deliver my meals morning, noon, and night. Without her I would not have been eating as I was alone at the hospital with Brenna. Matt was hunkered down at the house with Jacob waiting for the storm to hit. For those of you that do not know, my mom is the director of surgery at St. Johns and was stuck at the hospital with hundreds of nurses, therapists, techs etc who did not leave for days based on the weather predictions.

Brenna so close to rolling over. She did do it once at the hospital but I think it was a fluke thing. Nothing like rolling over for the first time when you are in the hospital.


Happy baby with her oxygen

All smiles even sick!!

Thanks for all the prayers, calls, e-mails, etc while we were in the hospital. Also, thank you to our neighbors Steve and Crystal for feeding Matt and Jacob while we were in. A HUGE thank you to my mom for taking good care of us while we were there as well. Again, I will say we have the best pediatrician ever. He came to see us each day even when it was snowing or he had the day off. He would call us at night as well to make sure we were still okay. Dr. Bob is honestly the best and I owe him LOTS of cookies for taking care of our sickly children.