He's found his voice!

Malakai has officially found his voice! He has started to scream, because he knows that he can. Not a crying scream, like a "Hey, don't forget I'm over here" kind of scream. At first it was cute, now it's become annoying....all in one day! LOL I'm sad he's growing up. I want him to stay my little baby forever :( I guess it had to happen sometime. Now I'm going to have two kids screaming for my attention, literally!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Nothing really exciting to update on, which in our case is a blessing! Malakai is doing well. He's happy as ever. I am sure he is the happiest, sweetest baby I have ever been around. He's suddenly gained this new "independence" and has started to reach for my glass, book, anything I have in my hands. He's also begun chewing on a blanket when he is in bed or his carseat. Maybe he'll be one of those cute kids you see toddling around with a blanket, I hope so! We got a call from Riley saying his last blood draw (a week ago yesterday) came back, and his levels had decreased again. Not by alot, but anything is good! His bilirubin level is now 4.o. Praise God, it keeps going down! We are currently trying to sell our house and had a showing yesterday, praying that God does something and we sell soon. It would be a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. Makena is turning into the cutest little girl. Her new favorite game is hide and seek, although she hasn't quite got the concept down yet. She likes for us to hide, and screams when she finds us! When it's her turn to hide, she gets confused...says she's ready, then doesn't hide. It's cute, and so much fun.

What a week!!!

A LOT has gone on since I updated last! Last weekend, we went to Sarah's house for pizza. Rita and Mom came and we had a pretty good evening. Makena had started to cough around 3 pm or so, but nothing I worried about. It progressively got a little worse through the evening and by the time we got home it was pretty nasty. I asked Josh if he thought we should sleep with her so we could keep an ear on her. We decided not to, and she went to bed. Her voice had gotten hoarse at this point. At about 4 am, she woke up crying our names out and we brought her to bed with us. She tossed and turned, moaned and groaned. We decided to come downstairs and let her watch TV to see if she'd calm down a little bit. We took her temp, it was 99 and decided to call her pediatrician. Her cough had become "barky" and we were wondering what to look for. Malakai woke up, so I went upstairs to feed him. When I was coming back downstairs, Josh was going up to Makena's room. She'd thrown up and he was going to change her pajamas. She was shivering laying on the floor, so I went and put a towel in the dryer to help warm her up. We took her temp after they came back downstairs and it was 102.4.Then the nurse called back and told me to uncover her, it could make her temp go up. So she went through all the symptoms and determined she probably had croup and to put her in a steamy bathroom, turn a humidifier on in her room, etc. Her temp was up to 104.5 at this point, The nurse told me to take my temp to make sure our thermomator was working properly. As I was taking it, Makena went limp in Josh's arms and was basically unresponsive. He told me to call 911 and I hung up on the nurse. Called 911 and then we called Dan. He told us to lay her on the floor and put cool towels on her. So we did just that, and she seemed to "come back" a little more. Slowly, but surely she started to talk to us. It was the scariest thing we've been through with her. Her fever spiking so fast scared me to death! I was trembling, and trying to talk to her like nothing was going on. I didn't want her to see me scared. I was asking her questions I knew she could awnser. Finally, she began talking to me in sentences! The ambulence got to the house and she got a little frightened. There were about 5 strangers in our house, so she didn't know what to think. Her fever was down to 101.5 when we left for the ER. She sat in the ambulence like such a big kid! I was so relieved she was coming back to normal. We got to the ER about 6 am and her fever was almost completely gone! Praise God!! We saw the doc who confirmed it was croup. Her voice was hoarse and her cough was TERRIBLE! It lasted a few days and she is now completely well.

THEN, I started to notice Malakai's belly was getting big. He's never been thin in his belly, but it was definatly getting bigger. I noticed this on Saturday, and he had his 4 month check up with Dr. Bohney on Monday so I decided to wait. Dr. Bohney said he would call up and talk to Riley and let them know what was going on and they would give us a call. Dr. Molleston's office called me and told me they were going to start him on a diuretic. We had a huge snow storm (12 inches) and so we had to wait until Wednesday to get it. On Friday, I took the kids to Perry and Cindy's house and Cindy expressed her concern on how Malakai looked. His belly was bigger, he was pale, you could see the veins in his belly and head like you had never been able to see them before, he was irritable and wasn't taking a bottle. He's been bottle/breast fed since November. He's never refused a bottle until this week. So I decided to make a call to Riley Friday afternoon. (1-30-09) I got a call back at about 4:30 and told to come up to the ER to be evaluated. Two trips to the ER in less than a week!! I hope this never happens again! I took Makena to Rita's and Cindy and I headed up there. Josh and Perry were working about 1 1/2 hours away and were going to meet us up there. We got up there about 7 pm. He had blood drawn at 9 pm and we were told it would be about an hour for the results. It took about 3. They came back and said he was dehydrated and wanted to keep him overnight on fluids and recheck him in the morning. Normal levels were 21-28, dangerous is 15 or under and his was 18. It was so weird to hear he had extra fluid in his belly but was dehydrated! He was on a medication to pull fluid out of his belly, and then put on fluids for dehydration. They just had to find the balance, I guess. The nurse told us they were extremely busy and we may not get put into a room. Our nurse tried to do a cathedar to check him for a urinary tract infection, and when he was unable to get any urine, he removed it and there was a tiny bit of blood in it. The guy DID NOT know what he was doing and it made me so mad. To put him in pain for no reason! UGH!! They put his IV in and we sat in the most uncomfortable chairs until 3:45 am when we were finally moved up into our room in the Infant Unit. He weighed 12 lbs. 7 oz The docs came in and told us we would have an ultrasound to check the fluid in his belly but there wasn't much else they would do. We then waited until 8 pm before they finally gave him the ultrasound. It showed what we expected, a moderate amount of fluid in his belly (called ascites). They drew labs again this morning and his dehydration level went up to 20. He had been on a special formula that he did not like the taste of. They said we could switch him to regular formula and mix it with breastmilk to add calories. They weighed him again and he was up to 13 lbs. 3 oz. I'm not sure how much was the IV fluid, but I was happy he'd gained! His vitamin K level was low so we were sent home with a script for that. They increased his diuretic by 50% and we were told to get his blood drawn at the end of the week. The doc said it would take 1-2 weeks for his belly to go down in size, the medicine is a slow working med. Thank God he doesn't seem to be in any pain because of it. They said his liver is not processing protein as well as it should be, therefore it's being released from the blood and spilling into his belly, causing the swelling of the belly. We are continuing to pray that God heals Malakai's liver and restores it to normal. Please pray the same! Our little miracle has already been through so much, we really want this to be the last time he's in the hospital! I can't believe I almost forgot to add, his bilirubin levels have gone down again!!!! Thank you Lord! They were at 5.6 at his last appointment and it was down to 4.4! All of his levels had decreased! He doesn't have much yellow at all left in his skin or eyes. You'd never know he had liver disease! What a true awnser to all of our prayers! Ok, I'm tired of typing and need some sleep. Thank you to everyone who is praying for us! We appriciate every single one!

God bless,
Carah and Josh

He rolled over!!

I went into Malakai's room when he woke up at midnight, and he was on his back! He sleeps on his belly and he'd rolled over! He smiled really big when he saw me, and I said "When did you learn to roll over?" And he smiled as if he were proud of himself! Poor little guy barely gets to lay on the floor because Makena will not leave him alone when he is on the floor...she wants to be on top of him, or trying to pick him up. So I was shocked he'd rolled over! We'll see if this continues, I'm going to try to let him be on the floor more. He'll be four months old tomorrow...time goes by way too fast!

Riley update

Malakai had his appointment Friday the 16th at Riley. He weighed 12 lbs. 3.1 oz and was 23 inches long! He's a growing boy. At his last appointment December 12, he weight 10 lbs. 8 oz. So we're doing something right! The doc said he looked really good, he never really has anything to report. He's never had a fever, never acted like he didn't feel good. He's been such a great baby. Anyways, HIS LEVELS WERE DOWN!! Praise the Lord! Our prayers have been awnsered. The highest they got were 9.8 before the Kasai surgery, they dropped as low as 6.7 but shot back up within a week. Then as of last week, his levels were 5.6! And his direct was 3.5! This is great news! We will continue to pray for healing and trust that his surgery worked. God is so good!

Then on Saturday, my birthday, we went to Stone Creek Dining Company with Mom, Sarah, Dan, Rita and Brent. We all had sitters for the kids. It has been a few years since all of us have been out, to a quiet dinner. It was nice. Then Josh and I went to Starbucks and waited for our movie to start. We saw a terrible movie, but it was nice to have some "adult time."

Last night was a horrible night of sleep. I put him to bed at 10 and was in bed by 10:30, then he was up at 12:45, 2:15, then at 3:15 woke up and I decided I was not going to feed him. I kept getting out of bed to put his binky back in his mouth, then finally at 4:15 decided I had enough, and nursed him. Then he was back up at 5:45 and 7:45. I was nursing him at 7:45 and Makena started yelling "MOMMY, WAKE UP, MOMMMMMY!!!! WAAAAAAKE UPPPPP!!!" Needless to say, I didn't get very good sleep last night. Maybe I'll take a nap when the kids do!

Snowy Day!

Today it is snowing like crazy, and I love it! Sarah, Dan and Emma are here and we plan to go play in it in a little while. Hopefully I can get some cute pics of the girls playing :)

I had to take Malakai to the hospital yesterday for a blood draw. I think it was the worst one yet. He screamed, and screamed, and screamed some more. It was awful. He cried so hard he has a blood vessel in his eye that looks like it's broken! She had a hard time finding his vein and he didn't like her attempting to find it. I hate it for him. I wish I could go through it for him. Poor baby has had blood drawn more in his short life than Daddy has in his entire life! But last night he was back to his normal, happy self. I said to Josh, "I don't think I could be any more in love with him than I am already!" He is such an easy baby to love. He just loves to cuddle and he smiles all the time. He started to laugh yesterday. It was the first time he's really laughed consistently. I would say "Boo" and he would laugh, I would make a funny face, and he'd laugh. He was just so sweet! Baby giggles are the sweetest sound!

We took the kids to Chuck E Cheese on Saturday. There isn't much else to do on a cold, winter day. They are a little bit too young to really enjoy it. We spent a few hours there, and called it a day! Here's the best pic of the four together.