Ba'Aretz

It was a smooth trip after all and we all arrived safely and semi-rested about 4:30pm Israel time (9:30 EST).  On the plane, we got a bassinet for Elijah and made a bed for Shayna under the bassinet.  Both slept like angels and Shayna didn't scream once.  She listened to me when I asked her to be quite when she was starting to fuss each time.  Nahum's brothers and their families met us at the airport.  What a beautiful site to see family after so long.  We ever saw Savta Lea and Saba Dov in the evening.

Our apartment in wonderful.  Shayna's sleeping in the bomb shelter room (one comes standard in Israeli construction for each apartment or house).  They both are asleep now so we better get to bed ourselves.

Nothing Says, "Ready for International Travel," like, "Shayna Needs a Liver Biopsy."

I wrote this at 8pm on Thursday May 12, 2011 but blogger was down for maintenance so I'm posting it now.

I've been wanting to do a quick update for while so I'd at least have something recent before our trip to Israel.  Well, there's nothing like a little stress to make me want to write.  Since I'm short on mental capacity and need to preserve a little for some packing/planning tonight, I'll give a short version of the last 36 hours.  Keep in mind, we're planning on leaving for Israel this Saturday.

We did labs with Shayna on Monday.  Yesterday afternoon I received a call from her stand in coordinator Nicole, "Shayna's [liver numbers] are elevated.  The doctors want her to have a liver biopsy."  Luckily, I've learned how to function well in a dead panic.  We were able to schedule a biopsy in Roanoke for 8:15am today with a 6:15 check in time.  Nahum and I packed the kids into the car at 5:30am and the 3 of us set off on this mornings adventure.  Elijah chose today as the day not to sleep well in his car seat but Shayna was an angel with the nurses getting her ready.  Once Shayna was out, Elijah and I went to our room upstairs on the pediatric floor so he could nap (a whopping 25 minutes after being up for 3 hours).  As expected, Shayna announced her return well before I could see her (that girl has some lungs).  (She had to be carried back as she tried to climb out of the crib to escape the nurses and look for me.)  This was followed by Dr. O, "We couldn't get the biopsy."  He couldn't get a clear enough picture around all the big veins in the portion of an adult liver in a toddler's body and the people with the special ultrasound equipment aren't available until Monday.  I then track down Nicole, she works quickly to get us another biopsy appointment for tomorrow (Friday) in Pittsburgh at 10am with an 8:30 checkin.  (As I lay out the new plan for Nahum, I am greatly relieved when he tells me he's coming with us.)  With the new plan in place, we head home to wait for the LFTs taken this morning with her pre-surgery labs in the hope that they will be better.  Halliluiah!  All 3 numbers improved enough to cancel the new biopsy, but the 3rd not quite enough to totally get us out of the woods.  We will be doing labs again on Saturday morning and packing like we're all going to Israel.  The lab results will probably come back as we're driving to the airport or checking in.  At that point one of 2 things will happen: 1) the numbers will have continued to improve and we will all happily board the plane.  2) The numbers will be worse.  A biopsy will be required.  Elijah and I will board the plane and Nahum and Shayna will go back home to go to Pittsburgh Sunday for a biopsy Monday.  They will then join Elijah and I later in the week.  The airline will move the tickets but will move us to a day that's convenient for them.  With just space needed for 2 people, this will allow more flexibility in the date but they would probably come a full week later according to what we learned today.

So, as you can see, our life continues to hold a small bit of excitement.  At least Elijah took an unusual 2hr nap in the afternoon so I could nap also.  

Besides that Elijah continues to be a beautiful, healthy, smiley baby who adores his Ima and Shayna gets smarter every day.

My wonderful thumb sucker.  I love it that he sucks his thumb as it's such an effective self-soothing mechanism.

Check out the mobil.  He gets freaked out by it pretty quickly but it's fun to watch him watch it before that point.

We spend a lot of time out side playing with water and a little time peeing in the grass (no pants).

Spring Flowers

My previously planted tulips are recovering from being twice chomped on by the deer.  Almost 1/2 of the flowers survived and another quarter where 1/2 eaten.  I'm curious if the half eaten ones will bloom at all and if so what they'll look like.  I planted some daffodils and crocuses that spent the winter in the garage (I'd meant to plant them with Shayna last November but the weather got cold and Elijah got big).  Today one of the crocuses actually bloomed so there should be several more to come.  The daffodils are coming up so they're another garden curiosity.  It was a wonderful warm March day when all were planted.  It was great to play in the dirt again and is now worth it with the one flower.  I've still got a lot of front garden spring cleaning to do but I'm enjoying it all at a leisurely pace.

I got Shayna to play in the dirt with me 2 weeks ago when we cleared a 5'x5' spot in the raised beds and put beet and sugar pea seeds in.  Shayna didn't really get the seed part but she enjoyed climbing in and out and using her "little scooper" (a trowel) to move dirt around (she still loves dirt).  The seeds have finally started popping up.  Since she likes to "walk on the mud" I'm going to wait until they're a little taller and more obvious before I show them to her so she'll be less likely to trod on them (she stays off my flowers quite well when shown where they are).  I love watching things grow so I check on it all daily.

Right now Shayna's in bed with a fever, but other than today she's been wonderful.  She likes to nurse her stuffed animals when I nurse Elijah.  We have 2 boppies so we each have one wrapped around us.  She also will carry them over her shoulder while patting their butt/back like I do to Elijah.  We set up Elijah's crib and she views it as another place for her to jump.  She'll climb up there when I'm changing Elijah's diaper (changing table and crib are back to back) and he watches her in fascination as she jumps around and talks to me.  We went swimming for the first since January.  It was wonderful to play with her in the water again.  She's more hesitant than she was last summer/fall but also more skilled once she relaxes.  She blows bubbles and kicks well.  Her favorite allowable thing is jumping to me (which is more of a jump than a fall these days) and non-allowable is going down the last 3' feet of the huge slide there (I splash water up it when it's off and she slides down to me until we're told it's not allowed, silly rules).  Her monthly lab numbers continue to be good.  Her EBV level is at it's lowest since it shot up 2 months post-transplant so we're hoping to drop another med in the near future.  We don't know what's wrong today but suspect a virus that's been going around.  She got a lot of lap time with both Ima and Aba today to make up for feeling crumby.

Elijah's a growing champ.  At his 2-month appointment on the 8th he was above the 98%-ile in head circumference at 14.5", height/length at 25" (2" growth in 1 month), and weight at 15#12oz (6#3oz gain since birth).  We weighed him at home this week and he's now over 16.5lb.  I was kind of hoping he wouldn't double his weight by 3 months but it looks like I'm gonna have a 19lb 3-monther anyway.  He's now in 6-9m clothing.  His sleep continues to improve as long as he's not stuffy.  The last week was pretty rough as he kept getting stuffy from reflux (he also started spitting up a lot last Saturday so something changed).  He wanted to sleep but couldn't breath so started waking at night every 1.5-2hrs by the end of the week and was only napping for 30-45minutes at a time.  He didn't want to wake up but if you can't breath you have to wake and do something.  He was still relatively smiley and happy even when his voice started to get horse Thursday from lack of sleep (he cries very little).  I started nose drops every 2-3hrs yesterday and he slept from 7:30pm-3am, 3:15-6:15, and 6:30-8:30am.  He and I were both so much happier today.  He even took a 3hr nap in the afternoon.  Hopefully the trend will continue with another good night tonight.  He loves to talk, coo and smile at anyone near by.

We changed our summer plans from 3 months of work in Israel to 3 weeks of just vacation.  We've rented an apartment near Nahum's parents and plan to spend lots of time visiting friends and family and the beach.  It got to be too much work for Nahum to coordinate everything such that he would have no time left for his research until June after we were settled and that's too much to sacrifice right now.  (They're currently debating whether or not to postpone the fellowship or just take it back and make him apply again for 2 years from now.)  As he works all the time (6 days a week anyway), I'm really looking forward to having him around for 3 full weeks.

Here are a few pictures from this month.  For some more (including one with me in it), check out this.

April 5: He could almost hold his head up. We're also still in agreement that he looks a lot like my brother Aaron as a baby crossed with some traits from Nahum's father.

Shayna was happily playing with Nahum when I stuck the baby in for a picture.

April 14: Cool dude getting some vitamin D.

Shayna can put her shades on by herself.

It's snowing and blowing

We were supposed to spend the day outside at the farmers market and international festival (that our friend works really hard to put together every year), but the weather has not cooperated this year (last year was HOT and sunny).  Luckily, Shayna's friend Hannah came by to keep us entertain this morning (and her mom Yael and baby brother Noah) and it warmed up enough later for Elijah and I to get out of the house.  While Nahum and Shayna napped, Elijah and I enjoyed the festival (it was moved in doors).  (Nice work, Jenny!)  I enjoyed the outing itself as well.  It's so much more relaxed going out with #2, plus he sleeps better even with bumpy sidewalks.

The main excitement in our life has been Elijah and sleep, or lack there of.  Last Friday/Saturday he stopped sleeping during the day.  Catnaps here and there totaling ~2-3hr and his night sleep was getting worse.  Over the week, nights improved (still up every 3-4 hrs but he went back to sleep each time) but the days were the same.  After trying all soothing techniques known to man, I began to wonder if we weren't interfering with his sleep by doing them.  Sure enough he just wanted to be left alone and now, when tired, all I do is put him in bed, he squawks a couple times then goes to sleep.  His longest night stretches are reaching 5-6hrs also.  He's turning back into my easy baby again plus he's all smiles at me when awake.  He even gave Nahum and I his first chuckles today.

I've gotten too far behind on pictures but here's a few that the non-FBers haven't seen as they're been posted by my phone.  I just decided to skip ahead to March as far as updating my FB albums so here y' go.

March 30: Elijah at 7 1/2 wks.

6 Week Marvel

So we weighed Elijah guessing he'd be around 13.5lb.  A hefty size but not abnormal for him.  No.  He weighed 14.5lb or more than Shayna did at 9 months (post-transplant).  We're thinking of taking wagers on when they'll weigh the same and when people will start asking if they're twins.  You'd think such a big guy would sleep longer but I just got my first 5hrs of sleep in a row last night.  I think it's because he's a lazy eater and tends to drift off once he feels better instead of totally filling up.

On the health status of our "unique" kids:  Elijah has had no more episodes and continues the take his medicine like a champ.  Shayna's labs on the 8th were great.  Shayna is currently battling another normal kid virus, hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD).  So far it's only been a mild version of it and she still plays a bit and doesn't need a lot of Tylenol or Ibuprofen intervention for either sleep or play.  She has been  sleeping a lot to kick to bug.  It should run its course by the weekend just in time for the sun to disappear behind the coming rain clouds.

I've had some fun cleaning up the garden over the last couple days.  It's been nice to work outside in a t-shirt again.  Shayna even helped me dig in the dirt.

March 8: A nice domestic shot by Michael.

March 11: Glad my parents aren't sissies as it was 34F with a good wind making it much colder.  We all enjoyed getting outside for a very short walk anyway.

March 12: Patricia, Elijah, and Shayna joined Michelle (a former co-worker) in the St. Patrick's day parade for a block.  So fun to see her.

March 13: Shayna being cute in her beautiful cowboy and overalls.

While Elijah is being big with Grandpa Michael.

March 21: Shayna's favorite thing to do with Elijah.  "Hold Elijah in the bouncy, bouncy chair." As you can see, it's not Elijah's favorite.

Elijah: 1-month and 4-weeks on the same day...

...just like Shayna was.  February's cool like that.

Elijah's 1-month Dr. apt stats: 12#5oz, 23" tall, and 15.25" hc (percentiles: 90/95/90).  He does look big.  He's also finally starting to get some fat rolls on his arms and he's already in #2 diapers and some 3-6m clothes.  It is fun to watch a normally growing offspring; though, I am a little concerned that I'll soon have this mammoth baby to haul around.

Shayna is finally over her ear infections and able to enjoy life.  One could easily see she wasn't her normal social, fun self during her birthday party last Sunday and with Grandma Melinda and Grandpa Michael.  She's finally starting to really enjoy our two special visitors while they've been a huge help with Elijah.  Since Nahum was sick, I wouldn't let him near Elijah but that meant evenings were all me for baby care and boy is that wearing.  M&M got dumped with a baby and lots of diaper duty almost from the moment they walked in the door (I think I gave them 5 minutes to put their bags down and say hello).

March 4: Shayna and the big but floppy Elijah (almost 1m)

The next 5 are all Sunday, March 6.

Shayna helps Grandpa Michael make meatballs.

She played in the butter on the pan and supervised the ball rolling.

While Grandma Melinda cuddled with Elijah.

Lots of wonderful friends at Shayna's party.  Leslie holding Mara, Ben, Tal, Michal holding Danielle and Ella, and Yael with Hannah.

My first cup cake creation: flowers with marshmallows and colored sugar.  Thank goodness for Melinda as she did 14 of the 19 we made so I could nap.  It was a simple yet tedious and time consuming job.

Yum-Yum

March 9: Elijah cuddles with Grandpa so Ima can have a break.

Home! Home! Home!

Shayna and Becca picked Elijah and I up this morning.  It was the fastest hospital discharge I've ever experienced.  We were home by 11:30, enough time for me to play with Shayna a bit and enjoy lunch with her.  It's wonderful how cuddly she is with me.  We all took afternoon naps.  Afterward, I made dinner for my family.  It's wonderful to feel a bit normal again.

Feb 18: Dr. Shayna listens to Elijah's heart.

 Reading Ima's Jane Austen book.  She loves to take these books off the shelf and "read" them.

Feb 26: Aba and Shayna visit Ima and Elijah at the hospital.

Feb 28: Elijah gets his daily EKG.