Sophia turns 6 months - half way to ONE!

Well, it is hard to believe it was 6 months ago that we were in the hospital delivering Sophie. I am continually amazed at how fast the time goes with the kids. Unfortunately this past month has been filled with quite a bit of sickness for Sophie and for Zoe. Sophie spent nearly the entire month sick with either complicated bumps or a double ear infection and fluid in her lungs.

Despite all the sickness she has learned to sit completely on her own, tasted her first solid foods, and is grabbing things including mommy's hair and Zoe's toys.  She also got her first taste of snow this month.  She's spending more time outside in the Arizona winter - enjoying that while we can before it gets >100F.  She's still sleeping (mostly) thru the night when she's not feeling too sick - for which we are both very grateful.

Sophie also got a surprise visit from her Auntie M in February - Mary Beth and Lee stayed the night with us on their adventures en route to Memphis.  We had a really good (albeit brief) visit with them, and they loved seeing both the kids- Zoe for the first time since she was 7 months old and Sophie for the first time.

To view all her 6 month photos click here.

Bumps and more bumps

I am writing this post as a log of the events that happened while Sophie was sick.

On Monday morning Jan. 25th I noticed 4 small red bumps on her right leg and 2 on her left leg. Didn't think too much of them but wanted to keep an eye on them throughout the day. By that evening they were still there and a little larger although didn't seem to be bothering her. Several more appeared over the next 2 days. By Wednesday the 27th she had probably at least ten on her legs and two on her arm and one on her face. I took her to the doctor that day. Three providers looked at her and determined it was most likely bug bites, but could possibly be folliculitis. They prescribed Amoxicillin as a precautionary measure in case it was folliculitis. John and I didn't agree with it being bug bites since Zoe didn't have any but weren't sure what was going on. She was running a low grade fever of 100 degrees F everyday. She was also pretty cranky and wanted to be held if when she was not asleep.  I took her back to the doctor on Friday the 29th because the bumps and spread more to her arms and hands. She als had many more on her legs now. Some were clustered together with the entire area very inflamed and red. There were other single bumps also. A couple on her legs were looking very angry and welt-like.

Photos taken 1/28 of right (top) and left leg (bottom) 

At the doctor visit on Friday we saw our normal PA we usually see. He asked the doctor to come in a look at Sophie because he was unsure what they were. Our doctor thought they were most likely a herpectic virus. He said it could be a staph infection but not likely. He changed the antibiotic in case it was a staph infection to Cephalexin and also prescribed an antiviral medication (Acyclovir) in case it was a herpetic virus. They told me she may get a few more bumps over the weekend but by Monday she shouldn't have anymore and should be getting better. They also wanted us to take her to the ER if her temp went up to 102 - 103 degrees F.


On Saturday she seemed to be feeling a little better and some of the bumps started to go away. We thought we finally were at the end of this but then on Sunday that changed. She slept a lot Sunday morning. I had to wake her up after nearly 4 hours. She was pretty warm so I took her temp and it was 102 degrees F. She had more bumps and a couple were getting pretty bad again. She also had one on her face now. Tylenol brought her temp down to 100 degrees F and we kept an eye on her the rest of the day.

Photos taken 2/1/2010

On Monday (2/1/2010) morning her temp was 99 degrees F so we decided to wait on calling the doctor again and see how the day went. By 2pm she was pretty cranky again and her temp was back up to 102 degrees F. I called the doctors office and talked with the nurse. She consulted with the doctor and they wanted us to take her to the ER. I called John to come home from work and my parents were able to come stay with Zoe.

We decided to take her to Phoenix Children's Urgent Care rather than the ER near our house in case she had to have any procedures done. We wanted people who deal with infants all the time to take care of her. So glad we did.... We were in and out of the urgent care within 2 hours. The doctor came in, talked with us, looked her over good and then left the room. When she came back she had a huge medical book with her. She showed us some pictures and then laid out her theories on what was going on. Her most likely guess was Gianotti-Crosti Syndrome which can be caused by many different viruses. It lasts between 2-6 weeks. Her next thought was in line with our pediatrician - a herpetic virus. Her final idea was a MRSA infection mainly because my mom has a MRSA infection in her foot. None of us could figure out how she would have been exposed to it from my mom but they wanted to treat her for it to be safe. They also drew blood to do a CBC and a blood culture. Her CBC numbers were good and we got the culture results back later that week - everything was fine. The doctor changed the antibiotic to Clindamycin to cover MRSA and left her on the antiviral medicine.

She already had diarrhea from the other anitbitoics so the pharmacist recommended giving her a probiotic supplement. We tried getting that in her with cereal but she really wasn't interested in eating cereal or nursing much. We had her on the Clindamycin only 2 days before we stopped it. It seemed like it was making her more sick. She didn't want to eat and had 5-6 diarrhea diapers a day. Her tummy was bothering her so much. We decided the danger of keeping her on it was more at this point then having her on it for something we all didn't think was very likely she had. After about two days - so by Friday the 5th of Feb - she finally started feeling better from being on the antibiotic. The bumps were noticeably starting to heal by Thursday the 4th.

Now about 3 weeks after the first bumps she still has discoloration where several of them on her legs were. She also still has some scabs. Her arms look really good and you can hardly even tell she had them. I am sure in a another week or two her legs will look back to normal.

She had about two days of feeling better before she started coughing and has another infection. Well, that is another story.

Oh the relaxation and snow - what a great weekend!

What a great weekend in Pinetop. We spent Friday night through Monday morning with several of our friends at one of their parents' cabin in Pinetop. There were 4 couples and 3 babies. The babies did great playing with each other, mostly looking at each other since only one of them is mobile. Sophie and Maddie are a day apart and Timothy is about 2 1/2 months older. He is getting around pretty well.

There was still quite a bit of snow up there from last weekend's storm and it snowed on Sunday morning. We introduced Sophie to snow for the first time. She did pretty well with it but didn't appreciate the cold. The weekend can be summed up as relaxation with great friends, LOTS of food, and Super Mario Bros.

Zoe and Lily spent the weekend with my brother and his family. She loves playing with her much older cousins. I hear she had a great time.

View more pictures on Flickr - click here.