She's Home!!

I just talked to Mark and the girls are (finally!) on their way home! Woo hoo!! They have an appointment with an extra-rad-Children's-Hospital-recommended Pediatrician tomorrow as well as some follow up appointments with, like, other really smart doctors (neurologists and...other-kinds-of-ologists....), but I don't know when those are.

But the point being: she's home!! Yay!! Praise the Lord and thanks for all your prayers!!

Please continue to keep little Julia Jane in your thoughts and prayers and we head down the final bits of this recovery path. :)

MRI Day

More positive news on the Julia front today! They were able to fit her in for an MRI late this afternoon (which she dutifully slept through - what a good girl!) and Mark just called me to tell me that the results are unchanged (which is good news). This means that there is no continuous bleeding, so it's a very positive sign.

Her temperature did spike a little bit today, but not enough so to even call it a fever. So due to the temperature and getting the results so late, Julia and Monica are spending one last night at Children's. They ought to be able to come home tomorrow - yaaaaaaay!!

She'll still have to go in for some follow up appointments as they aren't 100% about the cause yet, as well as to take a closer look at what's going on (once the hematoma clears up). But for now - good news! Woo hoo answered prayer!

I'll continue to post updates as we get more information, but THANK YOU for all your prayers, emails, phone calls, texts, meals - EVERYTHING. Support means so much through something like this and you've really stepped up to the plate. It is so good to be loved. :)

The Home Stretch!

Great news!! I talked to Mark this morning and the doctor's couldn't be more pleased with Julia's progress! She's been feeding really well (and actually breast feeding!) and become more alert and like a regular 5 day old. (She's crying when she's hungry and eating well) At this point, they don't have any major concerns - woo hoo!

Today will be a pretty "normal" day as there are no major events planned. The MRI is scheduled for tomorrow and if all looks good, they'll send our baby girl home tomorrow!

It's SO GOOD to finally have some consistent good news - let's keep praying for more of the same!!

Pretty in Pink

No major update today - things are still going well, we're still waiting it out. But in the mean time, here is a stinking cute picture to feast your eyes on. :)

Julia Update - with Good News!

Good news! After the MRI this morning, we learned that the blood at the back of Julia's brain IS a sub dermal hematoma. This is great because it means that her brain is not bleeding and that the blood is not in her brain - woo hoo! So it's basically like a bruise and will naturally dissipate in the way a bruise does (in 7-10 days). Once they are able to absolutely, positively confirm that there is no additional bleeding happening, she'll be able to go home. They'll do a follow up MRI to confirm in 3-5 days.

We also learned that the bleeding was NOT the result of malformed veins in the back of her head (so no surgery is necessary - yay!). Instead they saw that three of the veins in the back of her head are clotted and while her body should naturally reconcile the issue, they don't know which came first: the veins were closed and then blood essentially got stuck and clotted or the blood clotted and it's now blocking the veins. So as it clears up, they hope to be able to answer that question.

So needless to say, we're in much better spirits today. When I got to the hospital this afternoon to visit, I got to watch Julia have her first feeding (she'd been on an IV previously), so that was great and she seems to be doing really well. It's still a bit of a waiting game while we wait for everything to clear up and make sure there are no lasting effects, but we're feeling much more confident than we were. No more seizure-like behavior and all her vitals are great. Yay answered prayer!

Mark and Monica finally got a full-ish nights rest last night too so that has been a major help as well. Keep the prayers comin' though as we push through this last period ; that her body would clear the blood easily and with no problems and that the bleed didn't cause any lasting damage near her brain. (At this point they don't think there is any damage, but there is always a risk - with cerebral palsy being a worse case scenario). So like I said - thank you so much for the prayers and support and keep them coming!!

Children's Hospital

They've moved Julia to Children's Hospital and since the visiting hours are only until 8 and I'm not a primary care giver - I wasn't allowed in.

But Mark just called me with an update and they said they think that the bleeding isn't the result of a trauma during birth, but rather a blood vessel near the back of the head that didn't finish growing/seal closed/something more medically fancy. This doesn't really change the prognosis at all; it just gives us a clearer reason as to why.

So tomorrow morning (Sunday) they are going to do an MRI and get a better picture of what's going on in that area. If they are correct and it's an incomplete blood vessel, then they will go in through her femoral artery and fix it.

Again, still a little in scary territory (so keep on praying!!), but it could be so much worse, so I'm thankful for where we are.

Mark and Monica are pretty much completely emotionally and physically spent (they're staying the night at the hospital). So much of this is reminiscent of that last week with mom...it's hard to take in. Please be praying especially for them and the boys and send them any encouragement you can.

Thanks and with love...

Julia Update

So we have our first update: it turns out she has blood around her cerebellum. This is what was causing the seizure like symptoms (turns out they weren't actually seizures - EEG confirmed). The indications they have now is that the bleeding has stopped (which is great!), now we just have to wait for the blood to reabsorbed into the body. There is some risk with this (akin to dirt in a bathtub clogging the drain), but hopefully all will go well.

As a result, they are going to transfer her to Children's Hospital so that in the (hopefully) unlikely event that there is a "clog" they have better docs/equipment on hand.

Because the hematoma is around her cerebellum there shouldn't be any cognitive damage; if anything it will effect balance or motor skills (but again, that is worse case scenario).

So we are not out of the woods yet. Once the blood is absorbed, they will be able to assess if there is any damage to the cerebellum. Please be praying the the blood is absorbed seemlessly and that no damage is discovered. We have a lot of reason to be hopeful, but cautiously so.

Miss Julia Jane Champoux

If you haven't heard yet, Miss Julia Jane Champoux was born on Thursday morning (May 20th) at 11:44am at 8 pounds and 19 inches - woo hoo!! And I know I might be biased, but she is absolutely a beautiful baby!! (And this pic doesn't even do her justice - no joke.)

However, we need your prayers! After going home yesterday Mark and Monica noticed that Julia seemed to be occasionally screaming and then holding her breath. Eventually it became a real concern and they brought her back to the hospital around 4am this morning.

We're still at the hospital and we've learned that the episodes are in fact seizures. That is a really scary word, however the do NOT think it is epilepsy. Right now there are a lot of possibilities - it could be the result of an infection, it could be because there is some blood around the brain (they used the vacuum on her head just barely to get her out during birth - so not blood on the brain, but like, on the outside - if that makes sense), could be meningitis (sp?).

So anyway, it sounds like whatever it is, it should be fixable. But until they know what it is, they don't know how to fix it just yet. As I'm typing this they are hooking her up for an EEG to monitor her brain activity through an entire sleep cycle (a little over an hour) and then I believe she is going to have a CT scan. After that we should know quite a bit more.

In the mean time, please be praying for not only little Julia Jane, but also for Mark and Monica. I don't know that Monica has slept much more than an hour or so in the last two days and she is, needless to say, emotional. It's hard for all of us to be back in the hospital so soon after losing Mom. Makes it a lot harder to not jump to really scary conclusions.

I'll keep the blog updated, but we can't use phones in the room here so if you want to contact us, texts are best. Thanks for the prayers and I'll keep you in the loop as we get news.