Your Turn on Earth Miss Eliza Mae

Eliza Mae was born on Saturday the 10th at 7:32 pm after a very quick 5 hour labor. She was born 8 pounds even and 20 inches long. She has red hair!! I am sooo happy for her red hair and hope it stays. She is just so cute with her chubby little face and skinny legs. We love her so much already. Joseph was sooo excited to meet his baby sister so we were discharged pretty early and arrived home less than 24 hours after Eliza's birth.

Eliza slept almost 100% of the time. Sunday at 12 am I was rocking her in the chair when she started to get super stiff and turn a very dark purple. Her fists would curl and arms would go straight out and toes would go straight out as well. After that ended she would start gasping for air like she was choking. This scared me, but for some reason I just thought she was having gas or getting ready for her first big poop. I kind of brushed it aside but she did this a few more times through the night. First thing in the morning I called her Dr to have him take a look at her. While in the middle of the appointment, with the nurse, Eliza had another seizure and turned blue and stopped breathing all together. They called the crash cart and within seconds all the staff was in the room and I lost it. Watching my little baby on a table not breathing and then gasping was heart breaking and so scary. Joseph was with me while Jason and Hyrum were in the car waiting for us to be done. Joseph was very calm but worried. The office called the paramedics where they transferred Eliza and me to Valley Children's hospital about 5 min a way (This is also where Jason works).

In the ER Eliza had a few tests done (most of which we received results for). She had blood work, urine analysis, CT scan, and a lumbar puncture. All of the results for the labs and CT scan came back with good results. The preliminary results for the lumbar puncture (LP) came back good as well, but we are still waiting on the cultures. At this point we knew that we would be staying at the hospital for a few days to hear the results of the LP.

Tuesday Morning I met with the neurologist first thing to get the game plan from him. He told us that because Eliza is less than 4 days old the tests that have to be run are much more extensive. So he ordered all new blood work that tests for every metabolic issue possible (most of which take weeks for results), and EEG (measures brain activity via electrodes all over the head and face), and an MRI (looks at the anatomy in many different levels). Every one of these tests were done on Tuesday.

Wednesday we were scheduled to take the infant CPR class. This suddenly made it more real for Jason and myself. When the class was over we met with the neurologist. He brought us over to his computer to pull up the MRI results and said that he thinks he found what could be the cause of her issues but that it still needed to be confirmed with more tests. What he saw is what can be small piece of normal brain matter that is in an abnormal spot and I guess this can cause the brain to confuse it with something that is a bad guy even if it's not really. He had a term for it but both Jason and I forgot it already. We can ask him tomorrow. He said that there is not much known about it in babies that are so young so he didn't want to sound too gloomy or optimistic at this point until he runs more tests. He did make it sound as though, if this is the actual problem it's just a matter of finding the right dose of medication and keeping her maintained for her life.

Thursday: It is just barely Thursday (1:30 am) and I am winding down still from Wednesday (What an interesting day). Today she is scheduled for a 24 hour EEG test that will monitor her brain activity as well as take continuous video. This is cool because the Dr will be able to not only see into her brain but also see what changes happen to her physically if a seizure is to happen. They do this for 24 hours because she is bound to have a seizure in this time frame. I can imagine that they will set up for this procedure early. My step mom, Sue, will be here at 11 to help with the boys since it doesn't look like we will be leaving the hospital any time soon.

This whole experience has reminded me of the play, "My Turn on Earth" about the Plan of Salvation and how each of us chose to come to earth from heaven to grow. I don't remember a lot of it but I remember one particular moment where a little girl is told in heaven that there will be pain and she agreed (not fully understanding or even caring of what pain would be, just knowing that she didn't care what it was, just that she would get to come to earth). When she came to earth she felt pain and cried and wondered why she made the choice to come at all. I remember being a very little girl and somehow understanding why she chose to come to earth. We all made a choice to leave our Heavenly home for the opportunity to learn and grow through life's challenges and victories. This experience may seem difficult for those looking from the outside, but for me, I know that this is part of what we "signed" up for. I agreed (as did Eliza) that we wanted this challenge MORE than not having the opportunity at all. Does it make it any less hard to watch my baby go through this? No, it doesn't, but I don't see a dark tunnel either. I have so much faith in medical technology. I know that our Heavenly Father gave us brains for a reason. And because people chose to use their brains we have amazing life saving technology and Drs that are a wealth of knowledge, all for us to use to make the most of our short lives here on earth.

I am so grateful for all those who have helped lighten our load this past week. Between bringing meals, watching my boys, cleaning my house, washing my dirty clothes, keeping us sane, the visits, the calls and texts and emails, and mostly the prayers. There is no way I could possibly thank everyone enough. It has been a challenging week, but we have felt the load lightened. I look forward to concrete answers and bringing my little baby home so that we can be complete and back to our crazy normal selves. I look forward to the future even if it may bring more challenges and adjustments. I am SO grateful for my little Liza's turn on earth, what a joy she has been so far!

Katie