Great night!

Brooke was SO good last night! She only got fussy when she was hungry. She WAS eating like every hour, but she ate kinda crappy all day yesterday, so I think she was just making up for it. I also think she might be going through another growth spurt because she's been eating like a pig today, too. Between eating last night, she would just lay on the couch beside us and hang out. It was great. Then she went to sleep at 11 and slept until 5:15! Drank her bottle and was sleeping again before 6! YAY! I went back to sleep and when Ryan woke up around 7, he came in and climbed up on the bed and I put cartoons on for him and slept until a little after 8 when Brooke woke up. I'm feeling pretty rested today : ).

We had a bit of a scare yesterday. Let me rewind a little bit. On Monday, I went up to get the urine bag for the sample for Brooke and the doctor said he wanted bloodwork instead because it would tell him more. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read - or reread - my last entry : ). So I took her for bloodwork that afternoon. It was hell. They did a heel stick and she SCREAMED for 5 minutes straight until she passed out asleep. It took over 10 minutes for her to get all the blood she needed. That night we had dinner at my mom and dad's...I had spent the day over there and Doug came over after work. While he was at home getting changed before heading over, the lab called and said something was wrong with one of the tubes of blood....Doug couldn't remember exactly what they said, but he said the word started with an "h"....and we had to take her in again. GRRRR. I was NOT happy about that. I planned on taking her back yesterday afternoon when Doug got home.

So Doug gets home from work yesterday and right then the phone rang. It was a nurse from the ped.'s office saying we had to take Brooke for repeat bloodwork RIGHT AWAY because her potassium levels were super high. I asked the nurse what that could mean and she said she had no idea @@. She said to take her and the doctor would be in touch. Doug took her right up (I hadn't showered yet, plus I really didn't want to go through that with her again.). This time, they took it from her arm and it went much smoother. So we waited and waited and waited for the doctor to call and he never did. A couple friends on my email loops told me a family member had had a similar experience with bloodwork and high potassium levels and that the results were just skewed and it was a false alarm, so we started thinking that was probably it.

This morning I called the ped.'s office and the results still weren't in. The receptionist said if something was wrong, the doctor would have called. (It's 2:30pm and I still haven't heard anything, so I'm assuming no news is good news.) I finally decided to try looking some info up on the internet (I was too scared last night...didn't want to freak myself out, not knowing exactly what was going on) and found that when the blood from a specimen is hemolyzed (there's that "h" word!), which means thick in some spots, it can create false results like high potassium levels. So that must be all it was, especially since we still haven't heard anything @@. I'll probably be calling there soon just to double check.

I actually have an appointment scheduled for Brooke tomorrow for her reflux. I think her Zantac needs increased (due to weight gain) because she's starting to have those painful episodes again like she was having before she went on it. I can't wait to see how much she weighs!

Early Intervention also came on Monday to evaluate Brooke for delays. Developmentally, they expect her to at least be at a 1 month level (her adjusted age). Overall, she scored at 3 months! So she's only 1 month behind her actual age, which is freaking awesome! She didn't qualify for services (obviously), just tracking which we're going to do every 3 months for now. One of the things that placed her at a 3 month level was that she wasn't smiling or cooing yet. Well, Monday night she started smiling! She's also starting to make some little cooing noises. I love it : ). She's not smiling too often yet, but I know it's coming! I haven't gotten a picture of a smile yet, but I did get it on video.

That's all for now! I have some pics to post soon! And here's that video:
http://s280.photobucket.com/albums/kk178/JenDZR99/?action=view&current=Aug4BrookeBouncer2.flv
The smile is right at the beginning. And please excuse mine and my mom's excitedness. LOL.