Our little baby girl. We had some craziness with her this month so I'll describe below the photo.
This month she has been growing like a weed! I think we'll have to buy size 4 diapers before we use the rest of our size 3 stash. She is a mover and a shaker already too. She stands up in the middle of the room without holding onto something to help her out, all with the proudest look on her face. She'll walk around with our Mr. Lion toy or while holding the couch etc, but no steps on her own yet. We haven't been pushing her on that either though. Her sixth tooth is totally broken through and I don't think she's working on any others right now.
Her little attitude makes its appearance many times per day. She hits, scratches, growls....and somehow it is adorable. She keeps her headband on about 50% of the time and wears it as a necklace to other 50%. For the most part she is a smiley, happy little lover and we all are smitten with her.
On June 16th it was like any other bedtime routine. We are all getting upstairs a little later than normal now that it is summer and that pushes Sloane a bit longer out for bedtime than she would like. We got the boys in bed and came in to get ourselves ready. Typically when she knows we're about to lie down together she screams at me until we are settled. I needed to pop my back on the floor first. When I set her down beside me she immediately started throwing a fit. I was laughing at her tantrum as she rolled away from me. Often she'll do a big cry where she is silent for a few seconds and then lets out a big scream. I thought that was what she was doing, but it was a little too long all of a sudden. I told her to let it out, mind you that this was all within only a handful of seconds total, and then jumped up to grab her because she wasn't crying yet.
She was on her belly and as I lifted her she felt limp. I flipped her in my arms and instantly could tell something was wrong. I screamed for Carl and told him to call 911 as he rushed in, before he even knew what was happening. The whole thing felt like an absolute eternity. We thought for a minute she could have been choking because it felt like she wasn't breathing, but we quickly decided she was having a seizure. As one point I tried giving her breaths, she was totally stiff from head to toe, her eyes went through different stages of rolling back and looking sideways and she made strange little whimpering noises. It was well over a minute from the time I picked her up to when she seemed to come out of it and start crying.
For about 10 minutes after this, the entire time waiting for the ambulance and fire truck, she was still going through something. She cried without being able to be consoled and wouldn't really make any eye contact. When rescue got here we all sat out on the porch and she then seemed to be aware of the action. She was still crying this whole time, but now it seemed like she was really tired with it already being bedtime and then going through such trauma. Everything checked out on her at that time, but they wanted us in the ER immediately. We threw our stuff together and assured the boys everything was ok as we jumped in the car. Luckily Grandma was here so the boys didn't have to come along too. That was quite a lot of action for them since they were still awake and especially Carson was really worried.
At the ER they tested her blood sugar, oxygen levels and overall health. Everything seemed ok there as well, but it was decided that she did have a focal seizure. These can be a one-time thing or could be the beginning of something larger. We saw the pediatrician the next morning and he is leaning toward it being a result of a breath-holding spell. It is common for kids to pass out after holding their breath like that, but the seizure is much less common and more worrisome. Having one seizure like this is the equivalent of a full day's worth of brain activity. It's no wonder she was exhausted.
The following Monday, this same day she turned 11 months, we had an EEG at Children's Hospital. That ended up being a crazy experience that she was NOT happy about. We had to go in at 2:15pm with her being sleep deprived. I had to have Christy come with us so she could keep her awake on the drive over. She was so tired by the time we got in the room that she totally melted down when the guy put the sensors on her head. There were 25 of them and each one had to be measured out, the head had to be cleaned and it had to be glued on, all while she was held down on her back. All she wanted was for me to hold her and let her go to sleep.
Then they did some tests with strobe lights and she and I lied down for a 30-minute nap.
It was just long enough for her to finally get DEEP asleep and then we had to fully wake her up for more tests. He had to get the brain activity monitored while falling asleep and waking up. Let's just say this poor girl was pretty upset. She calmed down after we got all the stuff off of her and I was able to hold her again.
Luckily all the results came back normal with no seizure activity observed during the EEG. This is a good thing, but also doesn't give us any answers. If she has another seizure we would have something to base a pattern on and this EEG at least serves as a baseline measurement now. We basically are terrified to let her cry too hard and I watch her like a hawk all the time, even more than ever. I'm so thankful that I was right next to her when it happened, but scared that it could happen when I don't have eyes on her. She is so mobile now that before you know it she is out of your line of sight!
This was definitely the scariest parenting moment so far. The broken arms on the boys have been heartbreaking, but they were very cut and dry. This stuff is scary for much different reasons and sure doesn't help the parenting anxiety!!!
