Pictures of Life Lately

This is are only family picture so far. We're gonna have to change that soon! Dad took this on Mother's Day. We went to church with my parents and I got flowers for having the youngest baby. Julia was 5 weeks old then.

Isn't he a good daddy!?

Audrey is really enjoying having Julia around. She asks about her right when she wakes up in the morning.

Audrey has been checking out Julia's stuff and stating that she's "too big."

Too big for the car seat.

Too big for the onesie.

Here are some random pictures of Julia.

She's got the super-model pout down.

And here are some random pictures of Audrey.

Here she is with her friend Anna Lee. Anna Lee is moving, sadly. But isn't this cute?

Last Monday, I thought it was Memorial Day and got Michael to take off work! Oops! We went to the Indoor Safari Park in Southlake. Lame-O! Don't waste your 10 bucks. We did get some pictures of Audrey enjoying some things.

Train ride.

Putt-putt.

Pemphigoid Gestationis

I'm going to use this post to hopefully help women who think they have or have been diagnosed with Pemphigoid Gestationis (PG). What has helped me the most with this disease is a Yahoo group of women who are dealing with this. I didn't find it from Googling it, so I'm directing you to this group. You have to join to get information. This group offers more support than anything else I've found, including my doctors. It has a forum to ask and answer questions, a copy of the one study that has been done on this disease, pictures, information on how to taper off the meds, and much more. You can leave comments here and I will help you in anyway I can.

This is my story.

Pemphigoid Gestationis is a rare autoimmune disease that pregnant women can get. It mainly occurs around week 21, but I got it 4 days postpartum. The antibodies that protect the placenta become confused and attack your skin. It creates an extremely itchy rash that can form painful blisters. It is treated by steroids - almost always prednisone. Prednisone does wonders, but can cause it's own problems.

I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and everything about the delivery and hospital stay was perfect. This was my second child and my second c-section. I knew the routine and knew what to expect. I headed home thinking that losing sleep would be my biggest concern. I was healing well, not in much pain, and my baby was such a good baby.

The thing I longed for the most was to clean up in my own shower and feel more like myself than I had in days. As I was scrubbing away some medical tape residue off of my arm, I noticed bumps beginning to appear. I feared I was having an allergic reaction to the tape and immediately stopped scrubbing. Shortly after, I noticed bumps on the other arm and on my inner thigh.

The rash went to my tummy, chest, and back next. A doctor had already ruled out the medical tape reaction, but not before I received an epi shot. You see, I'm allergic to a drug that would be good to use while breastfeeding; the epi shot was the next best thing.

Another doctor thought I was allergic to my pain meds. I got on some more meds to help with the itching and I stopped taking my pain meds. Oh, btw, Benadryl, Zyrtec, and lotions do not come anywhere near to providing relief. The best thing I did was to dip what I could in an oatmeal bath in my sink. (I still couldn't bathe at this time.) When I finished that prescription, I had new blisters. This time they appeared on my hands and feet. Take a moment it consider how hard it is to take care of a newborn when you have blisters on your arms and hands.

I finally went to see a dermatologist. They did a biopsy and it confirmed that I had PG. The doc gave me a steroid lotion to apply to the rash while I awaited the biopsy result. I had to put this lotion on twice a day and not let my baby's skin come into contact with it. It took 40 minutes to apply the lotion. Through a series of crazy events that kept me from communicating with my dermatologist, I finally got a doctor to prescribe me prednisone. Most women start off with 80 mg. I was only given 20 mg because the doctor was nervous - she didn't know me or anything about the disease. This was all God, because the 20 mg worked! I stopped itching right away. My rash began to clear up in the following days. I saw my dermatologist yesterday and I'm on my journey to safely get off the steroid. Below is the only picture I took of my rash.

I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have, no matter how personal or gross. I was a science teacher, so I don't mind at all! This disease was the worst thing I've ever been through and it has altered my life forever. I know that I'm very fortunate that I got it after the delivery of my second child and that I can control it with such a low dose of steroids. I praise God for that!

Just Updating

It's been awhile. I'm just going to post some pics that I have on the computer. Hopefully my parents will forward their millions of Audrey and Julia pictures to me soon. :)

What a Month! (Introducing Julia!)

This past month will be one I will remember the rest of my life - for good and bad reasons.

It started with the passing of my Uncle Ralph. He died the Saturday before Julia was born. He was married to my aunt for 54 years. He was an amazing man of God and was always there for his family. We celebrated his life the afternoon before we celebrated the new life of Julia on Wednesday morning, March 31st.

Sweet, precious Julia was born on that Wednesday. We went in at 5:30 AM and she arrived at 7:56 (or was it 7:54???) by C-section. She weighed 8 pounds even and was 21 inches long. She had a head full of black hair! She is such a great baby and Audrey loves her! Michael and I are a bit love-struck too. I am recovering well from the C-section and the whole experience was perfect.

Then we brought her home...

On Easter Sunday, I started developing a rash. Long story short, I will officially be diagnosed tomorrow with an autoimmune disease called pemphigoid gestationis. It is super rare and usually strikes while you're pregnant but occasionally strikes a week postpartum. It is an extremely itchy and unrelenting rash that spreads all over your body. My immune system is pretty much attacking my skin. I got blisters that prevented me from holding Julia. Currently, I'm applying a cream to keep it at bay. I also can't touch my kids when I put on this lotion. Hopefully, on Monday, I will receive a steroid that will wipe out this rash. It will be a long road of tapering off the steroid...my goal is 6 months. The steroid will make me gain weight, have a round face, have insomnia, mood changes, damage to my bones, and other lovely stuff. But the women I've spoken to say that they still consider it a miracle drug. If we ever decide to have another child (we had been before this happened), it would most likely strike while I'm pregnant and be more severe. The baby could get it and would most likely be a preemie.

So that's been my month. I wish it could have been an all-pleasant experience, but I take what has been given to me. I love Michael, Audrey, and Julia so much and I'm very grateful for them. I'm thankful for my extended family, my church family, and other friends that have been so kind and generous. And I'm thankful that I'll have doctors taking care of me and trying to get rid of this thing that I developed.

Jenny's Memorial Service and the Stomach Bug

Jenny (see one of the previous post) passed away on Monday. I'm not in a place where I can write about how I feel, and will probably be that way during the rest of this pregnancy with these crazy hormones I have. They held a visitation service last night and will have the memorial service this afternoon at 1:00. You can see it online at http://www.livestream.com/rhchurch.

I had been behind with the updates on Jenny because the stomach bug hit our house. It started on the way home from Life Group on Sunday night with Audrey. I'm telling you, if the girl didn't show symptoms, you never would know that she was sick. We were all shocked to find out that she had anything wrong with her because she had been in such a great mood before and after! After a couple of trips to her room that night, we knew we were dealing with the stomach bug. She was completely fine the next day.

Then I got it. Considering I'm 34 weeks pregnant, this may be the worst I've ever felt. I was not going to let this get passed on to Michael, so I stayed in bed and did not move from there. That has to be the most uncomfortable place for a pregnant woman to be all day. I feel so bad now for all the women that have been placed on bed rest. The good news is that the swelling in my legs has all but disappeared! I'm feeling so much better now. It's time for me to clean up the mess from Audrey the Tornado and wash everything that I've touched in the last 24 hours.

Esther Bible Study

Okay, ladies! My friend, Meredith, had the fantastic idea to start an online Bible study. This is great on so many levels. Instead of making sure everyone can meet at the same time and place, we can just meet on the world-wide-web! If we have a sick child, we can still participate! We can include women from all over the world! Also, if you're like me, you can finish your reading a day late and still post your thoughts. Doesn't this sound great? It does? Well, just click that little button on the right and you can get more information and join us! Just leave a comment and Meredith will hook you up. We begin March 1st and we're using the Beth Moore study on Esther - It's Tough Being a Woman. (And, boy is it ever!)

Ok...I'm not getting the button to work, so just click HERE.

Getting Older

My baby girl is growing older. I guess that's good since I'll be getting a new baby girl next month. At the beginning of 2010, our biggest concern with Audrey was sharing and taking turns, probably pretty typical for a 24 month old. Hopefully, she is doing well with that now. We were also trying to mentally prepare her for being a big sister in a few months. At 25 months she decided to tackle a big one - potty training. She turned 26 months yesterday and now she is sleeping in her big girl bed in her big girl room. We were not pushing either of these, but she wanted to do both on her own time. Now, we are ready for Baby Julia to come next month! Unbelievable!

Record Snowfall

I must document this! The snow continued to fall in Dallas all of Thursday. I'm not sure how much we got at our house or how much Dallas officially received, but it shattered the previous snow record for North Texas in one day. I saw somewhere that it was over a foot of snow. My long-time Denver resident husband was not impressed, but I was! At least Audrey and I got to play in it while Michael worked. I asked Michael a lot of questions about "why this?" or "why that?" He was no help. Ex. Why was the sky pink at night? His answer - Maybe because it's about to snow a lot. I went to my parents for that one. It's the lights being reflected off the snow and clouds. Here are some of the pics from this morning of Audrey running around, putting snow on a very little snow man (I'm 8 months pregnant people, give me some slack) and eating snow ice cream.

What's Happenin'

It's snowing in Dallas today! Audrey has gotten over her fear of the snow and we played in it for awhile.

Silly Face

The kid says cheese, but does not smile...

Please don't pay too much attention to my makeup-free face.

Holding one of her favorite things - a football!

Back in January, we started putting Audrey's big girl room together. The pics are from my phone and they are dark and the colors aren't true, but you get the idea. It's still not 100% done because I need Michael to paint her dresser and drill some things, but his 80 hour work weeks the last month or so have delayed us finishing. She has only slept in there when she ran a fever all night and I slept with her.

Audrey is pretty much potty-trained. She even got me up at 2am to potty. Yay!

Michael's 30th birthday was Saturday. We had a great time hitting the town and I'm so glad he has joined me in the 30's group!

I'm at 32 weeks. In less than 7 weeks, Julia will be here! I'm so not ready, but I'm anxious to meet this sweetie-pie!

Praying for Jenny Bizaillion

I know many of you already know about this, so I'm reaching out to those of you that are not aware of what is going on in this young lady's life.

Jenny is a 31 year old mother who is fighting for her life. She couldn't get over the flu and was taken to Baylor Grapevine on Thursday. She got pneumonia and a blood infection. Her lungs and kidneys began to shut down. Her blood pressure dropped to almost nothing. Her circulation was so poor that they were very close to amputating her hands and feet. Many of her hours in the hospital has been on the wrong side of 50/50 chance of survival.

This is what God has done so far. He has improved her blood pressure. She's trying to get weaned off her 2nd of 3 bp medications. Her circulation has improved and they found a pulse in her feet. Her coloring has improved. (I believe she had a blood transfusion...lots of stuff happened last night, and I'm pretty sure they went ahead w/ the transfusion.) They were going to do a very risky gall bladder surgery because her gall bladder was in terrible shape. By the time the doctor traveled from her Keller home to Grapevine, her gall bladder had improved so much that surgery was no longer needed. She survived the trip to and from the CT machine and the scan showed no foreign infection and she didn't need surgery.

She went to ACU. I didn't know her, but I knew her brother, Josh Ross. She is just a year older than me and has a daughter. When I put myslef in her shoes, I just fall apart. This was just the flu and she's young, fit, and healthy.

Please, please, please pray for her. You can get more info HERE. You'll be asked to provide your name and email. It will give you updates on her condition. Please don't shy away from this because you're afraid to sign up. Jenny needs your specific prayers!