Uncle Mark visits and Thanksgiving

Uncle Mark came to visit Will and Finn this Thanksgiving. Mark had a great time hanging out with his nephews but they did keep him busy! 

Mark holding Will:

Finn hanging with Dad.

 Will hanging with Grammy.

Finn tuckered out from the turkey and mashed potatoes. 

Will wanting more pie:

Uncle Mark even helped with an early morning feeding of Finn!

Two months old

Will and Finn turned two months old today! We are loving being home again and not being confined to the hospital. Here are a bunch of pictures of our smiley little guys!

Will:

 Finn:

Two Weeks in the Hospital

Finn was admitted to the hospital on October 25th with a temperature of 101.5. Everyone is fine now but we learned that he had somehow contracted late onset Group B Strep and had to be on antibiotics for two weeks. We are home now but here is what happened.

On the morning of October 25th, we fed both Will and Finn at 2 am and they went back to sleep. At 3 am Finn woke up screaming with a cry that had an intensity that we had not experienced before.  We ran through all the standard baby things to do when a baby is upset. We changed his diaper, tried to feed him, tried to burp him and took his temp to make sure there was no fever. Nothing helped but he did go to sleep lying on Jim so we figured he was okay. In the morning we woke up and he again was inconsolable.  We took his temperature, and it was still within the normal range. We called our pediatrician's office and spoke with the nurse. We figured she would say something along the lines of "he has gas, rub his belly." However, we were shocked and scared when she said, "he sounds like he is in pain, take him to the ER. Which ER is closest to you?"

Jim took Finn to the ER and I stayed home with Will as we did not want to have both of them sitting in the hospital. When Jim got to the ER they took Finn's temperature and it was a little high, but still in the normal range. They took blood, looked Finn over and every other test they could think of to make sure he was okay. After they had exhausted everything (including a spinal tap, but were unable to get any spinal fluid), they were about to discharge Finn. Before they did, however, they called our pediatrician who said, "take his temperature one more time." Thank goodness they did, because it had shot up to 101.5. They immediately admitted Finn to the hospital and started antibiotics.  With a baby at Finn's age (6 weeks) they do not take fevers lightly.

Luckily, at Boulder Community Hospital, we were all allowed to stay with Finn in the hospital room. This was a huge relief as I can't imagine leaving Finn in the hospital without Jim or me being there with him.

On day three of the antibiotics (at about 3 am) the nurse came in and said one of the blood cultures came back positive. It was Group B Strep. I had heard of Group B Strep as all pregnant women are tested for it late in their pregnancy. If a woman tests positive, then they simply get antibiotics during birth and then there is only a concern with a vaginal birth. I had tested negative for Group B Strep, had a C-Section and Finn was 6 weeks old. So it did not make sense that Finn had contracted it. But we learned that there are rare cases where a baby will get late onset Group B Strep from 7 days old to 3 months old. It was a shock to the nurses, our pediatrician... everyone. This is really rare and weird as they could not tell us where it came from. We kept asking if it was contagious and if we should take Will home for fear that he too would contract it. They assured us he was fine and it was not contagious  Just a bacterial infection that no one is sure how a baby can get.

Well, we originally thought that Finn (and all of us with Finn) would be in the hospital for a maximum of 7 days while he went through his course of antibiotics. They knew it was sepsis from the blood culture but as they could not get clear spinal fluid from the spinal tap, they could not rule out meningitis. So out of an abundance of caution and to assure that Finn would be rid of the infection, they told us that Finn would have to have 14 days of antibiotics.....

We did have some fun with Halloween outfits.  Jim made two awesome outfits which some may know from the Simpsons as "the kids who obviously had no help from their parents":

Grammy Woodworth also bought Finn and Will little Halloween outfits

Here are some more photos from the hospital. The nurses just adored Will and Finn and loved coming in to take care of them. My mom and dad (Grammy and Poppoo) came up and helped us a ton as well. Also Veronica and Dave were also a HUGE help, which was awesome of them.

It was a long 14 days in the hospital. We were all stir crazy. But the nurses and doctors were fantastic and helped us through.  Most importantly, Finn is fine (and was his normal self after three days of the antibiotics). If we had not taken Finn in as soon as we did, the doctors told us that it could have been disabling and even life threatening. We are just so thankful that both Finn and Will are okay.