Worried about our little boy...

Angelo and I have been with our little boy at Holmes Regional Hospital since early Wednesday morning... our beautiful, wonderfully innocent little baby boy... he is continuously being monitored for an onset of seizures because of several episodes he has had since we brought him home only 15 days ago. They've ran test after test, EEG's, CT Scan, spinal tap, PHG... the list goes on. He's currently hooked up to more wires than I can even count, for 24 additional hours, and we're told we cannot hold or significantly move him until the testing is done. I'm in such a state of panic right now because of everything that is going on. He's been through so much in such a short amount of time, I want so badly to put myself in his place so he can stop feeling all this discomfort. I want to bring our baby home knowing he has a clean bill of health, the one we were so glad he was born with. I'm not so sure what to think right now, all I can to do is sit back and pray that everything is alright and these episodes are nothing more than... reflux, or better yet, maybe just an incredibly strange (yet easily treated) reaction to gas. We've been told it may be something significant, or it may be nothing at all, but right now it's the part of "not knowing" that has driven my nerves up so high that I can hardly think straight. Seeing him this miserable is just completely breaking my heart...

To clarify with a little background info... we started noticing Beni was having these daily episodes that 'may possibly' be seizures, consisting of his eyes rolling to the back of his head, lips smacking, body stuttering, all at a very exaggerated and completely involuntarily fast rate. We didn't think much of it at first; we figured it was maybe his immature nervous system working out all the 'kinks'. When we noticed them occurring more frequently and getting progressively stronger, I recorded an episode lasting about 3 minutes to show his pediatrician. Immediately when she saw the video, she agreed that it did not at all seem like normal infant behavior and advised us to immediately rush him to Holmes Regional Hospital for further evaluation.

All I ask is that everyone please pray for him and have him in your thoughts.
Pray for answers and peace of mind.
Pray we can bring our little boy home soon, knowing that everything is fine.

More later...

Busy bees and blessings.

Just checking in to say we're all doing well... enjoying our beautiful little 24/7 eating and pooping machine! He's just the greatest little blessing we could ever possibly ask for... :)

I'M A MOMMY!!

Our beautiful little angel is finally a reality!



Announcing...
Benicio ("Beni") Savien Manzano
Born August 8th, 2007 at 4:53pm
6lbs and 17 1/2 inches long

Greatest blessing of a lifetime... I am forever in love. ♥

Jessica is in labor!

Baby Beni is on his way today, wish us luck!!

Chile, Jess, Cookie and Beni-to-be!

4 1/2 cm dilated, 75% effaced.

Well, it looks like I'm still pregnant!! Though, not quite sure how much longer... our doctor has been telling us "and day now" for the past couple of weeks. On Thursday I was told that I am now about 4 1/2 cm dilated, whereas the week before I was 4 cm, and the week prior to that completely closed. I've been told that once I reach 5 cm that dilation may progress at the rate of 1 cm per minute until I reach 10, and at that point, here comes baby B! We're still struggling to finish a few things up as far as the house (remodeling) goes, but by the end of today we will finally be able to move back into our bedroom from the living room! Success! Beni's room is still slightly in the works (we still need to install chair-rail and crown moulding) but it's not so much of a concern at this point because he will be staying in our room for at least the first few months. We are so ecstatic for his arrival, I can hardly believe how blessed we've been so far!

Anyway, wish I could be a little more definitive on exactly when he'll arrive, but as the good ol' doc keeps saying, "any day now..."

Here we go again!

So... Angelo and I went for our weekly prenatal visit and we were told that I'm dilated 4 cm!! It came as a shock, because at the appointment following the initial labor scare, we were told that my cervix had successfully closed back up again... and yet a week from that point brings us to the last appointment on Friday where we were given the news about the whole 4 cm bout. Yikes!! So... he'll certainly be on his way out soon enough. We are just waiting for my water to break I suppose, or at least for the heavy contractions to kick in... but we were told this could be any day. Out doctor does not feel confident we'll reach August 22nd, though on the same note, he wasn't so sure we'd made it through the weekend either, yet here we are. :)

Correspondence between Nicole and I.

From: Nicole
Date: Jul 21, 2007 5:58 PM

Hey Jess,
Sorry I haven't called you guys or made it down there to help. The Saturday that Chile posted the bulletin requesting help, I took a pregnancy test and to my surprise... I'm pregnant! :)
Anyway, I hope you're doing good. I got your bulletin about pediatricians... did you find one? I wish you could find one like ours. She's an MD and an all natural-alternative physician. She's against giving infants all there shots at once... she spreads them out... and she doesn't prescribe antibiotics unless necessary... she's awesome. I wonder if she has any colleagues in Melbourne?

Anyway, I hope you guys are closer to being ready for Beni... let us know if we can help!

I'll talk to you soon... tell Chile we said HI!

Love~Nik

From: Jessica Lynn
Date: Jul 21, 2007 8:28 PM

Oh my goodness, congratulations Nicole! Honestly, when I read that my jaw literally dropped and I was just floored with good spirits. We are SO happy for you both. Blessings come in all forms of surprises these days! It's a good thing after all that you held onto all the baby stuff. :)

As far as the house and "Beni-prepping" goes, we just put the laminate hardwood down in both bedrooms, and a friend of his is going to put up all the moulding tomorrow evening... so, slowly but surely everything is finally coming together (thankfully). And yes, we'd still love for Mister to help with tiling. Once we get situated with the rest of the house, we'll give you guys a call and arrange a good time for everyone.

I have a feeling Beni will be coming fairly soon now that I've been taken off the medication and given the "okay" for labor. I started having heavy contractions last night and I was very close to making a run for the hospital, but after a couple of hours it calmed down to just minor irritability. False alarm I guess. It seems I'm stuck at a cross between wanting him here so badly just so we can finally see his little face, yet knowing realistically we need just a bit more time to finish up the house and prepare. Inevitably though, it's his call. :)

At some point when things start leveling out around here, we'd love to plan a little drive to Orlando to get together. There's this little restaurant on West Colonial, Garden Cafe, that I absolutely love, but haven't gone to in several years... they have the best vegetarian food! The imitation meat is close to impossible to tell from the real thing. I don't know if that's something you would be interested in, but it's an idea?

Anyway, I'll talk to you soon and call if anything comes up with little Beni!

<3,
Jessica