Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

Today we celebrate another year of my incredible husband's life. I am truly blessed everyday by this man!



I love you so much, Angelo!

♥

Routine, anyone?

Things on our end have been very, very consistently busy. Beni does not take too well with not being in someones arms, so it's taken a bit to adjust to one handed dining, laundry, and other miscellaneous chores around the house, hahha. Angelo just took on another job so he's also playing a balancing act as well. :)

Other than that, Beni's doing pretty good health wise... just a few things that we're told will pass within a few moths. He has horrible reflux which has made feeding him a task in itself, but he's almost 9lbs now which is proof enough for me he's not missing a beat as far as meals go!

He’s finally home!

After a long stay at the hospital, we're finally home and semi-reacquainting ourselves with a bit of normalcy... this whole experience has really given me a new appreciation for being home!

As far as the results from the hospital... his CT Scan, EKG, Spinal Tap, and most importantly his EEG (brain scan) all came back within normal range (aside from finding a slight heart murmur). With that being that said, the neurologist does not believe his episodes to be seizures. He's not quite sure what they are, but assures us that his brain is unaffected by them. Another explanation for them could be due to reflux, but we won't get the results for that until later on this week.

His blood work, however, revealed that he is anemic, so he was prescribed supplemental iron drops to hopefully combat that. Iron deficiency is usually the cause (and easiest to treat for), so we're crossing our fingers there. They also found blood in his stool, we're not quite sure of the cause, but his pediatrician wants to test the waters and see if it could be could be due to an allergy to milk (lactose intolerance). It's a bit of a shot in the dark, but just to be sure I'm cutting dairy out of my diet (because I'm breastfeeding) and we'll bring a diaper of his back to her in two weeks and see if that clears it up. If not, the next step is to cut out soy, because 40% of children with an allergy to dairy also have an allergy to soy... and if that doesn't quite do the trick, I'm not sure what comes next. We will see...

Alright, I think that's just about covers all areas. Some good news and some questionable news. I'm glad his EEG came back normal, but at the same time I'm still concerned because we still don't have answers. His pediatrician advised that we continue to videotape his episodes, and if we don't see any improvement within a couple months to go for a second opinion. We may go ahead and seek that opinion shortly... for peace of mind's sake.

Thanks to everyone who sent thoughts and prayers our way. It really means so much to us.

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!