Remember when?

     Remember back in July/August when Abigail was happy, smiling, cooing, sucking on her hands, and just being such a fun baby? We have officially seen glimpses of that baby again! The past 2.5 days Abi has been overall pretty dang happy. We've seen smiles, and heard coos and even saw her sucking on her hands-just once and I just barely saw that for the first time tonight while she was laying on her belly. She has been getting so so strong, her head control is coming back in even better and you should see the strength this baby has on her belly! She's even doing really well sitting up! The things were dealing with the past week are finally starting to settle down and her attitude is starting to look up! We are off of the amoxicillin and are down to just the meds she is actually supposed to be on for her disorder (which right now is only 4!) it's so nice!
     Do you also remember when she was doing so well she'd have those pesky breath holding episodes? The ones that would last for seemingly ever and make her turn blue then have a seizure? We saw one of those tonight for the first time too.. bugger! Her first seizure in 10 days happened today. Is is just a coincidence that she had been calming down and then we saw one? I think not. Jaren refuses to admit that there is any type of connection - but i'm convinced now. She got mad, the seizures stopped, she started calming back down - had a few solid days of overall peace and happiness, and bam! another seizure. I don't know why it happens like that, but it does. Now, I put "overall" in italics because there were still moments of straight fits that she would throw. Sometimes she would be happy go lucky and other moments she would be screaming bloody murder, could be the teething, could be change of brain activity (which maybe hurts her head), could be tummy ache, I have NO idea. But overall i'd say she calmed down immensely and I saw some great things yesterday eve and today and Veronica said she saw good things on Saturday and Sunday.
     Abi and I took a nap together today when I got back from school and after her Early Intervention Eye Therapy session. She was completely content and half-smiling while her Dad and Sister were holding her, then they put her down, she got mad. I picked her back up to go to drama practice and she was happy again all the way until the end of practice (It was about an hour long). I put her coat on her to walk back home and she was fine until I picked her up then she started getting just a little bit fussy. She was slightly fussy the whole walk home. I got home, put her on the floor to go get her medicine and while I was in there pulling up the 2 syringes she would need at that time she got mad enough to hold her breath. When I came back into the front room she had been holding her breath for maybe 5 seconds but there was no breath in sight to come. She started turning a little blue and doing that panic thing that she used to do when these breath holding episodes were happening before. It was harder to watch this time because I hadn't seen it in so long, and she was doing SO WELL. Immediately after she finally was able to take a full breath-which took a few attempts of labored breathing-she went right into a seizure. It's hard to tell if the breath holding thing is part of the seizure or if it causes the seizure, or what..but either way they do happen together. She immediately got EXHAUSTED and quickly gave her the meds she needed and off to sleep she went for about an hour. She just barely woke up about 5 minutes ago - well that's the first time I heard here, and at first she seemed alright, kinda cooing - then she got really mad, and now she is still mad. I'm sure her head hurts or something, or she's just exhausted, but I can only imagine as I've never gone through it myself.
     I don't know exactly what this episode today means yet being the first time we saw it. I hope its just a fluke - I hope it wasn't the iron that really was helping! We took her off of that just about a week ago - If it is then we'll just have to put her back on it and deal with the constipation again. I swear, if it's not one thing it's another. We may try to increase the Potiga again and see if that helps, but I kind of want to wait and see if this is going to become a pattern or not. There was nothing that I know of that pissed her off to cause her to hold her breath, just that she got mad and it happened. I have recently seen her hold her breath again a few times and I was always so happy when it didn't progress too long and she was fine, but this was the first time I had seen it to this point since the summer. I don't know if i'd prefer more Potiga to do the trick, or if I prefer Iron to be the fix for this. (If there even is a fix.) These breath holding things were happening last time when her seizures were 'controlled' and she was progressing - so maybe there's some connection there too? Or maybe that is making it too complicated and it is something as simple as Iron..I just don't know. I'll present it to her doctors and see what they all have to say about it. I do know that we started the Iron back in August and very soon after she stopped having the spells, but Dr. Larsen (pediatrician) mentioned that it usually wouldn't work that fast as the body would have to have time to absorb the Iron and give the bones enough time to make more red blood cells...but I only hold on to that as wishful thinking that it was not in fact the Iron so that 1 we don't have to put her back on it and 2 I won't feel guilty for being so pushy to get her off of it.
     Abi fell back asleep again. I guess I picked her up too soon. I know that most of the time she isn't really 'awake' when she wakes up and not to bother her, but that's during naps and sleep - I haven't seen a seizure in a while so I didn't know if that was the case with that too - it appears to be.
     Anyway, Abi has been doing great overall and becoming more happy again, and i'm again seeing more progression. Coincidence that a seizure happened after she calmed back down, where it seems she has more when she calm and less when she's irritable? Coincidence that it was a breath holding spell just like before when her seizures were 'controlled'? I really hope we figure something out by the end of March when her little brother gets here....Actually, I don't think I've ever told you guys through the blog! Abigail is going to be a big sister at the end of March or beginning of April! (hopefully April - but that's besides the point). There IS a chance this next baby could get the same issue Abi has with it being a gene disorder it's very POSSIBLE that Max (it's a boy, and his name is Max) could get the disorder too - but it is NOT PROBABLE. Jaren nor I have ever had seizures, and none of our family members have ever had seizures. This gene is a dominant gene so if anyone had it, it would be the one to express itself and seizures would be seen. So it is possible, but we are not really worried that it will happen...well, i'm not too worried. I also truly believe this baby boy is being sent to us to be Abi's little buddy. He's meant to come here to help Abi grow and to protect her when they are older and how could he do that if he has the same disorder? However, if he does have the same disorder, at least we will already know what to do. We are very excited to get a little baby boy, finally, but we are also not necessarily in a hurry at this point to get him here. March can take a long time to get here and I'd be okay with that, and I'd be even more okay if he hung out until April. Like I said, VERY VERY excited to have him here, just not in an extreme hurry to get him here. We still need to get Abi in a better place and figure out more of her 'isms' and what makes her tick. She's going to need a new car-seat too...but I guess that's not as important.

Anyway, when it's not one thing, it's another (but what else would you expect with AbiNormal?) but we will get it worked out, I'm sure. I am very pleased with where I've seen Abi the last few days and am really hoping tonight was just a fluke (even though I have been seeing her breath holding become more frequent recently, so IDK). I'll let you guys know what the doctors say when I hear back from them. Thanks for reading everyone!

This is AbiNormal