What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been!

Maybe it hasn't been too long or really that strange, but so far our vacation is certainly not what we had planned.

To start, Annabelle started developing a slight fever the day after we got the call from the doctor's office saying that her UTI was cleared up (Thursday). Our flight left Melbourne EARLY Friday morning, so we gave her some fever meds before we left that morning, but by the time that we got to the ATL airport, she was burning up! We called ahead to Keith's mom in Tuscaloosa and she found us a doctor to take Annabelle to when we arrived. Since they had the ban on liquid items, we didn't have our infant meds in our carry-on bags (turns out we could've carried them on though) and we couldn't find anywhere to buy them in the airport so I flagged down a new mommy and begged for some Infant Tylenol, which she droppered into a spoon for me! Once we got to Tuscaloosa and got Annabelle to the doctor's office, her fever was up to 104.5! The poor baby seemed so groggy. She hadn't been showing the signs that made me think she had the UTI before, so we weren't sure what was causing the fever. The doc that we took her to was a family doctor, so he didn't have a cath or bag to collect a urine sample from an infant, and by then it was the end of the workday on Friday so it was too late to find a peds doc. So, we left the office with the the doctor's on call phone number and a plan of giving her a lukewarm bath then just watching and waiting to see how she did overnight (didn't want to give her more antibiotics if it was a virus).

Later that night Annabelle started "making the face" (the sign of a UTI that I had picked up on before). She was moaning in pain as her diaper warmmed while I was holding her, so I was guessing that the UTI was back. Since she wasn't feeling well, of course she woke up many times over night, and was up from 2-4:30am. We had to give her a bath to bring the fever down overnight too. Then the next morning, we called the doctor first thing to get him to write her a prescription for the same antibiotics that she had for the UTI before.

Annabelle was doing okay during the day (still feverish, but not acting too bad) so Keith and I made plans to go to his class reunion that night (keeping the cellphone on, of course). Keith's family kept Annabelle and said that she just wanted to be held the whole time (which is SOOO not like her), but she went to sleep okay and everything. When we got home she had just woken up again and felt really warm again. We took her temp and about freaked as the thermometer went all of the way up to 106.8 TWICE!!! She felt warm, but not THAT warm! So, it was back into the bath for another midnight bath.

I know that Annabelle was probably tired at this point, but the look in her eyes was SO scary. I was just waiting for her to have a febrile seizure! She never did have one, but during the entire bath she just sat there staring at the ceiling with the most glazed look in her eyes and didn't make a sound! I tried to splash around or do something to get a response out of her, but she didn't respond. It was SO scarey!

After a little while, Belle began shaking and getting goose bumps, so we got her out of the bath before had a seizure or something. Her temp had gone down to 103 point-something so we felt comfortable putting her to bed. She went right to sleep and slept all of the way through the night from about midnight to 8 am! Of course, I still didn't sleep well because now the fact that she wasn't waking up every 2 hours was bothering me! But she did get a good night's sleep and seemed to feel MUCH better in the morning!

Even though Annabelle was feeling better, we decided that it was better to skip the NYC part of our vacation and just stay in Tuscaloosa with family and doctors that we know until she's all better! Annabelle still had a little bit of a fever, but nothing outragous. We thought it was over...

Then yesterday, we noticed some red bumps on the back of Annabelle's neck. Keith had pointed them out earlier, but I just said they were her "stork bites" without really looking at them. The bumps were getting redder and were migrating all over her neck, chest, and back! My first thought was that the doctor who we saw Friday had warned that sometimes babies are fine with a medicine one time, but have an allergic reaction the next so I thought she might be allergic to the antibiotic! Again we decided to play the wait-and-see game overnight and see how she was in the morning.

So... this morning we got up and Annabelle still seemed to feel fine, but the rash had spread even more and seemed to look more like hives! I called her pediatrician's nurse back home (thanks to this past month, they know us there very well now), and she recommended that we have a local doctor look at it. I wanted to find a ped doc so that they'd have all of the right equipment in case any tests were needed, so Keith's mom got a recommendation of a ped from a friend. I called and they wouldn't take non-patients of theirs! So they recommended another doctor and after calling a few doctors, I finally found one who would look at her! I took her in and the doctor took one look at the spots and said, "That's not an allergic reaction, it's roseola." That was good news for us (because by the time that the rash forms, the roseola has run it's course)! The doctor suggested that we keep up the antibiotics too since she did have signs of a UTI. Poor baby has paid her health dues for quite a while!!! I just hope that Halle didn't get it from Annabelle!

On top of all of these ailments that Annabelle has had, I haven't gotten much sleep, my neck is KILLING me (she wanted to breastfeed ALL of the time while she wasn't feeling well, and my neck isn't used to looking at her like that so much anymore), and I broke out in stress-hives! Also, we got a call Saturday morning from the lady who Macy is staying with and Macy cut her leg/foot on something and had a 1.5 inch gash and had to go the doggy emergency room to get stitches! Not a good weekend for the Donald girls health-wise!

On the up side though, it's been nice to spend a few days in Tuscaloosa. When we come here it seems like there's always some kind of event going on and the trip is always so short so we're always running and don't have time to relax and enjoy family and our alma matter city. :) Yesterday we FINALLY made it over to Springville (Haha! No... we weren't able to get pictures unfortunately.) to visit Keith's brother and sister-in-law and see their house that they've been in for a few years. Keith went golfin' with an old buddy today. We're going to watch a movie at Keith's sister's house (they have a REAL home theater in their house... I'll try to get pictures) tonight. We're going to spend time at Keith's grandparents' tomorrow. We're planning to eat at City Cafe (a famous Tuscaloosa lunch spot for downhome country eatin') and to go by to see some old professors and walk around the UA campus. I got to go back in time 9 years and hang out with two of my best buddies from Computer Science at UA (Jeff and Bobby). And we've been able to just hang out with Keith's parents too (and we both got to drive Keith's mom's 350Z the other night!). :) So, even though our NYC vacation plans were nixed, it's been nice to get to just hang out here (and the weather has been AWESOME to boot), and we'll get to see NYC another time.

So, our new plans are to leave Birmingham Friday noon-ish to get up to NYC in time to make the originally scheduled flight to Milan on Friday. Then Saturday we'll get to see our "Fancy" friend (well, all but 20 pounds of her... she seems to have lost them!) and "Uncle Ben" and we'll get to relax in the beautiful country of Italy!

I don't have any new pictures yet... due to all of these crazy sick days, the camera hasn't been out much. Stay tuned though... :)