It's a...

BOY!

I'm back home after almost two weeks visiting family and friends in Colorado, Tulsa, and Arkansas. We had a great time seeing so many fun people, and Ben and Maggie's wedding was a big highlight of our time. We arrived home last night, and I had a doctor's appointment today. I wasn't scheduled to have a sonogram, but I asked if Dr. Doke would do one for us since we'll be out of town during weeks 20 and 21 when he usually does those sonograms. He agreed, so we're thrilled to announce that in December we'll be welcoming a baby boy! Hopefully I can post the 3-D pictures sometime soon! More pictures and updates coming soon as well.

Big girls!

Although the girls aren't interested in doing any more walking on their own, they are doing some new big girl things. Last weekend we dropped their morning nap, and they've made the transition quite well! They also love to feed "babies" a bottle, push a shopping cart, ride horses, and sit at a table to play music and read books. With all this extra wake time, we have lots of fun time to figure out new toys!


Jenna pushing her baby in a shopping cart



Jenna loves that horse!



Lydia sits at the table to play the piano


I love this sequence of pictures. I promise none of them were posed or prompted. I'll let Lydia narrate for you.

"Wow, look at that girl in my book!"



"Mom, who is that? She looks like my sister!"



"I guess I'll just give her a kiss."

Growing and changing

Here's a picture from last week (13 weeks pregnant). I felt the baby kick for the first time during Week 13 as well--so exciting!

Jenna took her first steps on Saturday then took about eight in a row on Sunday (AJ's first chance to see her walking)! I guess she's not as excited about it as we are, because now most times I ask her if she wants to walk to me, she shakes her head no and sits down. They're getting quite heavy to carry around (especially both at once), so I'm excited that we're seeing some walking improvements.

Home from camp

We're home from camp and mostly caught up on laundry, unpacking, and cleaning. We had a fun time spending three weeks at camp with so many great people and new things to do. Jenna and Lydia were a little overwhelmed by the craziness of camp, especially a couple specific skits, but mostly they just enjoyed observing all the action. It was fun to see their personalities be so obviously different. Jenna was much more reserved, and Lydia was much more outgoing. The girls' favorite parts of camp were the dogs, the mulch, and the steps around camp. We thought they'd walk at camp, but not yet! Another big highlight was their cousins' visit. Alissa and Kevin came from Arkansas with their kids, and we had so much fun playing at camp with them.



Brett and Lydia having a crawling race


Alexandria and Jenna on the barn swing


Alexandria and Brett--they're so photogenic!


Jenna (L) getting a kiss from Lydia (R) down on the dock


Watching their cousins play up above


Dean and Alexandria playing in the lake


Dean and Lydia


Lydia (L) & Jenna (R) watching cabin cheers


You could say they were the center of attention at times :)


Jenna and sweet Julie who came for two weeks to help with the girls


Julie and Lydia


Lydia (L) and Jenna (R) happy to help unpack!



Here's our precious Jenna who acts completely normal these days. On our pediatrician's recommendation, we plan to take her to Lubbock to see a pediatric neurologist. Because her seizure only affected one side of her body, there's a better chance that an EEG will show something abnormal, so we will likely do an EEG at some point. For now, we're just enjoying her, living with more thankfulness and learning to more fully trust the God who "comprehends her path and her lying down and is acquainted with all her ways, the one who has hedged her in behind and before and has laid His hand upon her" (Psalm 139).

I'm now 13 weeks into my pregnancy and feeling super! Really I'm not feeling sick at all and not even tired. It's time to start the belly pictures!

Days at home include enjoying parks, pools, and the toys at our house that seem new after three weeks away. AJ is working at Chick-fil-a mostly everyday and likes learning about restaurant life. He'll work there for a few weeks until school starts again.

A sister and a life saver

We have had quite the week, so I'm going to do my best to re-tell all the happenings.

On Wednesday night, AJ and I were up late packing for camp because we were planning to leave Thursday morning. Lydia started crying at 11:00 pm which is pretty unusual, and he went in to check on her. He came out with Lydia and told me to go listen to Jenna breathing, because he thought it sounded strange. I went in to listen, and I thought she had thrown up and was laying in it. I felt around on her matress, and she didn't move so I picked her up. Her eyes were open, she was breathing funny, and her right arm and eye were both twitching. She had already thrown up some stuff in her bed and started coughing up some white foamy stuff. I started calling her name, and she wasn't making eye contact or really responding at all. I called AJ, and we began the panic of figuring out what to do. At first we thought she was choking, and thankfully AJ realized we were dealing with an emergency and called for an ambulance. In the meantime, Lydia was sitting on the couch very calmly (not normal considering the circumstances) watching us take care of her sister. We started realizing that it seemed like she was having a seizure, and soon the fire trucks and ambulance arrived at our house. They agreed that it looked like a seizure and waited for a while to see if she would come out of it. She puked some more but was still not responding.

They decided to take her on to the hospital, and AJ went along to be with her. I was trying to figure out what to do with Lydia, and a neighbor was standing outside and offered to stay with her. I put her back to bed, and amazingly she laid right down without a fuss. When I arrived at the hospital, Jenna was still seizing, and we were so scared. I had never known a seizure to last so long, and we had no idea what was happening. They gave her some medicine to calm anxiety and put her on oxygen. Thankfully, at 11:30 (30 minutes later) she came out of it. She was very sleepy and not at all herself, so we were still quite scared. After several hours in the ER praying and singing and talking to Jenna, we learned that she had pneumonia and that they wanted to admit her to the other hospital in town (the one that takes kids). I held her on the stretcher for the ambulance ride and even got peed on because I thought she still had the catheter in so she wasn't wearing a diaper.

We were admitted at 4 am, and began to feel some relief after Jenna cried very hard (at least she was responding) through the initial processes with the nurses. Our nurse really put me at ease and talked me through all the questions and concerns I wanted to talk about. Jenna slept off and on between breathing treatments, a CT scan, and beginning to eat and drink again. After getting some rest, she seemed like herself again: smiling, playing peekaboo, reading books, making animal sounds. Thank you, Lord!

Jenna's doctor came in at 1 pm and told us the CT scan was clear. He told us he was unsure at this point what caused the seizure. At first we were told it was probably caused by a fever, but he said her fever was not high enough or a drastic enough change to be the cause. He thinks her upper right lobe pneumonia was caused by her aspirating (inhaling fluid into the lungs) at some point during the seizure. He prescribed an antibiotic and told us to bring her back in a few days and then three weeks for further evaluation regarding the cause. A few possibilities could be a seizure disorder or her MMR vaccination she received nine days earlier.

Now we're at camp, enjoying the sweet people here, and trying to get well. Jenna's stomach does not agree with her antibiotic, so she's been vomiting it up, and we're hoping for a new antibiotic tomorrow. Other than that, we're trying to get rest, stay hydrated, and enjoy the fun parts of camp.

Looking back, we're just so grateful. It's likely that if Lydia hadn't cried (for seemingly no reason) we would have found Jenna the next morning and she may not have lived. Wow--Lord, you've been so gracious to us. We're so thankful it happened before we got to camp where we are much farther from help or the girls' doctor. We're thankful for each day that we can enjoy each of our girls and know a little more fully that we shouldn't take any moment for granted. We're thankful that we see no lasting effects and are hopeful that this is a one-time strange event that we will never have to live through again. We're thankful for our helpful friends in Midland who brought food, visited, took care of Lydia, and treated us like family. We're thankful for the many who prayed for Jenna. In our scary, confused moments, we were blessed by the knowledge that God is trustworthy and has our best and our kids' best in mind. Thanks for reading this long account and for all of your concern and love you have shown. We'll keep you updated as we know more. We love you.

How many babies?

That has been the big question running through our minds in the past several weeks. Will we have twins again? This morning we went to the doctor to see our first sonogram, and this time we will have ONE baby. We got to hear his/her heartbeat, and the doctor says everything looks good. He did move my due date back to December 23, so this poor child will probably always share a birthday with the busyness of Christmas. I must admit, we feel a small sense of relief knowing that we aren't adding another set of twins to the crew.

Recently the girls have practiced their big sister skills, and Lydia especially loves giving kisses to our sweet friend Elena who is five months. We leave for camp tomorrow (AJ will be training this summer's kitchen director, and the girls and I get to play), so my blog is about to have another drought--sorry. Here's one cute picture of the big sisters to be. Lydia's in the front; Jenna's in the back. We'll be home in three weeks!

Switching to zone

Exciting news! We are expecting Baby #3 at the Perea household! So as AJ likes to say we'll be switching from our current man-to-man strategy to zone since the kids will soon outnumber the parents! The baby is due December 18th, so I'm eight weeks along right now and feeling fine, just pretty tired. We're thankful for the blessing of another baby joining our family!