Nashville!!

Eden made her first trip this week! We headed out with Nan on Tuesday for a long drive to Nashville. Eden did great! She was such a trooper. We arrived in Nashville and had better accomadations than at home. Aunt Linda had prepared a room for us with everything we could ever need (thanks to Uncle Andy for giving up his room): a changing table, a playpen, new clothes, and best of all some baby Uggs (I can't wait till it's cool enough for her to wear them). We then got to go to Aunt Joyce's for a home-cooked southern meal that was as good as I remembered. Throughout the week her "aunts" showed Eden how to shop, eat and have an all-around good time. Eden got to show off her rolls at Aunt Joyce's pool; she loved the water! We had a great time- she was definetly worn out after it was all done. The whole trip was great and the drive back wasn't bad either; she was a great traveler. We're praying that she'll soon be able to fly so she can meet all of her family in Colorado!

A second helping of IVIg

...and another fun day in the hospital is done. Eden had to go in for another IVIg transfusion on Monday; her platelets had been declining since her first transfusion like Zima at a San Francisco art show. So we wandered in around 8 that morning and wandered back out around 6:30 that evening, full up on 10,000 people's anitbodies. Eden was a champ throughout--she was a happy, bouncy, playful 3-month-old who didn't even know she was not supposed to be enjoying it all. Her auntie Molls and her momma were troopers, as well. Her dad, however, really struggled through the whole ordeal, being forced to play hour upon hour of New Super Mario on the Nintendo DS. Oh, the horrors.

78--not bad for golf, not good for platelets

Look at the, um, muscles on that girl--you'd never guess there's hardly any platelets floating around around in there. That's right, she had her usual pricking, poking, and prodding last Monday and came home with around 99,000 less than the previous week. For the mathematically challenged--or, more likely, for those who don't feel like browsing back to last week's post--that means her Monday count was 78,000. The upshot is that we get to spend the day next Monday rockin' the blood clinic while Eden gets another batch of IVIg shot into her veins. It's a six- to eight-hour process, so we'll be bringing lots of Yoo-Hoo, Funyuns, and Nintendo DS games to keep us satisfied and occupied while we're there. Okay, so maybe just the DS.

This wasn't a huge shocker for us; her counts have been going steadily down for the past month. And the hemotologist did warn us that it could take three or four doses for her spleen to catch up with the rest of her body. And we don't have to be actually admitted to the hospital since it's all going down in the blood clinic that day. But still. We're just looking forward to when she can be a normal baby with impressive layers of...uh...oh, who am I kidding? Eden is a roly-poly whose leg rolls have gotten so big they've merged into one big roll. And that's how we like her.

So for your viewing enjoyment here are a couple more photos of Eden in her monkey shoes/pink frilly onesie/ski cap. You'd think we as parents would be embarrassed to show her stuck in the middle of this clothing fiasco, but we lost any pretense at shame when we put her in her iPod onesie. Besides, we'll be able to hold these pics against her when she grows into a snotty, crabby teenage girl.