Surprises are supposed to be fun, right?

So, Brett and I thought it would be fun to take Maryam to visit her Great Grams and Great Aunties and Uncles and cousins.....we'll make it a surprise! Famous last words. We leave the deuce at 6:30 because we had to wait for the USC game to finish and then pack and stuff. We get to Bakersfield around 10pm so we stop for dinner. After we ate, we got back in the car and I tried to finish feeding Maryam. However, I noticed that she was retching more than she usually does. And then I noticed it was taking me a REALLY long time to feed her. By the time I had finished feeding her 2 1/2 hours had passed! That's crazy long for one of Maryam's feedings. I had to keep stopping though, she was constantly crying and retching, she just seemed like she was in pain. Well, we arrived in Merced at 2am...no big deal, except for that Maryam and I never went to sleep because she continued to cry and wretch. At 5am I woke Brett to get confirmation that she wasn't just having a "bad night." We took her temperature, discovered she had a fever, noticed she was retching up stomach bile and called for advice. The advice was to get her to the emergency room. So, by this time it was 6am and we're heading back down towards Fresno. Never mind we had just passed through there 6 hours before this! Oh well. We get there and she is admitted. They did stomach and chest x-rays, blood work, the whole nine yards. The ER Dr. said he wanted a pediatrician to look at her, because he has more experience with "special needs babies," so he called one to come in from home. The ER dr. kind of freaked us out because he told us her chest x-ray showed signs of pneumonia. But he also admitted that her Chronic Lung Disease could also look like pneumonia and that he wanted to call the NICU where Maryam was born to ask for advice. We didn't think it was pneumonia, we were certainly praying it wasn't!!!
Dr. McGlorey, the ER doc, ordered IV antibiotics to help with the fever and lungs, in case it was pneumonia. Dr. Guthrey, the pediatrician, came in and assessed Maryam. He told us that he thinks its her stomach. That the story we're telling obviously points to 1 of 2 things. A stomach infection or a blockage in the GI track. A blockage in the GI track would involve Maryam being admitted to Valley Children's Hospital for surgery in the next few days and infection involves changing her feedings for the next 24 to 48 hours while we wait it out. I bet you can guess which one we'd prefer! Dr. Guthrey graciously let us take Maryam home to Gram's house for us to monitor for the next 3 or 4 hours. We're going to give her a continuous feed of pedialite over 35 mils per hour. He's going to call us at 6pm and depending on what information we give him, he'll decide whether or not she can stay home, or if we'll be on our way to Madera for a surgical consult. Right now its 3:15 and we're on our way home. Wish us luck!!!
In a related note, can I just tell you how much I love Kaiser? I know I've said tons of great stuff about the staff at the hospital where Maryam was born, but WOW! The hospital in Fresno had an equally wonderful staff of nurses and doctors. We're so lucky! They were all wonderful! We LOVED both doctors.
We only planned on staying at Grams until Wednesday morning! So, we'll see what happens! To all the cousins...my plan was to see if any of you wanted to come to Grams house on Monday or Tuesday to meet the little one. But now that she's not feeling good I don't think its such a good idea! Then again, she could wake up tomorrow and be totally normal again! So, I'll let you know!
Oh, by the way, we still haven't seen Grams!!!