Babies, seizures, and bears...oh my!

Possibly I should split this post into two separate ones, but I hardly ever remember to blog these days, so I'd better do it all now.

First off, great news that we've been excited to share.  Ella is going to be a big sister!  We are all thrilled (including Ella...mostly).  I think our experience getting pregnant this time has taught us a HUGE lesson in letting go and allowing God to work his timing magic.  And He does, always.  Baby Denbar is due on Halloween, so I've officially declared to Hal that I'll dress as pregnant Snooki for the big day (total joke, but scared him for a minute).  I am, however, determined to wear a bright orange shirt with a pumpkin face around the belly and live up every minute of being 9 months pregnant and huge when the trend for many 28-year-old gals is to wear a teeny tiny nurse's outfit.  I'll try to get Hal to upload the video of Ella sitting in the infant carrier...she's having a few issues with the idea of sharing, but mostly she's excited to take care of the baby and be mommy's helper.

From good news to yuck, Ella had a febrile seizure on Wednesday.  Her temperature shot up to 103 degrees over an hour or two, and as she woke up from her nap, she started seizing. (Pause for the part where, as you can imagine, I...FREAKED...OUT).  I ran over to her and rolled her on her side while I dialed 911 and started giving the dispatcher our information.  The seizure stopped after a few minutes, and she was passed out with spit coming out of her mouth and some minor twitching every few seconds.  No sound, no eye contact, just still. It didn't even seem like she was breathing--there were these rasping sounds, like she was fighting for air.  Terrifying. The paramedics arrived within 5 minutes, and they immediately assessed that she was perfectly fine, breathing on her own, pink in color, good heart rate.  They basically explained that her little body is like a computer, and when it gets overloaded by such a sudden rise in temp, it will shut down and reboot bit by bit.  So, over the next 20 minutes, she started to wake up and make minor movements, and then eventually in the ambulance she awoke fully and could talk and knew where she was. It turns out that these are relatively common, and even better news, they are really not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things that can happen to little ones. It is really rare for there to be any damage (brain or otherwise) from a febrile seizure.  It's just the way their little bodies reset their temperature gauge if their temp rises suddenly.  Ok, still terrifying though. 

The weirdest part about it is that she's not exhibiting any other signs of major illness--no stomach upset, no major respiratory or throat issues, all things I would attribute to having such a major change in body temperature.  From what I can tell, she has a minor cold at most.

As for me, I've had a pretty hard time going to sleep the last two nights.  As soon as I close my eyes,  the images of her seizing flood my mind, and that is when I realize how traumatic of an experience it really was.  Because if you look at Ella today, she is her normal, sweet self, and life has continued like normal.

The title of this post is misleading: I have nothing to say about bears. :)  Just babies and seizures.

Things are good.  Life is good.  Seizures are not.