Kara at a little older than 5 months



Following Kara's first cold, she seemed to have come down with a stomach bug which took another week to shake. Yesterday, the poor girl had to have another catheter at Sick Kids to determine if her previous urinary tract infection was an isolated incident or the symptom of a larger problem. I'm not sure when we get the results back, but the fact that she hasn't had a recurring infection is apparently a good sign.

The fact that she's "bitten" me the past two nights seems a pretty strong indicator that she's starting to teethe. Last night's dose of Tempra looked like it alleviated what discomfort she appeared to be experiencing and resulted in a downright luxurious (and unprecedented) 5-1/2 hour sleep for her (4-1/2 hours for me)! This was a welcome relief from the no-longer-than-3-consecutive-hours sleep we get each night. It's been downright brutal to cope with sleep-deprivation this intense for this long and I'll be honest and say that I'm disheartened that the reprieve came about strictly because we resorted to drugging her. I keep trying to be optimistic, 'though, and hope that she sleeps more soundly at night once we introduce solids (no later than a month from now).

I honestly never guessed that I'd have a baby as high-maintenance as Kara is (and, really, there are parents in far worse situations than we're in). Still, when I think back on what life was like for our family for the first 3 months or so of Kara's life, I'm grateful that she's come along as far as she has.

I can finally say that I've got a happy, outgoing, trusting, fun-loving baby, and if having that means that I feel considerably more underslept than I did when that baby was a newborn, then that's a trade-off I'm quite happy to make.

Update: The results have come in and Kara does not have anything biologically wrong with her urinary tract. Yay!