March 2016

This is the month when things got dicey.

This is the time when I just couldn't even try to blog.

Things got really hard.

Welcome to March.

Micah had been not feeling great for a while. He started with a cough when he'd eat in February, that would often make him throw up everything he'd eaten. This generally happened just at the end of a feeding, as I was burping him. Sigh. I was covered in projectile baby-vomit a lot in February.

He looked ok at his well check, though, so they told me to be more careful burping him. We held off on immunizations, and they told me to come back in a week or two to get his immunizations. The thing is, even with all that barfing, he was chipper and engaging and delightful.

When I took him in that few weeks later to get those immunizations, I was shocked when the doctor was very concerned. He gave me a prescription to the respiratory clinic to have Micah suctioned out. He said this helped a lot of babies avoid getting admitted to the hospital with breathing issues related to illness.

At that clinic, they admitted him to the hospital with bronchiolitis.

I was totally in shock. He just didn't seem very sick!

They started him on oxygen, to see if he just needed a little boost. His oxygen saturation levels were still too low, so they put him on high flow oxygen. The hardest part was that he was getting hungry, but he couldn't eat until this trial was done.

Guys, he totally failed throughout the night, to keep his oxygen saturation up.

I'm not used to my kids failing.

My best coach pep talk didn't work at all.

He ended up on a bi-pap machine by the morning.

What I thought would be a quick evening in the hospital turned into 5 days of watching my kid need more and more help to breathe and being unable to do ANYTHING to help him. It was heartbreaking

Watching your kiddo strapped into a machine that helps him breathe is a surreal nightmare.

And yet, he was still chill and generally happy.

And then things got harder. Because not only could I not directly breastfeed him, I had to pump. And each time, I was producing less and less. I felt like an absolute failure as a mother. They gave him trials to see if he could breathe without the bi-pap and he failed again.

After 4 days he still needed the bi-pap to stay oxygenated. But he was still generally happy.

He even started a weight routing when they tried to see if he'd be able to breathe off the bi-pap. After the 4th day, he was strong enough to just use regular oxygen.

Those workouts really paid off.

He was really, really happy to have all the extra gear off his face!

So, I basically lived at the hospital those 5 days. I left once, for like 2 hours, while Tyler subbed in there.

But he was busy busy at home! And at work when he could find a neighbor to help out with our littles.

Amelia made a grass-headed person at pre-K. It had blue eyes, just like Amelia.

The Golden Goose play at our kids' school went on the same week.

Of course our kids were in the play!

Henry played the Golden Goose, Sheridan was a tavern wench, and Jack was the abused and neglected hero.

Hey! It's Jack with his BFF Gabe, who first gave Jack rides home from practice years ago so Jack could be in his first play.

And hey! It's Sheridan's buddy Sam!

When Cole hears that we get dressed up to attend plays, he REALLY gets dressed up!

And Jack also had a Strings concert while Micah was in the hospital.

Tyler took the kids to Thanksgiving Point (both the Curiosity Museum and the Dinosaur Museum). Thank goodness for the gift Grammy and Pop gave us of a membership!

They were very scared of the T Rex! Especially Henry!

We checked into the hospital Monday night and were finally released Saturday afternoon. Micah had a new bestie, we'll just call it Oxyfriend. It became like a 7th child. That thing is awkward and unwieldy, but I'll take it to keep my kiddo healthy! The doctor at the hospital thought he'd only need it at night after a few days.

It was so good to be home!