We've made it! We've crossed the finish line.

Time seems to be just flying by now that Alexa is getting better. Her cough is improving by the day. For awhile there it seemed to be getting worse and now I wonder if she didn't have a bit of a cold again to top it off. But now the mucousy cough is disappearing again and the coughing fits are very quick and for the most part relatively painless both physically for her and mentally for me. I'm kind of used to it by now. Most others are still scared to death everytime she coughs. Nana passed her right back to me the other day when she was holding Alexa and she started coughing. If she thought that was bad she would've never made it through the early stages of this pertusis. I haven't taken any anxiety meds in awhile. I feel very comfortable with her progress. On the 26th of August she had her "2 month" checkup. I say that in quotes because she was really 10 weeks. We had Dr. Ruben who isn't really my favorite doctor at the practice. She's quite short with her answers and always makes me feel rushed. I'm glad I went in armed with a list of written questions or she just might have rushed me out of there without being able to ask one. Alexa was weighed and came in at a whopping 10lbs 14oz. And she's now 22.5 inches long. By far the shortest of all my babies at this age I believe. Her teeny tiny head came in at 30th percentile and her weight and height came in somewhere around 40th percentile. Right on track my little peanut is. She was holding her head up well and very observant. The doctor was very pleased. I walked out of there one proud mommy. I feel so accomplished somedays having gone through everything that I have with her. I feel like we've been through so much together already and I've made it. I'm a survivor even though there were days when I thought I'd just throw up because of how anxious I was. I could've lost my baby, and some women have lost theirs to this sickness, but we beat it!! Everytime she coughs I'm awake. Everytime she coughs I am by her side. I struggled through just about forcing her to eat even though some days she'd only eat 11oz. I charted how much she ate everyday. I took countless trips to the doctors just to be sure she wasn't getting dehydrated. I watched her like hawk. And now it's all paying off. I have my baby alive and well. She's smiling, cooing, kicking, and playing. I'm finally getting to enjoy her the way I've been dying to.

Abby and Nathan start back to school on Wednesday. I'm excited to be home all alone with the baby and begin getting on some sort of routine. It's almost like closing a chapter in her book of life. She came home from the hospital on the kids' last day of school and now here we are starting the school year again. I'm looking forward to some Mommy and baby time. It's going to feel so weird just having one child to look after all day. I do have to say though that I will miss their help. All summer long they've been great go getters. And now Abby can even lift the baby and walk around holding her a bit. It's a great help when your arms hurt so badly from holding her for so long. I'm going to miss them but they need to get their brains a-workin'!

Dare I say?! She's becoming normal.

I have to make this quick. You just never know when she'll start crying. Right now she's relaxing peacefully in her glider right next to me at the computer. Every once and awhile I glance over and she'll be cat napping and then five minutes later I'll glance over again and there she'll be looking all beaty eyed at me. She's so adorable. Now I know I'm partial but man do we make cute kids! She does the funniest thing with her eyes. She'll be looking around and close her eyes for a long couple of seconds and then open then looking up or to the side. Looking very flirty if you ask me. She's smiling more now which is nice for me. Finally some recognition for all of my hard work! She's still coughing. Boo! But it's getting much better. I'm actually allowing her to cough by herself in the swing while I continue to sit on the cough just monitoring her. I used to jump up and run to her with every cough. I even have the kids trained to yell for me when she starts. I'll be in the kitchen washing dishes and Nathan will yell "Mom, babies coughing!!!" and a running I would come. I'm becoming a bit more laid back now that he coughing spells aren't lasting as long and aren't as mucousy. I've even brought her upstairs in the heat to just hang out. Before I would have to run the AC until the room was cool before I'd even think about bringing her up. She seems to be tolerating it quite well. We're even going to venture out to the pool tonight for a late night swim. All things that normal 2 month old babies could do. In other news, she seems to be chunking up again. Today she had a weight check and she went from 9lbs 13 oz to 10lbs 6 oz. Big bay-bay! I'm excited to have a "normal" baby for once. Normal all except this dang diaper rash that I've been fighting for two weeks now. It's so raw and sore and I feel so badly for her. I told her doctor today that I just want a normal baby, one whom I can use wipes on. The rash has gotten so bad that I've been using a bulb syringe to squirt water on her bottom every time I change her. Well, I just got the call. Daddy is on his way home. I'm going to go pop the chicken in the oven for dinner so it can be done in time for us to go to the pool.

Small pity party

Had a bit of a breakdown today. One xanax later, I'm feeling better. Alexa had a pretty rought night last night. She was up lots coughing and worrying mommy sick! I'm working on a theory that maybe the room was too hot and we're gonna turn on the AC earlier tonight to cool it down before we come in. Everytime I think she's getting better, I'm reminded that she's still one sick little girl. Tonight we're gonna give her a bath and relax her a bit. We're even going to buy a cool mist humidifier and see if that helps any.

Yesterday was my 8 week postpartum check up. I got to see Becca, my favorite midwife of all. All together now I have lost 35 pounds, and I confirmed that my total weight gain for the pregnancy was 11 pounds. Not bad! We chatted about all the drama that has been titled "My life" and she thinks I should play the lottery. Who has such luck?! It felt good to talk about everything that's been going on and to get some sympathy for it. It's been a rough 7 weeks. I had my pap smear and now we await the results. Please God, no more curve balls. Let it be normal. My mom and nana watched all three kids while I was gone. I was a nervous wreck about the baby the whole time but I have to admit it felt good to get away even if it was for a who-ha check. When I got back to my grandma's house, my Aunt Debbie and Kayla had joined the click. She always makes me feel calmer. I don't know why. Maybe it's because she's a nurse but again it felt good to relax a bit. She even decided to take the kids down to her house for awhile to give them something new to do. Burt and I took advantage of the time together and went to get Chinese food and took a quick walk through the Family Dollar in Folcroft.

In other news, today I captured Alexa's smile on camera. She's been smiling since July 31st but I had yet to have the camera ready when she did it. She seems to be the happiest in the morning. I was holding her and Abby was just smiling at her and she smiled right back. Several times in fact. Nathan grabbed the camera and snapped away. I have to keep reminding myself that she won't be sick forever. This will get better and then these horrible times will all just be a memory. The sad thing is though that I don't want to look back on her first few months and think of how horrible they were. I want to remember her and cherish her when she's still so small. I feel like I'm being robbed. Oh well, enough with the pity party. I am grateful to just have her here. I will take what i can get.

Be patient Jess.

It seems as if we might have turned a bit of a corner with this Pertusis. Tuesday the 3rd she was discharged from CHOP. As petrified as I was to take her home away from the nurses and monitors, I was happy to be home to see the other two kids. It's so hard being away from them. Not only that but my house was falling apart. Abby was still in pajamas and hadn't had her hair brushed in days. Nathan was wearing a pair of boxers and they had both become playstation junkies. It was time for Mommy to be home. But let's back track a little. The ride home from the hospital was hard. I think I cried almost the whole way. I was scared that maybe we should've pushed the doctors to let her stay a while longer but they seemed confident that she was okay to go home. This has been a major lesson in faith and trust. I still sometimes have to repeat in my head over and over again, "She will breathe again." It's so scary. Boy am I jumpy around in this post or what? Burt did a very good job attempting to calm me down but I felt my chest tightening and I couldn't focus on anything other then watching to see if she was going to have a coughing fit in the car where I'd feel so helpless as I couldn't take her out of her seat to calm her down. We finally made it home and life continued as usual. Everytime I left the room she was in I was carefully listening for her to cough. I attempted to do some laundry but she coughed. I attempted to organize and straighten up but she coughed. I finally gave up and held her. Now, 4 days later, I look back and realize that I was quickly slipping into a black hole. I felt so helpless and yet I felt like the ony one capable of caring for her. I felt like I was never going to have a life again. I felt like I was doomed to worry for the rest of my life. I began to feel like a prisoner. This summer was shaping up to be nothing like all the dreams I had of spending it with my newborn baby. I'm trying to be patient and I'm trying to trust in God, but everything seems to be that much harder with her sick. Wednesday I had a bit of a scare when I thought she wasn't eating enough so we brought her to the pediatrician. By the time we were in the office Alexa was wide eyed and bushy tailed just relazing in my arms. They weighed her and she weighed 10lbs 3.3 oz. Only down .1 of an oz from the hospital. The doctor said she looked great and that her lungs were clear. What a relief! And relieved I stayed until that night when she was up like 42 times coughing her little head off. Again, the roller coaster begins. Everytime you think you see progress you're taken back down a notch. Thursday was a bit of a better day. She was still very lethargic but she seemed to spend a bit more time awak and content. I finally decided to take her swing upstairs in the bedroom for the night. She slept much better that night and even awoke for a feed. Improvement. Friday seemed to be better yet. By this time I had taken Burt's advice and started taking a xanax to calm my nerves. And it helped. I could finally begin to enjoy the little improvements that we were noticing in her. I finally smiled and laughed after almost two weeks of worry. Firday night again I used the swing and got some much needed sleep. Aside from the diaper rash and her waking up four times or so coughing I thought I had a pretty good night. Now finally that brings us to today. This morning Alexa spent a good three hours awake and relaxing. I even gave her a bath and dressed her up all cute and pretty, headband and flower included. I'm so happy that God is showing me these signs of her improvement. My heart needed it and still does. Tonight we may try taking the baby for a walk in the stroller. Mommy and baby need some fresh air. I need to feel free again.

She's sicker then she's ever been before.

The hell continues. Alexa is back at the hospital. On Sunday July 25th she started with a small cough every once in awhile. I knew she was headed down the path but was hoping we would avoid anything serious. Monday she continued with the cough. She also had an appointment to get her weight checked to change the dosage of her zantac. While at the appointment the doctor weighed her. She came in at a healthy 9lbs 15oz. Growing like a weed. We talked about the reflux and decided we'd give the zantac another try. Monday night she had her first dose at .9mL. It didn't seem to do much for her reflux symptoms so we kept at it. Tuesday morning she had another dose. Tuesday night at around 10pm she had a feed. This feed was especially sloppy and she gulped in lots of air and ate very quickly. Shortly after the feed she had a coughing fit and her lips even turned a bluish color. After recovering from this coughing fit she soon had another where she threw up her last feed and continued struggling to breathe. The best way I can describe it was that she was coughing then gulping in air. It's almost as if any oxygen she was getting in was going right into her tummy and not her lungs. This went on for a few minutes and I decided we should call 911. By the time the ambulance had arrived she was breathing normally again but I still wanted to bring her to the hospital to get checked out. Once in the ambulance they turned on the sirens and we made our way. Burt left a few minutes after us and met us in the ER. Amanda and Juan watched Nathan and Abby. Once in the ER and after giving her history I had begun to wonder whether the entire incident was related to her reflux. After talking it over with the ER doctors they decided we should continue the zantac and it should begin to give her some relief. We felt comfortable bringing her home. We got home around 1:30am. Wednesday her cough continued but her crankiness increased. She was compltely inconsolable from 5pm until 9:30pm. Even mommy couldn't calm her down and the stress of it all had me in tears. By Thursday I had had enough. I knew the doctors needed to help us. I put a call into the pediatrician. When they called me back we agreed to stop the zantac and change her formula to Nutramigen. By Thursday night we had a "normal" baby. She was content to just hang out with the family and I loved it! Friday and Saturday the cough continued. Saturday night was the last straw and I put another call into the pediatrician. Not before I had a mental break down and cried my eyes out. It's heart wrenching watching your baby suffer and not being able to do anything for her. Not only that but I was constantly questioning whether or not I was doing the right thing by keeping her home. When the on call nurse called me back and told me to bring her down to CHOP's ER I was kind of relieved. I knew we might get some answers then. I even decided to pack a little bag in case they decided to admit her. Good thing I did. Once we got here the doctors caught a glimpse of this coughing I was describing. They got the ball rolling and she was admitted. She had a chest x-ray done which was clear. She had a mucous sample taken with a small tube that sucked out some mucous and everything was sent to the lab. They began testing her for pertusis, chlamydia, and another ten or so viruses. Sunday morning Burt left to go home and get things situated with the kids. He spent the day with them trying to keep things somewhat normal. I spent the day in the hospital room with the door closed and the lights dimmed. Her coughing continued. By Sunday Burt had come back but we both fell asleep rather early. Alexa though conitued to cough through the night. Everytime I head her cough my heart starts racing. Every noise she makes makes my body cringe. My chest hurts and I'm sure it's from anxiety. But nothing compares to my poor baby having to go through this. Today, Monday August 2nd, her pertusis test came back positive. My baby girl has whooping cough. We've all been advised to get on a course of antibiotics and Burt was instructed to get the DaTP booster vaccine. And again I am scared to death. When the doctor came in to tell me I felt like an emotional bomb had been dropped on me. It all took a moment to sink in but the tears started to flow. I called Burt to tell him and the tears continued. Nothing can describe the fear that was pumping through my veins. I was an emotional mess. Eventually the nurse came in and saw me and told me she was going to get the doctor so that he could explain things better. The doctor was amazing. He even let me use his stethescope to listen to his "normal" lungs and then let me listen to Alexa's tummy gurgling and to listen to her "normal" lungs. Her lungs are clear and free from pneumonia. He even showed me her chest x-ray and thoroughly explained it to me. I felt slightly better but still overcome with sadness for my daughter. I just want her well. I want to cuddle her. I want to make her smile. I just want her to be happy. What is God trying to teach me?! Wasn't the NICU enough to teach me any such lessons? I'm trying to remind myself that things could be so much worse but everytime I do they seem to get that much worse. Please God...it's in your hands. I trust that you will take care of my baby as it's not her time to go. Our family has too much love to give her. We need her. I have faith that you know what it best and I'm putting it in your hands.