After I failed my glucose test and I became pre-eclamptic at 35 weeks, I thought I was definitely going to have this baby early-- I was thinking any day past February 21. I had Ray 2 weeks early and he was almost 8 lbs, so a week or two early didn't really bug me. Once February 25th hit, I realized I didn't want to have the baby close to Ray's birthday (Feb. 27) or leap day. I got off my feet a lot and prayed to get to March 1, BUT any day after March 1 sounded pretty awesome. After gaining around 40 lbs and having every maternity shirt show off my mid section, I wanted the pregnancy to be over with.
Well, March 2nd rolled around and Ray woke up with green junk coming out of both eyes. He acted fine, but still, not a good sign. By 5:00 we had a lot of junk and started eye drops. March 3rd, Ray Ray wakes up with a high fever. I gave him some Ibuprofen and thought he'd rebound fairly quick because he is such a trooper. That night Ray developed croup, and he got bad quickly. He barked all night long with cough medicine and woke up pale and lethargic with green junk coming out of everything. I called the Doc and an antibiotic was called in. Monday he got worse.... waking up pale, not eating, talking like a frog and wanting to be held all day long. Let me just say carying a 30 lb baby and occasionally a 50 lb 3 year old while holding 40 lbs from this pregnancy up the stairs makes my knees feel like they may break in half. These were some long, long days. My poor husband would race off to work to try and get as much done and race home to take care of us all. Big Joey has been completely swamped at work with switching jobs, prospecting and trying to wrap things up so he can take a week off when the babe comes.
So now it's Tuesday, March 6th and Ray has been sick since Friday. I am now praying Louisa holds off for another week. I need to get this babe healthy. When my mom brought me home from the hospital, my brother and sister both had Chicken Pox. I couldn't imagine how scared and tired she was trying to take care of everyone and keeping her sanity. You may think "Oh, kids are so resilient. You will be fine. " My experiences have been a little different. After almost losing Joey when he was 13 months old, my anxiety level and fear is so intense and I do whatever I can to avoid anything like that at all costs. I'm a changed Mom from that and I'm definitely okay with that. By 6:00pm on Tuesday Ray is coughing up junk all day and he seems to be a quick downward spiral. I call the Doc, and we go. The nurse confirms we need to do everything-- antibiotic, cough medicine, steroids, benadryl and ibuprofen. I hate hate hate chucking all of this down his poor little belly, but on the other hand, I trust science and medicine so I do it. Wednesday is worse. Ray has now woken up 4 days in a row at 5:00 a.m. and cries for 3 hours straight till he falls asleep on the floor. Big Joey and I take turns taking him to the basement for him to cry because it's so loud and disturbing. Poor Little Joey was an angel. He didn't say much and played so well by himself while we passed Ray back and forth till he fell asleep. What was wrong with Ray Ray? Was he teething, did he have something else going on, should I have taken him in for a CT or chest xray? I was at a loss. He fell asleep 4-5 different times that day on the floor and when he wasn't asleep, he was crying loudly. He had never done this before. Thursday same thing. At this point, I'm about ready to lose it. I completely forgot I was pregnant. Sleep? What sleep! I was getting about 3-5 hours a night. Ray was a 24 hour deal while being on all of these meds.
Thursday night Ray pukes on me. Really?! Did we pick up something else at the doctors? I call the Doc again. He is so congested he can barely breath, and I can feel it in his back. He had been limp all day and was not getting any better. The nurse prescribes a different antibiotic and we start breathing treatments. We all prayed. We prayed for Ray to turn a corner, we prayed Louisa would stay put and we prayed for tomorrow to get easier.
5am rolls around. Joey comes to our room "Daddy, I'm hot." Joey has a super high fever, refuses to take medicine then pukes on me. You see, Joey is not the Puke and Rally kind of kid like Ray Ray. He is devastated. He is heartbroken he puked on me, terrified he is hot and distraught we are trying to get him to take medicine. After cleaning up everything I laid down with him for the first time and we went to bed. Big Joey relieved me an hour later and the sun came up.
It's Friday by now. It's really Friday already... it was just Friday and Ray had double pink eye. Did a week really just happen and I haven't had the baby yet? Doc called in a script for Joey to be preventative and Grandma Connie Matis came over to save the morning. By now I remembered I was pregnant. Ray had a pep in his step and knowing we had the right antibiotic gave me encouragement for the weekend. The only upside to my week was when my sister-in-law Julia was shopping at Keystone and sending me pics of every counter in JCrew so I could pick up my new spring wardrobe. We call it ishopping and Leo, Jules and I had a blast!!!
Now it's Saturday at 3:30pm. Ray is dancing again, but still has a disgusting cough. I think Joey's fever is finally gone and they only took one nap today. The perfect storm of whatever they had may finally be leaving our home (knock on wood).
Is it safe to have the baby now?? Well to tell you the truth it doesn't matter what I think. It's up to God. He obviously knows more than I do and his timing always seems to be much better than mine. I couldn't imagine having had Louisa home this week... trying to avoid getting her sick, taking care of the boys, getting zippo amount of sleep, taking care of my broken body from labor and exposing helpful family memebers to our yuckiness.
A good friend of mine had me read Psalms yesterday. Getting my Bible out during nap and thumbing through some of my favorite verses was just what I needed. God is soo soo Good, especially when you put all of your trust in him. You know, his plan for us is always so much bigger. Thank the Good Lord!!!
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