Prayers, Please.

Sweet baby boy has RSV. Ava was sick earlier this week, spiking a 102 fever (high for any of us - we run in the high 97's and almost never get fevers), and getting an increasingly deep cough, so in we went to the doctor. I tried my absolute best to keep them away from each other, but with his absolute desire to eat his hands all day long, and her love of touching him and talking to him rightupinhispersonalspace, the inevitable happened. I was hoping I was overreacting when I heard him cough in his sleep Thursday night, but knowing the weekend was upon us, I marched him right into the pediatrician all, "Well, I'm probably overreacting…" because he was in such high spirits, and then the rest is a blur of positive RSV tests and breathing treatments and we're now the proud owners of a shiny new breathing machine. Sigh. 

Though we caught it early - yay mommy instincts! - he has unfortunately continued to get a bit sicker, despite numerous breathing treatments, and so I ask for your prayers. Mainly, that he be restored to good health, that he doesn't spike a fever (anything over 100.4 we were told to head into the ER due to the risk of pneumonia and breathing complications), and that we don't need to go to the hospital. Also, we're in the process of going from my husband's employer-provided insurance to private insurance due to a job change (someday I'll post about this, I swear), and so we're officially insurance-less come Friday, though I'm working some magic on my end to get ours to go into effect ASAP, so hopefully it won't come to that. Anyhow, if you're the praying type, I'd love for you to send some up for my little guy, please and thank you!

Blessed.

In the face of the recent family tragedy we've experienced, it's got me to thinking a lot about prayers, and how my life (and spirituality) has evolved since A's birth.

Growing up, as I've mentioned before, I was raised Mormon. Not abstain-from-caffeine, go-to-church-regularly Mormon, but when we did go to church, it was an LDS church. I "studied" the Book of Mormon and was baptized at 8, known as the "age of reason" at the church. Whoever decided that did not spend a lot of time with 8-year-olds.

I prayed as a little girl, though intermittently the way that most children embrace things. I was also on the receiving end of a blessing the summer after my baptism, having gotten pretty sick. I recovered, and still to this day, though I've left the Mormon faith and am now a baptized and practicing Episcopalian (along with Ava), I am thankful and believe in the blessing that I received.

As I grew into a teenager, I prayed slightly less, my main focus in life boys or drill team or getting new clothes - the normal teenage stuff.

I wish I could say that as I went off to college and learned more and more about philosophy, religion, and who I really am that I reconnected with God more, but I continued to feel unhappy in my faith (I only recently became Episcopalian, having finally found comfort and happiness in another faith, though I had been unhappy as a Mormon for the great majority of my life.), and therefore did not find the spiritual comfort I so needed there. There were times in college and after, while I was in NYC, where I would sporadically attend church and try to find that connection, but I never was able to.

Despite this, I have always felt close to God, and always felt a close, personal relationship with Him. I've never felt abandoned by Him, even when I've felt lost generally, and so it was about two weeks prior to becoming pregnant that I went on a journey of faith. I started my journey at the library - a fantastic place to start any journey in my mind - and I checked out all types of books on religion, studying them intensely. From those texts, I was able to narrow my search down to three religions/churches that interested me and coincided with my belief system. I wrote down the address of three churches: one Episcopalian, one Church of Christ, and one Methodist, and after visiting the three on several occasions, the rest is history.

It has never stopped being ironic to me that it was two days after my first visit to one of these churches that I found out I was pregnant. The entire journey of faith was in part so that I would know what I believed and where I belonged prior to having a child, so that I could comfortably pass along my faith and beliefs to my child, with the hope of giving them a strong foundation in God, if not a church. If A is ever in trouble, I want her to feel comfortable turning to Him, and a background in the church is a good place to start in establishing that.

Anyhow, I've gotten off track. It was at this same time, just days prior to learning the news of A's impending arrival, that I really started to give thought to praying on a regular basis. Though I have left the Mormon faith, my prayers always start out the way that LDS members are taught to pray, with "Our Heavenly Father..." The roots run deep, at least in prayer.

While as a child, and even a young adult, I frequently spent the majority of my prayers asking for things. Could you help with this, could you change that. Those types of things.

But last night, as I snuggled next to my sweet-smelling baby, it occured to me. I have prayed every single night without fail since Ava was born, and while I continue to ask for her to live through the night, to continue to breathe, to be helped to be strong and not succumb to SIDS, my prayers are overwhelmingly thankful now. Even in the midst of recent unfortunate events and tragedies, I am SO blessed and SO thankful.

Thankful, more than anything in the world, for A, thankful for D, thankful for my little 3-person family, our home, our cars, our jobs, our successes (as well as the lessons learned from failures). Just so thankful.

Thank you, God, for Ava.

Drop A Love Bomb.

This website is fantastic! A big thanks to Butterbean (who, btw, if you haven't visited her new blog, run click as fast as you can and go check it out!) for sending this to me :)

Also, here's the link to Wrenn's mommy's blog - please stop by and send love and prayers their way!

Prayers, Please.

As I've mentioned before, I'm deathly allergic to the pertussis vaccination. This in and of itself isn't too big a deal, but now that I'm the parent of a newborn, it's slightly more complicated.

P, the school-aged child I watch, is in first grade, and her teacher sent out an email to parents today that was then passed on to me. TWO cases of pertussis (whooping cough) have been confirmed at her school, one of which was in her class.

Now as you may or may not know, I've been sick for going on a week and a half now. I've been coughing like crazy in spurts, and had other cold-like symptoms. P has as well, and, scarily, Ava has too. Hers have been extremely mild, and so I have assumed that they are allergy-related, but now, hearing about this outbreak, I am very concerned.

I called Ava's doctor to see what he thought, and he worked us in first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'm being overly cautious and overreacting, but I plan to err on the side of caution, particularly after Dr H told us how sometimes the first stage of pertussis is much like a mild common cold, and then progresses to the coughing spells. 75% of babies under 6 months that become infected end up hospitalized, and there are even more grave statistics than that that I'm pushing out of my mind.

The good news is that if it is pertussis, God forbid, if we start treatment in the first stages, she's much more likely to recover quickly and not need hospitalization.

Parents - please, please, please vaccinate your children. Not only does it protect them, it protects other children who are unable to have vaccinations or who have parents who could potentially expose them before they're fully protected. You wouldn't turn a blind eye at another mother's child running into the street, so why not immunize to protect ALL children.

If I lost Ava, I would just die. She is my everything.

Please, if you could just keep us in your prayers that it is allergies or a mild cold or anything minor, I would be forever indebted.

Ill update tomorrow post-appointment. She may need a chest x-ray, so it may take a while. Hopefully not.
Thank you!!!