Lilypie Premature Baby tickers


"Sometimes," said Pooh, "the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

3 months ago was Ella's due date!

I can't believe I haven't posted in here since January. I had really intended on keeping up with this as a way to document everything but then life got REALLY REALLY crazy. We put an offer in on a house and it was accepted. Shortly after that, my husbands father passed away unexpectedly and we had to plan a funeral with heavy hearts while also preparing for our closing. Shortly after my father in laws funeral, we closed on our house and moved in the next day. It was a whirlwind of moving and then Shane had to work on packing, cleaning and moving his dads apartment into our house. Then, two and a half weeks ago, those dreaded germies that we so desperately tried to keep out of our house attacked. Olivia got a cold and then two days later, Ella got that cold. Or what we thought was a cold. She woke up with a couch and a few sneezes. Because she had only been off oxygen for two week, I called and requested we have an oxcymeter sent to our house so we could make sure she was getting enough oxygen at night. We got it that same day and thank God we did. I hooked her up that night and 2 hours later, we were in the emergency room. We were admitted and found our she had human metapneumovirus and a collapsed lung. Metapneumovirus is very much like RSV and just a very nasty respiratory virus. VERY nasty...especially for a tiny little preemie with chronic lung disease. I'm not totally sure that everyone quite understood why we were so careful and so afraid of colds and germs but once she was admitted into the hospital with a collapsed lung from basically a cold, I am hoping people understood a bit more!
We went home 2 days later, were home for 8 hours and had to go right back to the hospital because Ella was SATing low, even on oxygen. Ella and I stayed at the hospital for 10 days. It was crappy. No if, ans, or buts about it. It sucked. I didn't see Olivia for over a week and Ella was very sick. I was incredibly blessed however with wonderful friends who brought me clean clothes, took my clothes to their home to wash, brought me a care package and enough food to last me almost the entire time I was there. It was tough but Ella came home no worse for the wear except needing oxygen support at night when she's sleeping. Her lungs are working hard but eventually they'll go back to where they were before...not that that's saying much ;-).
We love our new house and the beautiful weather that we're finally having. Olivia absolutely loves the new house and we have been able to go play outside and "walk in the no" for the last 3 days (quote from Olivia). We've had some unexpected things come up...had to buy some brand new appliances (thank God for interest free store credit cards so we could break that up over a few months!), replumb our ENTIRE KITCHEN (thank God for handy husbands who could do that in an afternoon!!)...but we're so happy in our beautiful new home. It's been a trying 6 months with the bedrest, the premature birth of our baby, the death of Paul and then Ella's rehospitalization but hopefully things are finally settling down and we can settle into our life as a family of 4 in our beautiful new home. :)