To hell and back...

I think the title says it all in regards to the last two weeks. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely blessed and I'm reminded of that daily when I hold my two boys in my arms and I thank God for those reminders.

Friday I packed up the boys and headed to my parents house because Brandon had a football game. Brody and I were playing with his cars on the floor and Jaxson was on his boppy pillow asleep next to us. As we were playing I glanced over at Jaxson and he was gray and had a bluish color around his lips, he had stopped breathing! I quickly grabbed him and he took two deep breaths like he was coming up for air. He then quickly turned bright red as the oxygen flooded his system again. I called our pediatrician and talked to the nurse, at first she said to just watch him carefully and if it were to happen again to take him into the ER but she then called back and said we better take him into the ER just to be safe.

I DID NOT want to take my 7 day old into the ER and expose him to all that nastiness that sits in the ER. If y'all remember we were in the ER twice with Brody last October when he had his seizure and high fevers. IT IS AWFUL! We waited 6 hours just to be seen with Brody and I dreaded doing this with Jaxson.

My mom went with me and I immediately started crying when I saw the waiting room. It was 5:00 o'clock and already packed with sick kids. I actually turned around and told my mom we were leaving that I wasn't going to expose him to this. She talked me into talking to the front desk where they asked what was going on as I'm standing there crying with my newborn. We explained that he had stopped breathing, that he was born at 36 weeks and we could not sit out in this waiting room. They agreed and took us back right away which I thank God for.

We saw the same doctor that treated Brody and he wanted to rule out a bacterial infection. So he ordered blood work, a urine sample, IV antibotics started just in case and the dreaded spinal tap. I did not want this for my baby and actually questioned him on it for a good 10 minutes. But it's the only way to rule out mengitiis so we had to get the test. I think it made it worse that I knew, from Brody what was about to happen and just didn't want to put my baby through that. It took hours to calm Brody down from his test and he would scream bloody murder anytime someone would try to mess with him afterwards. It was tramatizing for both him and I! I honestly could not stop crying, I think a lot of that was because of the postpartum horomones and the fear for my baby. The catheder was the worse part which was the same with Brody and Jaxson actually did better with the spinal tap than I thought, I think because he's so young and doesn't know any better. They also gave him his first paci and would dip it in sugar water to help him with the pain. He loved the paci and sweetie water. We were in the ER for 4-5 hours when the doctor said he wanted to observe him for a few days.

Being in that hospital is so rough. It was even harder because we were in isolation and couldn't see Brody. He too was having a hard time and even though he was in great hands with my parents he was hardly eating and was extremely homesick for his momma and dadda. Poor little guy has had a rough time these last few months.

It was the longest 2 days of our life. I didn't get any sleep Friday night and was just a mess until I took a nap Saturday afternoon. I slept for about 1 1/2 hours and felt a ton better when I woke.

All of Jaxson's test came back negative. He was dignosed with apnea prematurity, where they just forget to breath. We were released Monday and sent home on a monitor that watches his respiration and heartrate. If he doesn't breath in 20 seconds it beeps and if his heartrate gets too low or too high it will beep and it's very loud! He's had one night where it went off twice because he didn't breath within that 20 seconds but as soon as the buzzer went off he started breathing again.

The doctor said we will probably be on the monitor until he's 8-9 pounds because the chances of apnea occurring in babies that size is slim to none unless he is having a lot of episodes, then we will keep him on it longer.

The monitor actually allows me to sleep instead of worry whether he's going to breath or not so I'm very happy we have it here at home!

We are trying to get back to our new normal here at home. Brody is doing much better now that he has his family and although it's an adjustment having a new baby brother he's starting to warm up to him and getting use to sharing his time with momma.

We go to the pedi tomorrow for Jaxson's 2 week checkup and Brody will be getting his 18 month shots. I sure hope it's not too hard taking both of them!