Exciting times...

Maggie's life is going to be an exciting one. To what extent, none of us really know but here's the latest.

Maggie recently hit the 3 month mark and has been doing really well. She impresses me each and every day and truly has been a remarkable baby albeit all she had to deal with the first week of her life. She is a happy smiley baby and lights up when we smile at her or her brother talks to her. She is not super fussy nor is she a handful. She is pretty even keeled and goes with the flow.

Well, the last week she got a cold and it was making her congested and a little cranky. The last few days when Lori, her Grammie, was watching her she noticed she would cry when she would lay her down and she didn't want to be anywhere except being held. Unfortunately as a second child, I can't hold her all the time and when Lori has her she is the 3rd child. But there just wasn't something totally OK with how she was acting. I don't want to be a paranoid mother so I just decided when I took her in on Monday for a shot, I would have them look at her to make sure she was all good.

Well, we never made it to Monday. Saturday when Maggie woke up she was a lethargic limp rag doll. No muscle tone, no desire to eat and SUPER congested. She coughed and then threw up mucus and lots of it. Well, this scared me. I got AJ and together we decided we needed to take her in. We ended up at the ER and they checked us in. Because of Maggie's traumatic birth we may always be a bit more cautious with her, but I had no idea what to do if she was struggling breathing.

Long story short, we sat in the ER room from 10:30-3:30 and they watched Maggie's O2 levels, took a chest X-ray, did a flu and RSV swab, ran some blood tests and then did an urine sample. We weren't really sure what they were looking. We then were told she did have RSV which is a respiratory virus and a slight fever. So they gave her some Tylenol for the fever and there wasn't a lot they could do about the virus as, like a cold, it would just need to work through her system. And because her O2 levels did drop some while she was sleeping, they decided to admit her to the hospital for the night for observation.

Off we went to her room which had a bed for me as well, so I could spend the night with her. They checked us in and we spent the night together, nursing, sleeping and the nurses would come in about every hour to monitor her vitals and O2 levels. Maggie did great. She never needed oxygen and never needed any breathing treatments but did have another little fever in the night. So the next morning the doctor came in to let me know how she was doing. And come to find out, she had a bladder infection. The ER doctor saw an abnormality in her blood test and then ordered the urine sample to see if she had an infection and sure enough she did. This would explain all her crankiness and her fever.

Not only was she battling RSV but she also was in pain whenever she peed! Oh man, such a bummer for such a little baby. Well, she is now on an antibiotic to kill the bacteria in her bladder and then we have follow up with her doctor in a week to make sure the infection is gone and get her kidneys checked out. As I know more about all this I will keep you all posted.

But the thing I keep remembering is how all things happen for a purpose. No, I wouldn't wish RSV on anything little child, but because Maggie had it and was not herself on Saturday, we took her in to see the doctor and through the course of events discover the bladder infection that could have gone unnoticed even longer possibly. It would have gotten worse and worse and she could have ended up fighting eating and then affected nursing and my milk supply. But it didn't happen that way. And I am just so thankful that I can see the hand of God in Maggie's life in so many ways. This was another one of them.

We still may have a journey ahead of us with this bladder infection as 3 months old really shouldn't be getting bladder infections, but I am grateful we found it and can now treat it and go forward with figuring out if all her systems are working together or what the next step is, if any.

Thanks again for all your prayers. Maggie is God's child and is so evident in her life. AJ and I are fairly certain with all the excitement she has caused in our lives in 3 months, gray hairs will soon be sprouting. If I am sporting a new hair color, y'all know why now!