The baby is in the hospital

Please pray for Baby J, our new little guy, who is just 5 weeks old. He was admitted to Children's Hospital on Thursday night with RSV. His breathing is pretty bad and they have him on a lot of oxygen. He was not doing very well at one point and the doctor was afraid she was going to have to send him to another hospital so he could be admitted into the PICU (pediatric ICU), as the one at this hospital is full. However, yesterday (Saturday) the doctor said she thinks he is out of the danger zone now. They were able to slightly reduce the amount of oxygen he was on and he handled it well. Today, (Sunday) they will try to reduce it again and see how he does. If he tolerates this change, I may be able to give him a bottle tonight. I have felt pretty bad for him because they won't let me feed him. They are afraid that he will aspirate the formula because the oxygen he is on is pressurized. This means it is forced into his nose (and he has been on the max amount of force). If he were to try to eat at the same time this oxygen is being forced into him, it could cause him to choke and the milk to go down the wrong tubes and wind up in his lungs. He is definitely hungry and was crying to be feed the other night and it was so hard for me to hear his cry and watch him root for a bottle and know that I couldn't give him one.

It's been a very rough week with very little sleep at our house. Last weekend, two of my children came down with the stomach flu. Those same two also got a head cold, which Gracie also picked up. Grace has been a hot mess. She's been really whiny and clingy and has not been sleeping or eating well. She's got a double ear infection and has an antibiotic for that, but we have to force her to take it and hope she doesn't throw it up when we force her. She has reflux and she has an extremely sensitive gag reflex. So those three were all sick on Christmas Day. One of the stomach flu kids is better now, but a fourth child and Daddy picked up the head cold. Most likely everyone with the cold has RSV and Baby J picked it up from them. I tried to keep people away from him, but we do all live in the same house. RSV usually manifests as just a cold in bigger people, but in a infant who was a preemie, like Baby J was, it can be very serious, even deadly. I'm thankful for modern medicine, as this is something that you would have lost your baby to 100 years ago. So we've had 5 sick children and one sick parent, and Luke and I have been the only ones not to get it. Please pray that I do not get it because I need to be at the hospital with the baby and I should not be there if I have RSV as well. Baby J started to go downhill on Wednesday evening, so I took him and Grace to the pediatrician on Thursday. That where I learned of her ear infections and that he had RSV. At the time, his oxygen level was at 99, so they sent us home with instructions to take him straight to the ER at Children's if he spiked a temp or if his breathing worsened. When I got home from the doctor, Baby J went on a two hour visit with his mother and by the time he came back he was already going downhill. She had been pretty concerned for him. By 10 that night, he was scaring me so I decided to make the 45 minute trek to Children's. They admitted him right away and his oxygen level dropped to 86 not long after we were here (95 to 100 is normal, under 90 is very bad). It dropped to 78 at one point, even while he was on oxygen, but thankfully it didn't stay that low for long.

I've tried to be at the hospital as much as I can, but with five other children at home, four of whom are sick, it's been difficult. Thus far, I have been with my kids during the day and have spent all night the last three nights at the hospital. Baby's J's mom was supposed to be here in the daytime, so I thought this arrangement would work out well so that he was not here alone. She was here Friday but sadly, she did not show up on Saturday. Thankfully, we are in a long weekend so John will be off on Monday. I have not been able to take anyone up on the offers of help with my kids because my kids aren't well yet and I don't want to get any of our friends sick, but a wonderful friend brought my family dinner on Friday night and that was so helpful. Dinner was the last thing I wanted to worry about and knowing that dinner was coming for my family allowed me to leave and get back up here as soon as John got home from work. I'm hoping Baby J's mom comes to spend the day with him today, but I don't know what will happen there. I am going to stay home tonight with my family. My kids make a lot of sacrifices for foster care and I don't want to take our New Year's Eve traditions away from them as well. So I will be home to celebrate with them tonight and probably back here in the daytime tomorrow, depending on what baby's mom decides to do. Baby J will probably be in the hospital a few more days. RSV is a virus, so there really aren't any meds they give for it. It has to just run its' course. They help him be able to breathe and they have him on an IV so his body is getting everything it needs, but other than that you just have to wait it out. It usually lasts 7 to 10 days and we are on day 5.

If you have been waiting for your Christmas card from me, it's still coming. It's just not top priority at the moment.

To learn more about RSV, go here and here.

Welcome to forever!

It's done!!! She's all ours!!!!!! Today we adopted Grace and made her a forever part of our family. We are so excited and still in awe of what the Lord has done. Thank you to everyone who has been on this journey with us praying and supporting us. Tonight we will go out to dinner to celebrate!

Being sworn in

The big brothers and sister anxiously look on

John is promising to take care of Grace and provide for all her needs.

The judge signs the paper of who was in attendance for Gracie's adoption day

She wanted to know if Grace would let her hold her.

Grace went up and finalized her own adoption in the computer with a little help of course.

First Official Family Pic with Judge Amy

Opening a gift from the judge

 

 

 

 

Buttons from our adoption worker

December '17

Merry Christmas!

Well, here it is the middle of December already. I cannot believe that we are so close to Christmas. It's been warmer here than usual. The ground isn't frozen yet and we haven't had any real snow. While this may be nice to some, it has meant that John worked Saturdays longer than he usually does at this time of year. Thankfully they have been finished with the harvest for a little while, but there is some field work they have been doing that they would not be able to do if the ground was already frozen. The plus side is that getting this work done now should make things better for future growing seasons. But that's not what you really want to hear about, is it? You want to know what's up with the baby. :)

We have not yet adopted our foster daughter, however, we will in just a few days! We waited about 5 weeks before we heard from the adoption worker, but once she did contact us, she worked quickly. All the paperwork has been completed and now we are just waiting on a court hearing to make it all official.  That date is this coming Thursday, December 21! So in just four more days, she will be all ours. We cannot wait and we have decided this is the best Christmas present ever!! We will be naming her Grace. Once every thing is official, I can share photos with you. Gracie turned 10 months old yesterday. She's putting everything in her mouth and getting into any trouble she can find. Our Christmas tree has a baby gate around it once again this year and I couldn't be more happy about that.


We got to celebrate Thanksgiving with John's sister and her family. They live in the Denver area and were able to come spend a couple days with us. It was nice to be with them, but the time flew by way too fast and I think we all felt like we needed several more days with each other. We all took the kids to see The Star. It was a cute movie and we enjoyed it.

The kids have been enjoying being a part of Trail Life USA and American Heritage Girls. John has been helping out with the boys troop. Hannah will be receiving her first couple of badges on Monday, so she is looking forward to that. We are still attending the church in Omaha that I mentioned last time. We found out that we know a couple of the homeschooling families that attend there. We have really been enjoying the series on the book of Luke that the pastor recently started. His messages have been really good. The kids and I have been attending on Wednesday nights. John has not been home in time to go with us. It's been wonderful as it has been a mid-week oasis for me. I let the older two go to the youth group service, while Micah and Hannah attending Royal Rangers and Missionettes classes (now called MPact). Gracie goes to the nursery and does well there. This leaves mama to have some time to just focus on the Lord and not have to worry about anyone else. The midweek service for adults is just a worship and prayer service and they let the Holy Spirit guide it. I really love it. It's just what I need in the middle of crazy weeks.

The kids homeschool choir had their Christmas concert last night and Micah and Nathanael have a piano recital tomorrow. I will get footage up when I can.

We celebrated John's birthday ten days ago. He's not really thrilled about getting older, but I told him that it's a lot better than the alternative. We are playing our 12 Days of Christmas game again with the children's stockings. They love this game and look forward to it every year. Other than that and decorating, we haven't done a lot of Christmasy things this year. I just don't have the energy. Why is that, you ask? Oh, it may have something to do with the newborn baby boy that is now living with us. Yup, you read that right. On December 1st, we took placement of a 6 day old baby boy. I had decided that my hands were full and that I wasn't going to take anyone else right now. But the Lord began preparing me for this placement about a week or so before I got the call. So I knew that if they called, we were to say yes. Yes, I know it sounds crazy that we took an infant when we already had a 9 month old. It's not something I had planned to do, but with the way it all happened, I just knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was of the Lord. So I am just trusting Him to equip me with what I need to do what he's asking me to do each day with these 6 children that have been entrusted into my care. This little boy's situation is very different from Grace's and we do not anticipate that he will be with us longer than a few months, if he's with us that long. The baby is now three weeks old and he's doing well for the most part. He has thrush and this is the first time I have ever dealt with that, but it's getting better. He decided a few nights ago that he isn't going to sleep unless I hold him, so the nights have been rough. But for the most part, having two babies hasn't been as hard as I anticipated...at least not so far. He's still in the newborn sleep all day phase, so we have been able to keep our normal routine and get our schoolwork done. We will see what happens when he starts to be awake a little more. The hardest part so far has been adjusting back to sleeping only in little spurts. It gets harder to do that the older I get, but God is getting me through.

Ha ha...cue the baby...he's crying now, so I better run and get him before he wakes Grace up. Please keep this little one and his situation in your prayers. The next post from me will be an adoption day post!!!!