when there's nothing you can do about it...

Eisley is a sicky this week.  This poor kid has not had an easy first two weeks of life (oh yeah, happy two weeks baby girl!).  First, it was jaundice.  Which normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but our blood types are incompatible so she spent the better part of a day and a night under the billirubin lights in the NICU.  That was fun, let me tell you.  It was heartbreaking to leave our tiny day old little girl in the NICU for even an hour at a time.  My heart just went out to the parents who had babies in there with serious issues.  The preemies, the babies with serious illnesses.  I couldn't even imagine how gut-wrenching it would be to have to leave your baby there while you had to go home.  At least our little girl was just in there with some jaundice, and was able to go home with us.

I just kind of thought that would be it for a while, you know?  That we'd get to enjoy our sweet little newborn and all her silly faces and happy spirit.  Then she got super congested.  So being paranoid first-time-parents, we took Eisley to our local Children's Hospital's urgent care to get her checked out.  They tested her for RSV (which is like bronchitis, but can be pretty serious in really young babies like Eisley if it gets out of control) and it came back negative.  The next day she started to have a cough, so I called to make an appointment at the pediatrician's office.  Two days later, her test came back positive for RSV.

So that sucked.  Seriously, how can she test negative one day, and positive the next?  My poor sick baby.  The worst part is that it's a virus, so there's nothing that you can do to help them feel better.  So she's congested and coughing and crabby and only wants to be held by me.  I can barely put the child down to pee without her screaming her head off and sending herself into a coughing fit.  It's horrible knowing that she feels so crappy and I can't do anything to help her except hold her.

Seeing your baby sick is one of the worst things I've ever experienced.  It gives me a whole new level of empathy for friends that go through way worse stuff than this.  I can't even imagine watching my baby be really and truly ill.  And while I may wonder "why us?  why Eisley?"  I still have to count my blessings that she is only temporarily sick.  Even though nothing has gone according to plan, and her birth was not what I was hoping for, I'll morn my dashed dreams but thank God that He has and will continue to take care of us.