R. S. V.

I didn't really know what it was, but I had read about it in passing on my Facebook newsfeed here and there. 

I was already thinking I was way behind the last few weeks on blogging. The holidays tend to do that, and I haven't done one single Christmas craft this year. :-(

McKenna woke up on Christmas morning seemingly a little congested. We just figured, ehh a case of the sniffles. We'd been traveling and it's winter season so they were bound to happen. She's such a well-tempered baby that we didn't think much of it. 

Flash forward to the day after Christmas, Friday. She woke up even more congested. We gave family fair warning and headed to my parents' house to open up gifts. That afternoon she didn't seem quite right, and she fell asleep on my chest. During this relatively long nap session her legs began to feel uncomfortably warm and I could feel heat radiating off of her. I also noticed a rattle, what felt like congestion in her chest as she breathed and snored. 

She woke up in what I will describe as delirium. Face flushed. Burning up. All signs pointing to a fever (in addition to her face being a faucet). What concerned me most was her mannerisms. Her eyes were half-mast, rolling back (as if she was asleep), she was groaning, and she essentially felt limp. I had to support her head as I held her. She was just kinda floppy. She was most certainly awake but didn't feel present. We had been using an ear thermometer up until now; but that thing was reading nothing in temperature compared to how hot I felt her temp should be. So I braved the most tried and true method of taking temp. And I just watched that thing tick, tick, tick upward to 102.5 before she kicked me away. 4pm the day after Christmas. Doc's closed. I called Kevin and told him I wanted to go to the ER (a close friend confirmed my concern when I told her what we were experiencing). We waited for daddy to hurry home and rushed up the street to the hospital. 

One of my biggest fears in life. Germs. I would do anything to avoid the ER, but we committed to going. Something in me said my baby was not right. While fevers are common and are an indicator that your body is fighting something, they can be dangerous if you ignore their red flags.  The day after Christmas, as you can imagine, the wait was overflowing into the parking lot. 

From the moment we got in the car to three hours [of mostly waiting] later when we got her RSV diagnosis, I was my biggest enemy. It felt like one huge 3 hour panic attack. I second guessed my decision for us to bring her. They gave her Tylenol as soon as we were admitted to bring down her fever, and she was beginning to act like herself as we continued to wait. What if she was "just teething"? What if it was nothing? Did I put the three of us through hell (and potentially in contact with something worse) to have them give her Tylenol and send us home? Technically that's all they did (after some lab work and a chest xray) but learning she had what could be a potentially deadly virus was alarming and nerve wracking to say the least. 

As a virus there's nothing they can give her to make her better, just let it run its course. We have to monitor her closely the next couple of days to make sure it doesn't get worse and follow up with our ped. 

Once we were discharged, we loaded up in the car and I just broke. The range of emotions I felt during the last 4-5 hours was immense. Kevin held my hand as I held hers as we drove home. I was tired, scared, anxious, and sick myself. I also felt validated. The weight of my decision to take her to the ER was huge, and I feel as if my mommy intuition had been confirmed. I often worry that I'll make decisions based on anxiety as opposed to reality. As someone who struggles with anxiety, there are more times than not something doesn't "feel right", even things that are totally fine. Through a difficult day, that feeling of validation has helped build my confidence to make sound decisions based on a gift that nature gave me to know my child best. 

It's been a long couple of days, and an even longer couple of nights. It seems as if the mucous in her chest is loosening up now, and I hope we'll have our healthy baby back soon. 

Blips of our Christmas Disney trip

I won't go into a full account of our Disney trip. But I will say it may be the best trip I have ever taken to Disney World.  McKenna's eyes were big and bright the entire trip. She loved the Christmas decorations, the lights, the people, the food, and mostly... the Characters!!

Kisses for Mickey

To boot, we sprung for the savanna view room at Animal Kingdom Lodge. I wasn't sure if she would care to see live animals at a distance, but let me tell you. We could have sat on our balcony all day.

We did the Very Merry Christmas Party for the first time ever. We were a bit concerned because it starts late and goes into the wee hours, but McKenna was a trooper for a long as we needed to be there.... just enough time to see characters dressed in holiday attire, eat cookies and drink cocoa to our hearts' content, watch the castle show and fireworks, and hop on a few rides.

There is no better time to visit Disney World than Christmastime. As much as there is to see and do at Disney, it is multiplied by 500000 at Christmas.

10 months old!! (2 weeks ago)

Wow have I had a difficult time finding a few minutes to right up McKenna's 10th month! After Thanksgiving McKenna and I had that nasty flu bug which took us straight into out Disney vacation, then taking a few days to get us back into the groove followed by a busy weekend and here we are. I'm having to pull myself away from wrapping presents to get this on paper. Whew! Anywhoo, McKenna is TEN MONTHS OLD.

 

Yup, you guessed it. This was the best we managed to get being just McKenna and me. This child wants nothing to do with doing nothing.  She is always moving, always on the go, always up to something and getting into something. She is so sweet and loves giving kisses, but really isn't the cuddle up and zone out in front of the television type.  She LOVES books and even more so loves animal books.  This about sums up our shoot:

 

 

She is pointing at things she wants to go to and pointing at things when you ask her where something specific is. Dog, Chief, Boogs, Dada, Mama, Nose are all things she will point to when asked. She is also problem solving things, for example sticking blocks through a hole and opening up a hatch door to retrieve them. She's beginning to stand without holding on to things, but still in the experimenting phase. I think walking is right around the corner, but I'm really in no rush ;-).

My heart melts.  When the boys go barking at the front door and I tell her daddies home, she does her little Chihuahua shake, smiles, and squeals. I say the Chihuahua shake because when she gets super excited she kinda stiffens her arms up and trembles in excitement. It is the most endearing thing in the world.

She has several days a week she only takes one nap, and on those days, she goes down so easy and sleeps like a baby at night. On days her second naps are a little to "high-quality" she wakes up wanting to play for a few hours in the middle of the night.

I never thought in the world a human, let alone anything, could bring me this much joy in life.  She is such a happy, inquisitive, hilarious, quirky, spunky, smart, sweet little baby girl. And now I'm having one of my moments where I want to go wake her up just to hug her.

Farewell again, Disney

We're on our way home from another incredible Disney trip. 

This was by far the best trip ever. They just keep getting better and better. McKenna rolled with the punches, stayed up late, napped when she needed to nap, pushed through naps during meals, and the best part... LOVED the characters. It was amazing. 

To boot, we stayed with a Savanna View at Animal Kingdom Lodge, so we got to watch giraffe, zebra, wildebeests, and all sort of animals graze from our own balcony. 

This was the first trip in a long time where I just kept repeating "do we have to leave?!!" a gazillion times to Kevin as we packed out stuff up. 

Luckily Kevin and I made the decision to become Disney Vacation Club members this year so it felt so much easier to tell McKenna "we'll be back soon!" because we have our Disney trips planned out for us for the next 30+ years. 

Christmas trips are a special breed too, aside from the parks and resorts being decorated, because you can't feel too sad about leaving...  We are heading home to Christmas just around the corner!! 

I can't wait to get home to upload pictures from our trip. I will be sure to share the best of what we captured of our little Disney Princess. 

McKenna's first fever

McKenna had her first official fever yesterday. It was maybe the scariest thing that Kevin and I had to deal with to date. What do you look for? What temperature is acceptable? How long will it last? What do we do? What can we give her? As first time parents, I had already anticipated being freaked out about her first fever because there's really not a whole lot you can do. You feel out of control and helpless.  

Such a poor baby. You could tell she was miserable. She seemed to get better after we started her on medicine (after checking in with the ped office). Through it all though, she was the snuggliest she's ever been. 

She went down to bed last night relatively easily too. Then about an hour after she went to sleep she decided she wanted to wake up and play. She had essentially slept and nursed all day (after refusing to nurse for several hours at the onset of the fever). So we let her mess around in our bed since she was in good spirits and wanting to play. 

We let her sleep with us, and each time she woke to attempt to play or nurse, Mommy felt worse and worse.  That's right, I'm sick today too. She seems to be doing fine, a little groggy, but she's playing and laughing like herself. I'm just trying to keep us well-rested and hydrated because we leave for vacation on Friday!