Our strong little girl

First I should start out that we have so much to be thankful for. God is truly watching over us. We haven't posted in sometime as we had a sick little girl on our hands and needless to say it was very stressful and scary for both of us. You do everything you can to take care of your bundle of joy but when they get sick, you feel so helpless. A few weeks ago Hailey had a slight cough and some congestion and we thought it was something that all babies get after spending time in day care. Fortunately for us we had a planned doctor's appointment for routine shots scheduled soon after she developed the cough so naturally we had the doctor check it out. After a quick examination (this was on a Tuesday mind you) the doctor concluded Hailey had a case of bronchiolitis. The doctor went on to say it most likely started out as an upper respiratory infection but moved to her lungs. Apparently its not uncommon for infants to catch such things at daycare. With her being so young there wasn't much we could do but let it run it's course. With all of the flu cases running around, you might imagine how concerned we were. All we could do is watch her closely and maker her as comfortable as possible. We checked her temperature often (probably more often than we needed to but can you blame us) and did everything we could to make sure it didn't get out of control (think multiple late night luke-warm baths). By Thursday her cough seemed to get worse and her fever wasn't going away so that's when the nurse told us to bring her back in. After another quick examination, the doctor concluded she had full blown bronchitis. Again being so young, all we could do is try and make her as comfortable as possible as her poor little immune system tries to fight it off. We were told we needed to get x-rays to make sure there wasn't something more serious like pneumonia that could potentially pop up. Now for anyone who has ever had to witness an infant getting chest x-rays, you'll know what we had to go through. Needless to say it was heartbreaking. We were also taught how to give Hailey breathing treatments and were sent home with a prescription for a nebulizer that we had to administer every four hours. Friday was probably the toughest as we simply sat around and watched her rest while we said prayers. We probably made 10 calls to the on-call doctor because of her fever spiking. Imagine every time you take a temperature and you pray inside it reads normal. By Sunday we started to see consistent normal temperatures and we were just so thankful that the worst of it was behind us. And the funny thing through all of this is you wouldn't have known she was sick by the number of coos and smiles she gave us between her bouts of coughing and breathing treatments. We took her back in on Monday and the doctor said we had a fighter on our hands as the congestion was 90% improved and she was good to return back to school. Below are some of the brighter moments we had during our first sickness as a family.

Here we thought was just a routine visit for shots. She was such a trooper.

You can tell by this pic she's asking Frankie "Do I really need to get shots?"

She took the breathing treatments like a champ.

We couldn't tell if the was the treatments that made her sleepy or the fact that she was doing all she could to fight off the infection. Either way she looks cute in this picture.

Through it all, she had a smile on her face. It was as if she was telling us she was going to be ok and that we didn't need to worry so much.

I had to go back to work after our Thursday doctor visit so Frankie's parents came over to help out while Frankie went out and got all of her medicine. That wasn't all he came home with.

With her bronchitis all but cleared up, we were able to do more fun things like reading books in bed. Hailey loves to read.

Her first day back at school and she's worn out. Tummy time and reading can take a lot out of a person. Thanks to everyone for all of your prayers. We know God is watching over us.