Jacob's story

So, Jacob. I'll recap how quickly it all came and went (in hindsight, of course). Sunday morning, 6am, Jacob woke up with a fever. Mama medicated and nursed him back to sleep. Nothing else all day long, except for the traffic jam on the way home from Baton Rouge that was so bad, Jacob was out of his carseat and hanging out with mama in the back seat for over an hour before going back into his seat. Sunday night before bed, 9ish, Jacob was so stopped up that he cannot breathe, so he was bulbed multiple times before settling down. All night long, position shifts= wake up's = nose bulbing = broken hearted crying = nursing = sleep. By 5 am the barking cough began. 7:48, 7:51, 7:56, 7:59, phone calls to the pediatrician to see if they would pick up before their office hours. 9am, saw Adrienne Breaux, our friend and pediatrician who observed heavy retraction (his sternum would dip down to his spine for difficulty breathing) and said, "Let's go ahead and admit him (Kate begins crying) to get ahead of this. I want to get him on oxygen (lots of crying by Kate) to help him breathe better and do a chest x-ray.) (Kate grabbing tissues) This was a first for me, so I asked dumb questions like "Do I bring toys?" and "Do I bring a pack-n-play?" and "what do I do when I get there?" We got all checked into Woman's by walking in and sitting down with some sweet lady who had faxed orders from Adrienne. I imagine it was at this point that 2 things happened 1) I noticed that Therese had put on John Paul's "James the train" underwear OVER her bloomers leaving them in plain view as she pranced around the waiting area between me and Jacob at one end to her daddy at desk on the other end of the room 2)I lost my favorite brown cardigan. Sigh. The next part I will fly through because it was awful. 5 sticks for an IV, but little Buddha had very...ahem... round arms, legs, and feet, and 3 different people were unable to get a "good stick" so I looked my sweet baby in the eye all 5 times so that he wouldn't feel alone and wiped the tears away when he wasn't looking. The rest was cake! The staff at Woman's treat us like hotel guests. Someone even drove to Wal-mart to get Jacob the baby food he liked. I had, in a twenty four hour period, 4 different cups of Starbucks, 2 muffins, 1 poundcake slice, chick-fil-a, 6 visitors, uncountable phone calls and texts. Jacob received many breathing treatments, and they never stuck him again because I promised to nurse him every hour to get him more fluids. They used their super sucker to get the snot out. And by Wednesday morning at 11, David was bringing us home. Jacob is fine. I counted 2 coughs all night long last night, and everybody's bout with this virus (all different, of course, based on age and weight, although David was more sick than Therese or me) is pretty much done. It has given us a ton of family time, and I feel like we're sliding into Holy week like home run with the bases loaded on a full count. Thank you Lord! I will confess here that my Lenten penance of no sugar in my coffee went on hiatus while I was there. In the end, the diagnosis was croup. I specifically remember 2 weeks ago saying to David, "Isn't it great that nobody's been sick this season?" How Jacob slept the entire stay (so you can guess how I slept)

Here's Jacob now