8 Weeks Old Already...

Can you believe it's been 8 weeks today since this cute girl joined our family???  Oh ya, did I forget to mention that I had my baby?  :)  I'm a little behind in the blogging world but that may be because of all the fun, excitement and scares we've experienced since our little Avery came into this world.  I guess a good place to start would be the beginning.

Avery Facer was born on January 17th, 2013 at 6:20pm weighing 8 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long.  Our little runt.  :)  I couldn't have asked or been blessed with an easier delivery and recovery.  She was perfect and had no problems either.  We got to the hospital for my scheduled induction on my due date at 11:00 and I got my epidural fairly soon after and was able to relax the entire time until she came.  It was such a great experience and so fun having the kids come to see her for the first time.  We had lots of visitors and everyone at Orem Community Hospital was amazing.

When Avery was born we noticed right away that she was tongue tied but didn't really think too much of it.  You can kind of tell in the above picture.  After a few days of painful nursing I spoke to a lactation specialist and she mentioned that her being tongue tied most likely had something to do with it and we should probably look into getting it fixed.  So, when the poor child was just one week old we ended up at the pediatricians office where we had to pin her down and hold her head so they could cut the part where her tongue was connected below.  It was horrible and she screamed the entire time.  She didn't have any problems after that but what a way to start off life.  :(

Avery's brother and sister had been sick since before she was born and I just knew that there was nothing we could do and that she was bound to get it sooner or later.  Her third week of life it happened just like that.  She started getting really stuffy and we spent the weekend suctioning her out with the rubber bulb.  On Monday afternoon I checked her temperature and she was 100.4 on the dot which is the temp you are supposed to watch for in infants that mean you really need to get them checked out.  So I called the pediatricians office and they had me come in right away.  When we got to the appointment they checked her and her temp was fine and her oxygen level and heart rate checked out too.  They did notice she was quite stuffy though so they gave us an order for the suction clinic at the hospital so we could go get her sucked out as many times as we felt necessary.  The doctor said it looked to be RSV and so they had me make a followup appointment for the next day so they could monitor how she was doing.

Tuesday afternoon rolled around and we went to her followup appointment.  They checked her vitals and this time her oxygen level was low and wasn't going above 86.  When Dr. Ashby came in she took one look at her and said if I don't admit her to the hospital I will go home tonight and worry about her all night.  So, that being said we went directly next door to the hospital.  Once we arrived at the hospital and got settled in our room they proceeded to hook her up to an IV to get her re-hydrated.  It took about an hour and a half to get an IV in her and 5 tries.  Every time they would get it in she was so dry that the blood would clot right up.  They ended up getting it in her head.  It was horrible and at one point during her screaming she sort of passed out and they had to rush to get oxygen on her right away.

Later that evening Scott was able to give here a blessing with the help of a member from our ward who happened to be at the hospital.  We also had a few visitors which was nice too.  After Scott had gone home with Canyon that night Avery started going down hill pretty fast.  They had her on a high flow oxygen and had to keep bumping up the oxygen amount.  Eventually they decided she needed to be transferred to Utah Valley Hospital.  While the team was on their way to pick her up from Provo they drew some blood and decided that they should probably bypass Utah Valley Hospital and just send her to Primary Children's who has more resources.  They called up there and were notified that they were on their way but could not come via helicopter because of how much fog there was that night.  About an hour later the life flight team from Primary Children's arrived via ambulance and I got to ride with them up to Primary Children's.  I was actually very grateful she wasn't life flighted up there because I can't even imagine what it would have been like to watch my 3 week old baby take off in the helicopter with me left standing on the ground below.  It was hard enough going in an ambulance even though I was there the whole time.

It was a very long night but once we got up to Primary Children's we stayed in the PICU the whole next day but she was doing so well we got to move up to the Pediatric floor that evening.  The next couple days up there we experimented taking her off the oxygen and putting her back on to see how she would do and finally on Friday they were able to send up home with oxygen but we didn't care.  We were just glad she was doing well enough to go home.  

After she was home she was on the oxygen for about a week and then we gladly were able to ditch the tank.  :)  She got better so fast and we're so grateful.  We know that it was due to all of the prayers everyone said on her behalf and we can't thank everyone enough.  We are so grateful for this sweet baby girl and are so blessed to have her in our family and a part of our lives.  She is the cutest little thing and there is definitely no shortage of love for her here in our home.  :)