Who has time to write in a journal, anyways? This post will be long. It also might contain some postpartum details that you may not be comfortable with. I'm just sayin'.

The thursday before Mothers day was supposed to be a good day. Lilah was three weeks old and I was taking her and Devan to my Mom's house for the weekend. It was Lilah's first time out of the OC. I was going to spend the whole weekend there and it was going to be HOT so I imagined us all haning out in my Mom's backyard, playing in the water and drinking lemonade. My kind of weekend. John was staying home the first two days and would be playing soccer and going paintballing. His kind of weekend. Unfortunately, neither of us got the weekends we wanted.

Thursday morning I had to go to my OB to have him look at my cesarean incision. I had stitches hanging out of the end of the incision for over a week that were not disolving. And it was starting to look infected. So I got to drag two kids to my OB appointment. I managed to get in and out without anyone crying, which is a miracle in itself. My doctor cut out the stitches and told me it wasn't infected, so I was relieved.

Then we headed back home to pack up for Grandma's house. The girls barely made a peep the whole way there. When we got to my Mom's, Devan started playing right away. I fed Lilah and was surprised that she was still very sleepy. I also noticed that she felt a little warm. My Mom mentioned that it was a pretty hot day and we had been haning out in the backyard. Lilah slept the rest of the day. That night when we were getting ready for bed I took Lilah's temperature and it was around 99. I decided to run to the store to pick up some tylenol. When I got back Lilah was still running a fever and was very fussy. To make a long story a little shorter, I was up ALL night long with her. I literally did not sleep, and she didn't either. So around 6am I took her temperature again and it was 100.6. I knew I had to call our pediatrician. I did. She told me to take her temperature rectally. I did. It was 101. I remember watching the numbers go up and just praying that they would stop. Our pediatrician then told me I had to take her to the hospital. I was surprised at how calm and focussed I was when talking to her. She told me all the tests they would run and that they would keep her for two days. She also told me I'd have to take her to a hospital with a pediatric unit, which meant I'd have to go to LA or OC. I asked her if I had time to drive back home and she said "Yes, if you leave right now". I hung up and started crying. I really struggled with the reality that I had to take my baby to the hospital. I called John and told him we were on our way.

So after a night of not sleeping I literally started throwing my stuff in my car. I woke up Devan and got her and Lilah ready to go. Luckilly my Mom was able to drive us down. (What would I do without my Mother?!) I think we got there in under 2 hours and went straight to the ER. John met us there and my Mom took Devan back to our apartment. Soon after we arrived they started running all her labs. Urine, blood and spinal fluid samples were taken. They also stuck and IV in her little arm to give her antibiotics. A couple hours later they wheeled her up to the pediatric floor and put us all in her room. The doctor explained to us that any time a baby under a certain age has a fever over 100.4 they automatically check everything to make sure they are okay. I guess since they are so little they cannot exhibit any symptoms other than a fever.

At this point I was exhausted and even though being in the hospital was stressful, I was pretty optimistic about Lilah being ok. I figured she just had just caught whatever Devan had a few days earlier (thank you, nursery). The doctor also informed us that after 48 hours if her samples were still all free of any bacteria then there's a 99% chance they will stay that way. So, I spent the next 48 hours in the hospital with my baby. On Sunday (Mothers Day) Lilah was discharged and we were able to go home. We were all relieved! I was looking forward to getting our lives back to normal. I soon found out that normal didn't exist for us. At least not for another three weeks.

After being home from the hospital for only a few hours ( just long enough to unpack and do a load of laundry) the doctor from the hospital called. I was folding laundry on the couch and could tell by the way John was talking that something was very wrong. It took everything I had not to fall apart when he told me we had to take Lilah back. They found bacteria growing in her spinal fluid AFTER the 48 hours, which I guess it totally rare. They wanted to get her back on antibiotics as soon as possible. I again found myself throwing a hospital bag together and wanting nothing else in the world than to be home with a healthy baby.

We checked back into the hospital and they told us they would know by the following day what the bacteria was and if it was actually just a contamination. (We were seriously thinking it had to be contaminated. I was already getting my stuff together to go home). The next morning the doctor came into our room. I was holding Lilah and she came in and said "Why don't you sit down". Seriously! I felt like I was in someone else's life! Or a movie or something. She then went on to tell me that the bacteria in the spinal fluid sample was identified as meningitis. She also said it would take 3 weeks to treat. I about fell over. The good news was that Lilah was thriving and they expected her to be totally normal and healthy. The infectious disease doctor stopped by that evening and told me the same thing. He said they had all looked over Lilah's chart and I guess they were still unable to tell for sure whether or not she had meningitis or if the sample was contaminated. They couldn't take another sample because she was already on antibiotics and so it would come back negative. If they took her off the antibiotcs and it came back positive then we'd have to start treatment all over again. Plus who would dare take her off the antibiotics and risk the fact that she may have it? Make sense?

So the next 9 days I spent in the hospital. I've never felt so much guilt in my life. Guilty that I couldn't be home with Devan, and when I was home I felt guilty for not being in the hospital with Lilah. And to top it all off I developed a breat infection from breastfeeding. Seriously...normal was a looooong ways away for us.

Lilah had several IV's put in while she was there. One they even had to put in her head because they had used all her other sites. Eventually they decided to put in a picc line so that we could continue treatment at home and not have to stay in the hospital for three weeks. Before they put in a picc line Lilah had to be fasting for 6 hours. Having a three week old fast for 6 hours in NOT fun. Unfortunatley that picc line fell out the next day. So now they decided to suture the picc line in which meant they'd have to sedate her which meant more fasting. (How long do they think a three week old can go without eating?) It turns out she went 13 hours!! Her surgery kept getting pushed back and by the time she finally got in to the anesthesiologist it had been 13 hours. And then after the surgery she wouldn't nurse for about 5 hours so I had to give her bottles which I was less than happy about.

This post is so long. I'm leaving out tons of details, but you get the idea. Eventually we got to go home. Staying/sleeping in a hosptial with a sick baby for 9 days is horrible. But we are SO greatful to be home and have a healthy baby. I will have to write a post on all our tender mercies, too.

THANK YOU so much to everyone who helped us out!! We are so lucky to have such amazing friends and families. We couldn't have done this without you.