February 2009: Challenges and Good News!

Okay, so it has been forever since I've posted anything (or at least so I've been told by all of the on-top-of-things bloggers. I thought I was doing well to get a post a quarter!) so I thought I would give a little update on the last few months. I thought I'd split it up a little, though, because posts that are too long usually just don't get read, right? Anyway, here it goes for February.

February was a month that I hope doesn't happen ever again. It was crazy. The first week we started off with Tommy getting ready for Ward Conference, so he had meetings and visits pretty much every night, topped off by an entire Saturday full of meetings, (No joke, he was home only a few hours that day) followed by more meetings on Sunday and a Sunday Evening Youth Discussion at our house later that night. A few days later Tommy's Dad had a heart attack, and Tommy spent as much time in the hospital that week that he could until he was released a couple of days later. His Dad did not have any permanent damage, luckily, and was doing fine even just a couple of days later, which we all consider a real blessing. In fact, it was a real miracle that he was even able to get to a hospital at all, but that's a story in and of itself. All I can say is that he is one tough cookie!

That next weekend we had both Valentine's Day and Libby's birthday, which my whole family was coming into town for, and which I had two parties to plan and get ready for. We held the party with my family on Saturday, and the party with Tommy's family on Sunday because my brother and his family had to leave for home just after church. We did a "Hello Kitty" theme, which Libby picked out, and played "Duck Duck Goose" and animal charades with both sets of cousins, and then just opened presents. Nothing fancy, but with a little bit of decorations for both places (our house for the Rawson clan and the Telford's house for the Steelman clan), twenty favor bags for cousins, two cakes to decorate and an extra batch of cupcakes to make, it felt like quite a production. I think it all went well, though, and that Libby had a really neat couple of days, so I guess that's all that matters! Here's some pics:












Earlier this month, Libby had had a bad night with croup but it seemed to pretty much go away without a problem, but the following Monday after the birthday weekend, she was sick again with a cold and, even worse, Zach had the croup really bad, and we (Tommy) ended up taking him into the emergency room in the middle of the night on like Tuesday because his breathing was so rough. We had another bad day on Wednesday in which all Zach wanted to do was to rock with me in the chair and I could tell something was really wrong, but the worst of it came at about 5:00 am Thursday morning. Zach started crying so Tommy went to go check on him (I was feeling sick) and when he picked him up, Zach threw his head back and went into a seizure. Tommy screamed his name and he came out of it for a couple of seconds, but then went right into it again. Hearing Tommy scream I could tell something was very wrong, like Zach wasn't breathing or something, so I went running. By the time I got there, Zach was okay but just really upset and crying. We debated taking him into the ER again but decided to just wait for the doctor's office to open since he seemed to be breathing fine and doing better, and since Tommy said the ER was a little traumatic for him the last time he took him there. Anyway, it turns out that Zach's croup had led to a double ear infection, and his seizure was a febrile seizure that was caused by a sudden spike in his fever. The doctor said not to worry, that it caused no damage, but that we would have to be extra vigilant to keep his temperature down from now on, because he was now more likely to go into a seizure again with a high fever. So for the next couple of days were just spent watching his temperature like a hawk until the antibiotic kicked in to get rid of his ear infections. So scary, though! Especially for Tommy. He says he literally thought that his son was going into cardiac arrest and dying in his arms. I'm kind of glad I didn't have to see it. But at least now we know! And by the next week he was back to his normal self. Yay!

Well, on top of all of this, I had been suffering with constant morning sickness. Yes, we are pregnant with our third, due this September! Despite that making all of the above a lot harder, though, we are very excited to be expecting again, especially after our disappointing miscarriage back in August. So although we had a very long and difficult month, we ended on a good note, with a positive doctor's appointment that showed that all is well for this pregnancy! So we can't help but feel blessed!! And here is my favorite picture we got from the ultrasound.