A look back...

...Christmas last year was scary. We spent a night in the Spencer Municipal Hospital, then three nights at Mercy in Des Moines. RSV is scary. We didn't have a baby premature, nor was she small by any means. But she still got it. I still worry she will get it again. This winter has been hard--watching for the signs she isn't getting enough air, seeing if her chest is rising more than it should if she is struggling. RSV is nothing to mess with.

Before the hospital...

The long hospital stay...

 It is hard to imagine how we got through it. We knew it wasn't life threatening, but to see your child stuck in a crib with tubes coming out of their nose...it brings tears to my eyes right now. I think about the other children in the hospital the same we were...the little boy who had open heart surgery. The older girl who seemed like she was in for more than a few days (her room was decorated for Christmas and she had hung her drawings all over her door). I think about the family who was kind enough to bring Tessa a teddy bear on Christmas Eve because they had been in our shoes and knew how hard it was. I think about how for four days we slept on the floor, watched as nurses came in and out wearing protective yellow aprons because RSV is transferrable on anything (they took those off in our room and probably went somewhere immediately to wash up before touching another patient), and stood helplessly as Tessa had to use oxygen to breath (not bad enough to where it was a real concern, but not well enough to where we could go home). I think about how after a long drive to and from Keystone how Rick and Jetra (Travis's parents) came to sit at the hospital so we could go home, shower, and get a few hours of sleep in a bed. How Jill and Terry came down and disinfected our house and all of Tessa's stuff before we got home from the hospital.

It is so hard to explain the emotions you experience. I really have no other words other than it was hard.