D day

A couple days ago I had a hard day. Wait, i almost laughed loudly when i wrote that... after last week and the scare that we had with Sol, this week is a day that I had a hard day... it is kind of funny. Anyway, it wasnt because of Sol though. I have another tshirt order i am finishing up and these are hard for me because no matter how hard i try, i always end up looking at pictures of Lua when I go on that computer. This day i didnt even try to see her pictures, but i accidentally ended up seeing some old nicu pics. Oh how my heart breaks and how bad it hurts. It hurts especially bad knowing Sol had the exact same sickness lua had and now, only now two years later, did we learn what needs to be done to help them get past a bad virus. Im so glad Sol was so strong for us, but im so sad we didnt know this for her. So the pain kicks in and it hurts a lot. At that moment i didnt even realize that in a week it will be two years that she passed away. It makes sense now. I have been trying really hard to not think of the day she died, but it hits you no matter if you are trying to ignore it or not. Ive been extremely anxious lately, sad, and only today did i realize the day is right around the corner. We are suppose to go to madison on the anniversary day to get sol casted. I really didn't want to plan anything for that day. I really want to just skip this day entirely. No october 12. Lets just go from october 11 to the 13th, unfortunately it doesnt work like that. Bummer.

I have no thoughts on this day. I dont want to. A lot of people talk about the anniversary days, some only have one day their angels came and left this world and that day is the hard day. Losing a child of any age after their birth, gives you two days .  For me both days suck. Her birthday doesnt just remind me she isnt here to celebrate with,  it reminds me of how we almost lost her. Reminds me of how i was so clueless that anything was wrong. What seemed to be a perfect pregnancy, was all a lie. On her birthday i feel so naive and foolish for not knowing i wasnt bringing a healthy baby girl into this world. Yet her birthday is a day i want to think about and do something for. Although she is gone, she made it past her birthday and she deserves to be celebrated.

I have no silver lining to the day she died. It is just a bitter, painful, dark day. She should be here. She should just be here.
Im already trying to find a way to disappear on october 12, but that will be hard to do when we have to travel that day. maybe it will be good that we will be preoccupied especially so i dont go on facebook and see any memory from that day. I feel bad that i dont want to acknowledge this day for her, but i think it just comes down to the fact i think she should be here. That we should have done more, i should have known she was struggling and something should have been done.
I know there is nothing that can be done now, of course, but i think it is just a process on learning to beat the guilt.

home again

Last week Friday we were able to take Sol home from the hospital. We had a week long stay, which is way less than I expected for us to have. On Monday, after we got out of the picu, pediatric intensive care unit, Sols main doctor happened to be on the floor we were at so she popped in to see us. She looked at him for about 2 seconds and told me this isn't aspiration this is a virus. She told RTs what they need to do to help him have better nights, the problem they were having was giving him oxygen and not enough support from the vent. His lungs were collapsed so giving him all the oxygen in the world wasnt going to help open up his lungs, he needed more pressure to pop the lungs open. She gave us a new plan of action and they did that over night the first night in the step down unit. He did much better, he still had some plugging issues around 2 am but they were able to get it out and it wasn't as dramatic as his first few plug issues.

The doctor was right, too, his virus panel came back and he had the rhino virus... the common cold. For a baby that isnt common it can become so deadly! 

But, with the new plan in action, Sol was able to start recovering pretty quickly and after one good night of no plugs, they were ready to send us home. The home plan has been to keep him on his extra sick vent settings until Monday this week and start to go back to his norm after that. We are pretty much there now. He is off his sick vent settings and tolerating being off the vent during the day again. Although I think he is starting the teething process again now though, or something, because he isn't as chipper as he was a couple days ago.

As much as I hated going to the hospital because of being scared he was going to die, he made some huge accomplishments while we were there. We were able to hear him giggle! And see him Laugh, most adorable thing in the world. He was babbling A lot while being on the vent and our speech therapist agreed that he is prime and ready to start talking and he should be worked with a lot because he could really start booming now. He also learned how to give kisses when you ask him. He started doing a lot of things with his mouth. These are amazing things to us because we always wonder what will happen to his learning ability when he cant move like a normal baby. He is showing to find his own ways of learning and keeping up with all the other babies his age the best he can. He is really an amazing little guy. He beat this sickness, really showing us how strong he is. I don't think this will make it any easier for the next time he gets sick, which I'm hoping doesn't happen for a very long time, but hopefully if we stick to the plan of action we did this time, he will recover just as nicely.