The reason behind my complete and utter absence since the 20th is due to our little guy being hospitalized.

We noticed Zack felt a little warm that Friday afternoon, took his temperature and saw he was definitely dealing with a fever. Since he had just turned a week old and obviously couldn't be given any medicine to help with the discomfort I thought a short walk in the cool breeze might do him a little good.

He was extremely fussy the entire time, which is very unlike him so we headed home to relax and see how he was continuing to feel. When it got closer into the night, he wouldn't feed for me and continued with the constant fussiness. Once he refused to breastfeed, I knew something was definitely wrong and decided to take his temperature again. This time it was 100.8 and I immediately got on the phone with the on call nurse for our Pediatricians Office.

She of course advised us not to give him any medication and to take him straight to the hospital since children under a month of age should go in if they've been crying for more then an hour straight and have a fever of 100.5 or higher.

In a complete panic, I threw on a sweatshirt and grabbed his diaper bag, put our little guy in his car seat, and headed to the hospital. Thankfully, we live literally right down the street from the hospital so I didn't have much time to freak out during the ride over.

The nurses and doctor were quick enough to decide that they wanted to transfer him to the nearest children's hospital since they didn't specialize in pediatric care. Richard had stayed at home since Adrienne was asleep and we didn't want to wake her since we thought we would have a short stay in our hometown hospital.

 So once they told me he was getting transferred, I immediately called home to let Richard know what was going on and to get a hold of his Aunt immediately so she could take Adrienne for us while we went with Zack.

The Children's Hospital we've been staying at is an hour away from home, so to say the least we were unprepared to have such an extensive stay. [As I'm typing this, I'm still at the hospital with Zack and Adrienne since Richard has been driving back home every couple days to check on Tator and make sure he's okay. Were being discharged this Friday morning. THANK THE LORD!]

So many tests have been run on him and he had to have a spinal tap 3 days in a row since they continually weren't able to get any fluid from his back for the main test in seeing if he had a Viral or Bacterial Infection. The two doctor's that have been taking care of him have had a hard time figuring out what exactly is wrong.

At first they thought it was Bacterial, but one of his main tests came back with a false positive so their still not sure what he has. Since their not certain, they have been and will continue to treat it as a Bacterial Infection with the antibiotics he's on so that way they can make sure he has the most effective round of recovery.

He also had staff in his urine which caused a rash all over his little body so he's been taking an additional medicine for that, which has thankfully cleared up [were thinking he might of gotten it in the hospital when he was circumcised].

I've definitely had my moments of breaking down and am so glad to see our little guy feeling much much better. It's been an extremely long 2 weeks and I can not even explain how happy I am to be taking Zack home Friday Morning.

A home health nurse will be meeting us at our house that morning since they placed a PICC through his leg as a longer/permanent iv [he originally had to have his iv on the side of his head since they could not for the life of them find a vein to get him hooked up to some fluids. So sad! I didn't have the heart to take a picture of him since he was in such constant discomfort from it] so that we can give him his antibiotics for the duration our doctor has intended for.

If all goes well, we have an appointment to come back on Tuesday to see if the doctor feels that he needs to continue his antibiotics for another 7 days or if he can be taken off of them and have his PICC removed.

All of your good thoughts and prayers would certainly help us during this time. & I wanted to apologize for my absence in blogging. When I said we were certainly unprepared to be here for 2 weeks straight, that entailed the lack of my laptop, clothes, diapers, and many other items we desperately were in need of.

Thankfully Richard brought the laptop with him the other day and I will manage my best at getting up my post for our April Sponsors [even though it's a little late] and getting started on our Baby Essentials Guide. I am knee deep in emails and school work that I have too start working on, so please bare with me for the moment.

:)