Hadley's first trip to the ER

This weekend was quite the unexpected adventure.

Saturday night Hadley and I went to stay with my parents since Josh was working late. I was wanting to stay home but he kept telling me I needed to get out of the house and have a little break. So we packed up our things and headed that way.

Hadley had been to the pediatrician a few weeks ago for a cough. She has a little bit of bronchitis but nothing serious. She finally was getting rid of the cough this past week and was doing better than ever.

My dad had been craving the salad bar at their local restaurant, so we went their for dinner. Hadley did such a great job while we ate and was in good spirits. When we got back to their house, I fed her and put her down around 7:30. She went to bed fairly well. Around 10:30 pm, just as I was going to be, she woke up. I normally give her a minute to see if she's half asleep or really waking up. However this time when she woke up, she didn't sound normal.

I went in to the back room where she was sleeping and noticed her breathing sounded different. Then she started to cough. I called my mom in, who is a nurse, to listen to her. She sounded as though she had a barking cough. My mom said she had the croup. I was very surprised. She was totally fine the entire day. Later, I found out that croup usually comes at night out of the clear blue. That's still totally crazy to me!

We turned the steam shower on, sat in the bathroom for a few short minutes, then took her outside in the cold. It wasn't helping her breathing. It was actually getting worse. My mom suggested we take her to the Children's Hospital, which is about 40 minutes from where they lived. As I was changing, very very quickly, back into my clothes, my mom told me she didn't think we had time to drive to Children's and that we needed to go to a closer hospital about 15 minutes away. So we threw all of our things in the car and carefully sped to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and waited about 10 (long) minutes before we went back. We thought we would go in, get her a breathing treatment, then be on our way back. I was hoping to get to bed before 2am! But I was so wrong.

When they were examining H, they found that her heart rate was very high. The lowest it got was in the 190s but staying in the mid 200s. While this wasn't crazy high at the time for a baby, the hospital we were at doesn't specialize in kids and it really scared them. So they sent Hadley and I by ambulance  to Childrens. I wasn't really scared all that much until they said they wanted to transfer us. I also didn't know what a baby heart rate should be until we were being transferred as well. 

Yes, she's on a stretcher. And yes I took a picture.

We made it to Childrens safely..and long story short...we were there a long time!

They gave H a steroid shot to help with the croup and so far it's helped a lot! However, her heart rate continued to be all over the place. At one point in was about 310. At that point, they decided to keep her over night to observe her. She did well over night with her HR only going in the 190s at the highest.

We got about three hours of sleep Saturday night at the hospital and even though we went to bed around 8pm Sunday, I was up with Hadley every 2 hours. The steroid made it difficult for her to sleep and she was much hungrier than normal.

The doctors still are not sure what was causing the elevated heart rate. It could have been from the croup. It could be a health condition that rarely effects her. We will know more this week when we visit the cardiologist on Thursday. He met with us Sunday morning and explained what he saw and told us since she didn't have the EKG on while she had her big episode (but there was a doctor in the room and three nurses ran in), it was hard for them to pinpoint it right then.

Overall, it was a stressful evening but we tried to stay as calm as possible. We didn't want to make a huge ordeal out of it and really tried to handle it in the best way we could. Josh and I have really tried to find ourselves as parents lately. It's hard. I'm so thankful my mom was there since she is a nurse and that she and my dad were able to drive us. But when we got to the hospital (that she works at), she stepped back. She stayed out of the room so we could handle it in our own way. It was hard because I wanted her opinion. But she said she was the Glammy and we needed to learn on our own (she would never let anything happen to Hadley). 

The hardest part about the whole experience was watching Hadley. She was so scared at times but so brave. We were in tears when they gave her the IV in her hand. It was heartbreaking to watch her cry. I asked for emla cream (a topical numbing cream) but they said there wasn't enough time. She was so good and when they were done she stopped cry completely and started her happy screams. I prayed over her all night and I hope she forgot all of the difficult parts she went through. For feeling so poorly she was very happy and all of the nurses and doctors were very impressed by her. 

We are so thankful our sweet girl is okay. Thank you for all the prayers!!

Our chunky monkey :)

Note to all parents: if you child has to go to the hospital tell them you want emla cream right away if there has to be an IV. It takes about an hour to set in but totally worth it!!