Thank you

I know, I know, its been a long time since I've posted. Its been both hard and wonderful since Hayden was released from her second stay at the hospital. First of all, she is doing well. Really well. Fiesty even. :) The first few days were hard because I think she was traumatized by her experience at the hospital (who wouldn't be), she needed to be held all the time and if you put her down she would start crying. I completely understand because I know that those NICU nurses (as great as they were) weren't holding Hayden all the time, only while feeding her and so there were way too many hours of the day where she was toughing all this out all by herself in that room. It really breaks my heart when I think about it.

Anyway, the crying and fussyness didn't stop for many days and after trying lots of different things, we finally figured out that she has developed a food allergy or become lactose intolerant somewhere in the past couple of weeks. So, we have switched to a new formula that is easy on her stomach and lactose free. We accidentally fed her one of the old formulas with milk and she threw up 3 times all over. Poor thing. The past few days she has settled down a bit, but you can still tell that her stomach is uncomfortable and hurts sometimes. I'm really hoping that she grows out of this soon. Its hard to see her uncomfortable.

And really, I just wish she could talk. It would be so much easier to help her if she could tell me what is wrong. But, she can't and so I stress and worry about what is making her cry and wish that I knew what the problem was. The sleeping over the past couple of weeks has been pretty scarce but fortunately John comes home on Fridays and takes Hayden for the rest of the day and night and lets me get some sleep.

I have said this a million times, but I don't know how anyone could do this alone. If I didn't have John to lean on (and cry to)and help me out when I just can't take it anymore... I don't know what I would do! I'm so grateful for him, can't say it enough.

I also want to thank each of you who have sent prayers our way or who have inquired after Hayden... to those people in our ward who have showered us with gifts and well wishes... and to those family members who have come to help John and I make it through this all. We are so grateful for all of you.

We had some darling pictures of Hayden taken by a ward member several weeks ago, they turned out wonderfully (again, a big thank you to Emmy because she did those as a gift to us, for FREE)and I will post some of our favorites soon.