Ava's Hello Bag

On our way home after being discharged from the hospital we stopped at the grocery store. Before the unexpected hospital adventure we had been postponing a trip to the store for several days and we had very little left in the house to eat. So we had to stop by the store just so we could feed everyone lunch when we got home.

I was carrying Ava around the store keeping her happy while my husband did the actual shopping and Ava spied something in a clearance bin that made her perk up. It was a Hello Kitty lunch bag. I pulled it out of the bin and told her she could carry it as long as she walked. It worked. She walked around looking at all sorts of things. But she never let that bag go. She was in love. We decided to bring it home.

Now I expected her to use the bag for all kinds of things. As it turns out, only two things ever go in the bag.

Compartment 1: Mama Kitty

Compartment 2: Baby Kitty

Ava carries her kitties in her kitty bag. It's adorable. They are in there and nearby all the time. They go up for nap. She takes the kitties out to sleep with them and then carefully returns them to their compartments and brings them downstairs with her when she wakes up. The bag and kitties travel from room to room with her and then go up for the night where they get to leave the bag to cuddle with her at night. Then back into the bag they go in the morning to come back down. So funny.

Home again.

We spent the night at the hospital with Ava. It was the first night we had spent there since the hospital stay when Ava was born. I would have been all right without having to do that again, but it was necessary. The nurses in the pediatrics ward were just as great as the nurses I'd had in the maternity ward.

I was worried we'd have another night as bad as the first and need another breathing treatment, but the oral steroids finally kicked in and the stridor improved through the night. We all got a decent night sleep all things considered. The nurse had to wake us every four hours so we could help her check Ava's vitals, but aside from those 10 minute awakenings we all slept through. Any mother of a newborn would think that's a great night's sleep.

And so we're home again. Things aren't quite back to normal, but we're heading there.

Wishes are not always granted.

We did go to our doctor's office. The receptionists listened to Ava strain to breathe in horror for a short period of time before sending us straight to the emergency room where her oxygen level was 91. I thought that sounded pretty good. Just like getting an A- on a test. Apparently not.

We pinned her down while she strained to breathe in enough air for the next scream during her breathing treatment. Then we pinned her down while they gave her a dose of oral steroids. She promptly choked half of that back up. Then they told us they just needed to observe her for two hours before sending us home.

An hour later the stridor was back. That earned us another delightful breathing treatment and an admission to the children's ward. And that's the current update.