the petersons: 30 weeks...and croup

I had another check-up today...nothing new or exciting to report. Everything is still going well. At this point, I have gained 22 pounds. Yikes. Dr. Bishop assures me that that's totally fine. I just feel like I'm eating all the time. PIP has become extremely active the past couple of weeks. She likes to wedge herself right up against my ribs and hip bone and s-t-r-e-t-c-h. It's a bizarre feeling. It'll be interesting to see how that works out as she gets bigger and has less room in there! I don't remember Ayla ever doing that.

We had a scary night with Ayla on Sunday. Up until then, she just had a runny nose and slight cough. We figured she was on her way toward a cold...bummer, but not a big deal. Dean put her to bed with no issues at 8:30. A couple hours later, she woke up coughing and it turned into a hoarse, wheezy sound. We went in there and she was pretty upset. She couldn't seem to catch her breath and had to work really hard to get a breath in...she sounded horrible. We've never heard her like that before. I picked her up and tried to calm her down but she insisted on getting back into bed. We let her lay down and just stood there and waited until she was relaxed. She fell asleep after a while and another couple hours later, she woke up doing the same thing. She was so panicked and we obviously were too...we didn't know if we should bring her to the hospital because her breathing was so labored. She, again, was able to calm down and go back to bed. We cranked her humidifier and she slept until morning. We were so worried about her...it was a nerve-racking night.

The next morning, she woke up and seemed totally fine. So weird. I called the doctor anyway just to get an opinion. They said to go ahead and bring her in. Dean had taken a quick video of her so we could show the doctor what she sounded like. After a second of listening, the doctor said "croup." He prescribed a steroid that would reduce the swelling in her airways. He said usually just a dose or two will do the trick. I gave it to her once before her nap and another before bed and she slept all night without a peep. Amazing, considering how awful she was the night before. (And just a side-note--she did soooo well with the doctor! Not only did she stay calm, she did everything he and the nurse asked her to do. A lovely change from the crying-puke-fests from before.)

The doctor also warned me that a possible side-effect of the meds is increased moodiness, crying, tantrums, etc. Not going to lie, I kind of just waved if off. But Lord, he was not kidding. Today was probably one of the most difficult days I've had with Ayla in a very, very long time. She whined, cried, threw up a few times from getting so upset, didn't listen to a word I said, and was just plain naughty. She is so not like this on a regular basis (thank goodness) so I didn't quite know how to deal with it. I was so ready for her to take a nap and I figured she'd go down without a problem since she was probably worn out from all the crying, but no. To top off the lovely morning we had, she didn't really sleep...only a half hour, at best. Needless to say, she went to bed early tonight. I was worn completely thin by that point. Can I have some wine yet?

I managed to capture a few pictures of her during a nice moment today. Dean put the doors back onto her closet and it's become a new little place for her to play. When she was really little, it was fun to see the teeny-tiny clothes hanging in there, but two years later, her clothes are much bigger and she has acquired a lot more stuff so it just looks a bit messier...time to hide it with the doors.