Can your heart actually be ripped out?

• I thought mine was going to be!

• Saturday was a rough day for little Shelby. She was not having any dirty diapers and was having shocking/vomiting episodes throughout the day. By Saturday evening she was beginning to yellow (jaundice). Daniel and I rushed to Scottish Rite to get her looked at. After getting in a room we saw numerous of nurses, all of which were trying to get an IV started since Shelby was so dehydrated. I really thought someone was squezzing my heasrt having to watch my new little baby being poked an proded for hours. after 2.5 hours and at least 13 nurses, her IV was finally started.

• The first doctor we saw contributed everything to acid reflux, which didn't surprise us too much because Taylor had the same problem, just not nearly as bad. Then she had an "episode". She began to choke, this time it was much worse than any other time before. My precious baby couldn't breath, she lost coloring, and I was for sure that something was majorly wrong. Daniel and I were alone in the room except for a nurse who couldn't speak english well enough to understand anything we were saying. Daniel went into the hall shouting for help and they did come running to help us out. A respiratory therapist came in and got her breathing again. What a relief for a heartsick mother who continued to cry my heart out for the next half hour.

• At shift change at 7AM we saw a new doctor who gave us the worst scare EVER. She said that she was fairly certain that my new bundle of joy was not put together properly. That maybe her esophogus didn't connect to her stomach and she would probably need massive surgery to correct it.

• My heart fell out of my chest, and we began to pray. Praying as hard as we have ever prayed about anything, ever.

• We were admitted and in a real room around 8AM. Shelby went through a series of tests, chest X-rays, Upper GI, etc. All the while I was not allowed to feed her (for fear of something in her GI tract being wrong), so I spent every few hours pumping to keep my milk up and coming in.

• She had her upper GI around 1:00 and thankfully everything was normal. She was put together exactly the way she was supposed to be! Which left us with the diagnosis of acid reflux, only a VERY BAD case of it for a child so young.

• They started her on zantac and kept us over night for monitoring. We came back home Monday around 3:30, with a semi-healthy baby and some very tired and emotionally drained parents.

• The first few nights back home were a little rough, but she is now doing wonderfully on her meds, sleeping well at night, eating great, having dirty diapers, and is the most precious thing in the whole world.

• What a crazy, hectic, and heartbreaking start in a brand new place for such a wonderful little girl. But we did get a reminder of how good God really is.