Halloween 2014

Our Halloween was rough. It wasn't supposed to be that way though. In fact, we had Josh's Mom and Step-Dad over for a week and all sorts of Halloween plans were made! Sadly, illness struck and there was nothing we could do about it. We did get a few fun things in though before the disease fairy stopped by....

We went to the Outlet Mall to do a little window shopping, and then headed over to the Bass Pro Shop to see the fish!

The aquarium there is amazing!

We carved pumpkins. Austin just liked coloring with the pen...

Grandma and Grandpa with their pumpkin!

Austin stuck his hand inside the pumpkin once and refused to do it again (haha).

Hence why he made himself the honorary pen holder ;).

Scooping out the pumpkin guts! We had a scary moment when Janis stuck her hand inside her pumpkin and out came a bunch of cockroaches!! We women started screaming, Austin started crying, and the men started scrambling to catch the disgusting bugs! We threw our pumpkins away after that (haha).

Wearing Grandpa's hat!

Besides going out to eat a lot, that was basically all we did during their week long vacation here with us :(. On Halloween day, Austin woke up with a nasty cough. Janis and I went grocery shopping to prepare for the Halloween party I had planned later that night and left him home with the men. My Mom and sisters were coming over that night for trick-or-treating and we had our pumpkin bisque soup bowls and ham planned for dinner to carry on the tradition! When we got back from the store, Austin was a totally different kid. It was so scary! He had Croup and it had hit him HARD! Our baby could barely breathe and the coughing was terrible! It got to the point where his throat started closing off and he could barely get air through so we rushed him to the hospital. Well, I rushed him by myself and Janis/Steve met me there a while later. Josh suddenly wasn't feeling so good himself so he had to go lay down during the scary hospital drama! I was so so glad to have Janis and Steve there with me because it was so hard trying to keep it together by myself!

We waited in the Emergency Room for what felt like ages and meanwhile my child struggled with all his might to breathe. Once they finally admitted us to a room, he was given an Epi-treatment through a vaporizer and some oral steroids and then we sat in the hospital bed and waited. We waited and waited until his breathing finally started calming down and he fell asleep in my arms. I can't even describe the horror I was feeling. I laid there in that bed with my baby in my arms, praying that everything would be okay and that was basically all I could do! I hadn't eaten, drank, or gone to the bathroom all day and not even the pain in my bladder or the pregnancy nausea that was overpowering my stomach could get me to put that little boy down.

Our poor baby. Worst day of my life :(.

Steve told me to smile for the camera but I was sooooo beyond smiling! I was more on the verge of crying....

Later that evening we were cleared by the doctor to go home. His breathing still wasn't perfect but he wasn't gasping and shaking anymore so the doctor said he should be okay the rest of the night. We went home and the steroids seemed to really improve Austin's health. He was now just a sick kid with a bad cough. I went to work preparing dinner and My Mom and Sadie came over (Briana decided to hang with her friends). We had quite the feast with Sadie's homemade pumpkin bread and veggie platters, the cute pumpkin shaped bread bowls my Mom had brought, the huge ham Janis had bought, and my super yummy pumpkin bisque!

We didn't go trick-or-treating because we wanted to keep Austin warm and not overdo it, but we had some adorable trick-or-treaters come over to our house! The rest of our night consisted of eating A TON, handing out candy, and snacking on candy while we watched Beetlejuice (Josh's Halloween request).

That night was rough for Austin and possibly just as rough for Josh and I! Austin couldn't breathe whenever he laid down so sleeping was almost impossible and Josh ended up holding him all night long in our bed. Josh and I were both so worried he would stop breathing that we barely slept a wink.

Sleeping with Daddy.

We spent the next few days basically doing nothing while Austin was miserable. I had no desire whatsoever to cook with how exhausted I was, so we ate out or ordered take-out almost every meal. Each day Austin got worse and worse until Sunday night when he scared us out of our minds and we were headed back to the Emergency Room. The poor baby's throat closed off again and he couldn't breathe! His little chest was sucking in as hard as his muscles could work to get some air in but it wasn't adequate enough. He was pale, shaking, and when he coughed his breathing became non-existant. Then something strange happened! As we were on our way to the hospital, his breathing suddenly became better and he fell asleep in his car-seat! We pulled over on the side of the road and debated on what to do. Should we trust this and head back home? Or should we play it safe and get this kid some more hospital attention? He was sleeping so peacefully, so we turned the car around and came back home. Later on I realized that was probably the wrong decision because the struggle to breathe came back and we spent most of the night holding him outside in the cold air to keep his airway open. As soon as morning light came that next morning, we went over to the local Urgent Care and waited outside until it opened so we could be the first ones in line! The outside air did Austin a lot of good and he actually sounded a lot better that morning. The doctor didn't take any chances though and gave him another nebulizer treatment, along with a steroid shot and oral steroids to take home.

Although this was a horrible experience, it brought Josh and Austin even closer together. Normally, whenever Austin is sick, he wants his Momma and nothing to do with his Dad. This time, however, was a very different experience. He wanted his Daddy and nobody else! He would let me hold him if Josh wasn't in the room but that was it! He cried and cried for his Dad and would follow him around everywhere. Poor Janis and Steve didn't get to hold him at all because he wanted his Dad and only his Dad..... It was good for Josh because he got to experience my life for a little while and how demanding his son can actually be. He didn't get to eat, he didn't get to sleep without Austin laying on top of him, and he got the joy of trying to go to the bathroom with a screaming baby on the other side of the door, pounding for his attention. I'm not going to lie, I kinda liked it ;).

By the time Janis and Steve left that Tuesday, we were beyond exhausted. Neither Josh nor I had slept in days and the stress/anxiety of what we had gone through had put us through the ringer. Of course, with me being pregnant and going through all of this, I caught Austin's sickness. The ER doctor had warned me that it was an extremely contagious virus and there was a good chance I would catch it if I got too close to my son but nothing was going to stop me from holding him and giving him every ounce of attention he needed to survive. This sickness has been the worst I've gone through in a long, long time. I was weak, shaking with fever, coughing that horrible Croup cough, experiencing the painful sore throat that comes from the coughing and constant mucous drainage.... basically I've been miserable. Since I am pregnant, I haven't been able to take any medicine besides Tylenol. I've used Essential Oils and Vapor rub along with a vaporizer by the bed, but that was it. We have had so many wonderful friends in the ward bring by meals which was a major help since my cooking skills were out of commission. I was so grateful Josh hadn't started his new job yet so he could take care of both of us while we were ill.

On a lighter note, Halloween wasn't a total failure this year because we had gone trunk-or-treating the previous Saturday at the church! So Austin got to be an adorable little tiger and he was so good about holding my hand to each trunk and holding out his bag for candy! He tried eating every piece that went into his bag which was challenging but it was a good challenge :). We had invited Jura and Juliette to come with us (Adrien was working) which was a lot of fun! In our opinion, our little tiger and ladybug were the cutest baby costumes in the entire Ward! We are a little partial though ;) .....

Little tiger getting his whiskers on!

Mom getting the tiger ready to go!

We kept trying to take pictures and all Austin wanted to do was go play with the other kiddos....

The adorable tiger and ladybug!! They were so cute while we were taking pictures because she kept smiling at him and he kept holding her hand!

Come on guys, lets go!

Family photo! It suddenly got super windy that night so pictures were hard to take...

Our Ward is amazing and the night was a total success! We ate homemade chili and rolls, got lots of candy, and had a great time with friends :). I'm so glad we got an opportunity to at least have that memory so Halloween 2014 wasn't a complete downer!