Let me tell you about Elle....

Our sweet newest addition is a complete bundle of joy. She is super content and a happy little girl. But for whatever reason....she has had a few challenges in her short 7 weeks of life. In the beginning they were just little bumps in the road, but as sad as they have become it is quite comical that one little girl only being in the world for 7 weeks could already face so many issues...I'm praying God is getting them all out of the way now ;)

Here's her little life thus far in a nut shell...

Birth - smooth and easy. Slightest concern she may have jaundice, but no major concern.

1 week check up - Still slightly concerned about jaundice, so we had to have blood drawn from her heel to have it tested. Also her cord had already fallen off and her belly button was not fully dried, so the dr. used a stick of some sort to close it up (not fun!). Also, Elle's little pooper was not working properly so the doctor had to "stimulate" her, which she did not enjoy.

2 weeks - Elle developed a seriously awful case of baby acne...poor girl will always wonder why there are no pictures of her from weeks 2-4 of her little life

3 weeks- take a deep breath, we got a break...except Elle is still not going number 2, so we are having to stimulate her every 48 hours at home

4 weeks - We were in Michigan and Elle developed thrush, which Clare also had so I knew exactly what it was and thankfully the dr. just called in a prescription for us

5 weeks - We went for our 4 week check up a week late because of our trip home and it turns out Elle has breast milk jaundice (who knew there was such a thing) and is favoring the right side of her head so we have to do neck exercises with her at home so she won't have to wear a helmet down the road. Also, the Dr. is highly concerned about her little pooping issue that has not corrected itself, so he sends us directly to a GI Dr. to have her looked at. The GI Dr. puts her on 1 oz of apple juice a day (much to mine and LD's dislike as we still don't have Clare much juice at all).

6 and 7 weeks - Clare gets a cold and passes it to Elle...and so it begins. (Clare's little runny nose and cough turned into bronchitis and a double ear infection after already being cooped up inside for 7 days). Right after Clare starts her little cold we notice that Elle starts coughing and sneezing. One morning LD wakes me up and says he can hear Elle choking and we both get up and she has vomited in her bed and then it turned into gagging and choking and then vomiting for the next 3 nights. To make a long story short we had 3 doctors visits and 1 ER visit in the middle of the night...not a highlight in my mommy days. With Elle sleeping in her car seat so she is elevated and Clare upstairs coughing and coughing LD and I decided to sleep in shifts and thought we made it through the worst, until today when Elle developed her own ear infection and an eye infection. Our counter has no lie--about 15 bottles of medication on it, each room has a vaporizer, we have a nebulizer for Clare and our laundry room is constantly in business.

I keep telling Elle...its a good thing she is so dang cute and happy! I have never seen a baby so happy and smiling constantly! We are looking forward to week 8...praying for some relief :)