"Sometimes these things just happen."

Having a new baby in ones house is like having a little piece of heaven in your home. Nothing compares to having a new little being around who has just come from her heavenly home. We have all enjoyed these new moments with Megan over the last couple of weeks.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we took all extra cautions we could think of in keeping our new little one healthy. After a week, we were all still healthy despite a devastating sweep of the flu through our neighborhood. We felt very lucky we had somehow missed its path of illness. The only issue we were currently dealing with was Megan's jaundice and high bilirubin counts. After three days of enduring the light bed, Megan's bili count was not coming down very quickly, so her pediatrician advised me to pump for 24 hours and feed her formula to see if we could bring the count down quicker.

We started feeding her formula, but within the next 12 hours, she stopped eating and had not produced any wet diapers. I quickly got her into the doctors office and was devastated to hear the doctor ask me if Megan had been around anyone sick as she had some lesions on the back of her throat. It was obvious to the doctor that Megan was not eating because she was currently fighting an infection of some sort. I was completely distraught as we had done everything possible to keep Megan protected from illness.

Megan was immediately placed in the NICU at the hospital where she began a a series of icky tests and treated for dehydration. I could not stay to watch the tests as the first test - a spinal tap - was done. I spent the next 2 hours in the waiting room thinking about how we had come to this situation despite all of our best efforts.

As I discussed my concerns with the doctor later, she informed me that sometimes these things just happen no matter how much prevention we do. Since Megan has completely recovered and has since come home from the hospital - thanks to all of the prayers and thoughts sent our way from many of you - I have thought of the doctor's words many times as we continue our efforts to keep our family healthy. It occurred to me that sometimes we do everything we can to protect our children from harm or pain. However, no matter how much we do, sometimes our kids will have to go through hard things and we as parents have to sit back and watch. I can see now why Heavenly Father had to go to the far corners of the heavens rather than watch his Son suffer in the Garden of Gethsemene just as I could not watch my week old daughter endure some very painful tests.

I have learned in just a few short weeks that our kids are most precious and sometimes things just happen no matter what we do to try and prevent it. Thankfully we have a loving Heavenly Father who is there to help us when we need support as we watch our kids endure something painful.