All We Want for Christmas

...is great health. As you can tell the blogging world and computers in general have been nonexistent for the past three weeks. We have honestly had the hardest three weeks of our lives. Chris will tell you it has been the hardest 11 weeks (Claire is 11 weeks old). So before I even tell you what all has been going on, please know that this email is not for pity because we know that God will not give us more than we can handle. It is 100% for prayer and for all of our friends, family, etc. who read this to know what is going on in our lives and why we aren't calling and emailing. We REALLY plead for your prayers. We cannot tell you how thankful we are for them. So here goes the last 11 weeks and I'll expand on the past three weeks.

week 1: claire is born oct.1 and went to the NICU for 6 days
weeks 2 and 3: we are going back and forth to the pediatrician every other day for claire's bili
week 4: wells gets the fever virus and it goes to 104 for two days. extremely scary
week 5: I get the fever virus. wells goes to my parents and chris stays home from work and takes care of claire. I didn't leave the bedroom.
weeks 6 and 7: Claire has horrible stomach issues that they think are gird (silent reflux) and she cannot sleep through a nap without wincing in pain and same goes for night. I can no longer breastfeed and have to pump before every feeding (just to add 20 more minutes to every feeding). Wells is getting 6 teeth at one time and not sleeping at all at night
week 8: Claire gets her first ear infection and not sleeping anymore. Chris has had chronic neck pain for 4 years now, but it gets unbearable this week. He lays out on the floor one morning this week and can't move. I call a best friend who comes to get him to take him to the only doc chris hasn't seen in birmingham and he gives him 3 shots in the trigger points to relieve pain.
Here comes the worst part and where we are now:
week 9: Wells gets croup. at 1 in the morning we hear him barely able to breathe over the monitor. chris rushes him to children's hospital er. They came home at 4 with steroid medicine. I wisk Claire away to my mom and dad's for three days while Chris has wells here at home alone. As soon as we return, Wells is still not better, but we could not keep chris home from work anymore and no one could keep claire besides me (breastfeeding,etc). So Wells is still running low grade fever so Chris took him to the pediatrician. Croup is still in effect and he now has double ear infection and drainage coming out of tubes in his ears. He went on another medicine.
week 10: Claire starts coughing, sneezing, and I start freaking. Wells is still sick. I took Claire to the Pediatrician for them to tell me she no longer has ear infections and probably just has a cold from Wells, but no croup. 4 days later, Claire is coughing like crazy, weezing and just not right. Wells is now miserable and not sleeping at night. Chris takes Friday off work and we load both kids up to go back to the doctor together. We stay for 3 hours. Claire has bronchialitis/RSV and double ear infections. The doc tells us how dangerous this is...I freak. Wells has double ear infections still and more drainage. We do breathing treatments for claire and cultures on Wells ears. We take turns holding Claire all day and night because she has lots of trouble breathing when you put her on her back, even sitting up. We give her breathing treatments every 4 hours, medicine for the ear infections and watch her like a hawk (and i cry...and pray...and worry...and pray more). she doesn't eat much
week 11: Where we are now...still holding claire all the time and praying for her to recover and eat normal again. I took wells to the ENT today to flush out his ears and they could only get 1/3 of fluids out. They cultured his ears to look for the cause of why he is still getting infections with tubes. They keep him on ear medicine, medicine by mouth, and tell us to come back in 2 weeks. And he is still crying out at night and we are up all night with Claire. Chris' neck...no better. Doctors visits and medicines = over 1000 dollars.

So this is why you haven't heard from us if you've tried to call or email. We love you dearly, but honestly don't have a second to talk to anyone. We barely talk to each other at the moment. We pray together, get frustrated, cry (well, that would be me), and press on. We know that we are SO blessed to have these precious children who don't have terminal illnesses, etc. but it is so very scary to deal with sick children for this long. We just want to see them healthy and happy and we pray that this will happen soon. Not getting sleep really plays a toll on you as lots of you know if you have children. And with them only being 14 months apart, my days seem like they will never end sometimes when they are both crying and in pain. Praise the Lord for my mother who has come almost daily to help me out. Praise the Lord for awesome friends who have brought meals even when I say no, who call knowing we can't call back, and who constantly offer services. Praise the Lord that I have a husband who helps me EVERY HOUR that he is home and splits the night shifts with me. Praise the Lord for Chris' parents that come to help and play on the weekends. And praise the Lord Chris works with my dad and he understands when he needs to leave or stay home with me. God is really taking care of us and ALL of our needs. So please help us to praise Him for what He has given us and pray that He will take care of chris, Wells, and Claire with their health. Feel free to come prayer walk around our sick house whenever you'd like!!! :) We really want to be able to focus on Christmas and Christ's birth this week and maybe He is just helping us realize that what He came to accomplish on earth is far more important that lights, shopping, gifts, etc. We have had no time to do any of that so we don't have that "christmas feeling", but we have had more time to reflect on prayer and praise for what He has done. Merry Christmas to all of you and thanks so much for your prayers!! God is good ALL the time, even if it seems like your world is falling apart!