Our Little Peanut

Peyton is in the hospital. She was super fussy on Sunday all day and really restless all that night. At about 4am she was crying and crying and nothing we did calmed her down. She seemed a bit warm so I took her temperature and it was 99.9. I remember when we brought the kids home the nurses in the NICU said a temp over 99.5 for them is not good....something could be wrong. Also, when the homecare nurses came out and said if any of the babies were crying uncontrollably something could be wrong those 2 things stuck in my head. I called the ER nurse right away and she agreed that we should go in. So we got there a little after 6am and her temp there was 100.9. unfortunately when babies that small present with a temp they have to do a full work up to try and determine what is causing the temp. Everything was normal except her white blood cell count was a bit abnormal. The Dr recommended they keep her for 48 hours and grow the culture and start her on antibiotics just in case. He said his gut feeling is that this is nothing, maybe a little virus. But, it was best to be safe since she was premature and only 7 weeks old. Well, the culture was growing something Tuesday morning. Again the Dr said he wasn't sure if it was "real" so he wanted to take blood again and wait until Wednesday morning to see what it looked like. He didn't seem worried and so I was really thinking we were going to come home today. He came in this morning and said it was "real" and she indeed has a bacterial infection in her blood.... Group B Strep. This is not contagious and it sounds like in babies under 3 months old it can happen. The good news was is that we caught it in time and did not turn into meningitis. Thank God I had the feeling to check her temp. So they will start her on penicillin now and she has to stay on it for 7 days starting today! Her temp is gone and she is eating well so she should be feeling much better really soon.
I was staying with her Monday and Tuesday night, but since we have the other 2 at home I couldn't stay with her until next Tuesday. We made the very hard decision to leave her there by herself. I feel absolutely horrible. After I talked over a plan with the nurses I felt a little bit better. I know Peyton will let them know if she needs anything. That girl has the best set of lungs on her.
Thankfully my mom has arranged visitors and babysitters so I can be at the hospital during the day with her and grandparents and great grandparents will be going in the evening to sit with her and hold her. That's all she really needs is someone to hold her. That is all she'd let me do today, I could barely set her down to go to the bathroom. We'd like to thank our family, friends and colleagues for their willingness to help, support, care and understanding especially these last few days. You all are so important to us and we truly truly appreciate you.