We Get To Come Home

So we finally get to come home. She did fairly well considering all that happens at the hospital. Her hematicrit had been dropping since starting the chemo on Thursday (and will continue to drop for a couple of weeks), so they gave her a blood transfusion again before going home. That way we won't have to turn right around and come back up when her hematicrit gets too low. She only threw up 4 times this go around. That was quite the improvement over last times every 15 minutes for three hours straight. She seemed to be in a better mood this time as well. She obviously wasn't her normal self, but she only threw a few hitting, pinching, and biting fits this time. She also was able to have a little bit of fun in between her chemo treatments. She found that she really enjoys playing in her crib and throwing her toys out over the top of the railing. Normally this would not be a very fun game for Mom and Dad, but in this situation anything that entertains her and makes her happy is worth it! A neighbor in our ward brought us some little slippers for our baby. What a great idea. We were able to let her walk around with us holding her hands throughout the ICS unit. She loved being able to walk on the ground. She was groggy from some of the medication she was on, but as long as we held her hands she did great. I am sure every time we come we will discover new ways to make life at the hospital a little easier. Yesterday my husband brought our three other children up to the hospital. We gave them a tour of our daughters room, the ICS until, the fourth floor of the hospital (where we go for monitoring and some testing in between chemo treatments) and we even found the outpatient surgery floor where our son was earlier this year during a lymph node removal (which thankfully came back negative for cancer). Then we headed down to the cafeteria where they each picked out their lunch and we brought it back up to sisters room and ate lunch and watched a movie with her. The kids enjoyed coming to visit their baby and getting to see what sister does here at the hospital. I think they weren't as impressed as they thought they would be, but they did enjoy lunch and a movie together! I was able to sleep at home last night while dad stayed at the hospital. There is nothing like your own bed! I told my other kids that they had to come into my bed first thing in the morning to snuggle with me, they were so excited (I am always telling them to go back to their own beds when they come into our room). I was in heaven snuggling with my kids in my own home. My Mother-In-Laws sister came to stay in our home with our big kids while we were in the hospital. I just keep thinking how wonderful her sisters all are (they remind me of my sisters) They are willing to jump in to fill in where she can't (she is out of the country for the next 14 months). My mother in law is very lucky to have such a wonderful relationship with her sisters. Like I said before, they remind me a lot of my sisters and I feel so blessed to have the ones that I have. I came back to the hospital after helping get my kids ready for church. I made it back just in time to attend the LDS meeting that they hold here in the hospital every Sunday. They only do a Sacrament meeting, which consists of; an opening song, prayer, song, Sacrament, one talk and a closing prayer. I came in about 5 min. late, and sat down and immediately I started to look around. I saw several little kids with their parents, some attached to monitors, some with tubes coming from their noses, others with pic lines or central lines, and I couldn't help myself. . . the tears just came. I tried to fight back the tears, but I couldn't. I wasn't crying about my baby in particular, but about all of these little sick children here in the hospital. I had a hard time trying to make sense of all of it. Why does our Father in Heaven allow little children to get so sick, and sometimes allows them to pass on way before they have had the opportunity to experience life. Now let me say, that I know that our Father in Heaven has a plan for all of us, and no two people have the same path in this life. I know that we all have to go through trials and struggles of all kinds while we are here on this earth. I also know that the only way to truly learn something is through experiencing it ourselves. We must be perfected in order to live Eternally with our Father in Heaven and without opposition we wouldn't be able to grow and become more like Him. That doesn't mean that we will all have the exact same struggles, there is more than one experience we can go through and still learn the same lesson. With that said, then I might ask again, why does our Father in Heaven allow bad things to happen to little children? I know that I have just answered this question, but I still am conflicted about it. I do know that there is a reason and I don't doubt anything that my Heavenly Father does, but I don't always understand it, which is why I must find out for myself through scripture study, fasting and ultimately getting down on my knees and praying for comfort and peace concerning this. What I can say is that I have felt that our family including our baby agreed to go through this trial before we came to earth (to what extent, I don't know) but, I know that we are being refined because of this experience. I know that I will at one point in my life be able to look back and say, "I understand. Look at what we learned from that experience. Look how our family grew because of that struggle." I don't know when that day will come, I don't know if it will be in this life, but I know I will be a better more humble person because of this experience.