Oy gevalt!

Nora's sick.  She has RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), which causes a pretty severe reaction in infants but is so mild for adults that they often don't know they have it.  She can only sleep and breathe well if she's being held, which means Billy and I have alternated shifts for the past several days.  Which also means we missed Thanksgiving.  When we visited the pediatrician today, he told us she was in the midst of the worst of it, so we are hoping things will go up from here.  As a new mother, I was surprised by how heartbreaking it is to hear the cries of the tiny little human that I grew inside my body.  But hearing her cry is nowhere near as gut wrenching as seeing her stuck in a fit of body shaking, hacking coughs which bring up mucus she can't clear.  Poor little lady, is all I keep thinking.  We have to give her medicine through a nebulizer.  The outside world must be hard enough for her to understand-- how in the world could she possibly make sense of the mask we have to hold up to her face four times a day?

Somewhere in the midst of all this, though, Nora is learning to smile.  She's uninterested in my attempts to entertain her, but Billy can often get her smiling off and on for several minutes at a time.  Last night when Patti, Chuck, and Brian stopped by to drop off leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, Nora thanked them for looking after her parents by showing them her new talent.  Brian even snapped a photo of Nora smiling with his phone.

We may have traded stuffing for snot this year, but we are so thankful for our little girl.  When Nora smiles, she reminds me that creating her is the best thing Billy and I have ever done and that the only way to top that act is by learning how to be good parents to her.  We're working on that now in 2-3 hour increments.  "This is not forever," I keep telling myself, while inside I am laughing that I was so convinced that giving birth was going to be the hard part!

We're sorry we didn't get a chance to wish everyone Happy Thanksgiving in person, on the phone, or via videochat as we'd hoped-- but we are so thankful to have so many loving, supportive, and helpful friends and family members in our lives.  We hope you are all enjoying your holiday weekend!