This blog post is part of a series that I began for telling our story. You can read the first post here.

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Next week is Holy Week. And this is the first time the dates have gotten so close to what we experienced 8 years ago. Palm Sunday that year was on April 17. This year it’s on the 14th.

I’m going to try to recount the events as they happened over the course of that week, to the best of my ability. Not sure how many posts it will take, or when it will be done. So here we go…

On Palm Sunday, we went to church with Samantha. It was my first time in worship in more than 2 months, and her first time in church outside of the womb. I ducked out mid-service to nurse her, since I was still struggling with the whole concept of a schedule. And while I have zero problem with other women breastfeeding in public, I was incredibly uncomfortable doing it in front of other people. Thankfully, I had an office to escape to for it.

I honestly remember nothing from that Monday, probably because it was an ordinary day. Back to the usual pattern of sleeping/nursing/changing diapers. Then Tuesday came, April 19.

Travis had been going through some kind of local academy that year (I can’t remember if it was through the city or the county). They would take a day once a month and have some kind of training about an aspect of living in our area – government, schools, commerce, etc. He had taken the car with the carseat. Maybe our other vehicle was in the shop? I don’t know why he had done that, but I do know that when Samantha starting screaming, I didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t eat. She kept screaming and crying. I couldn’t get someone to pick us up to go to the doctor because of the car seat. I kept texting with Travis, worrying. Friends with kids thought it was colic. Finally, Travis bailed on his training and picked us up. We took her to the pediatrician, who did an exam and sent us to the hospital next door for blood work (it was the closest lab).

We brought her home, and according to my Facebook memories, she ate four times that evening and slept well most of the night. She woke up happy the next day, and while she sounded pretty hoarse from all of the previous day’s screaming, seemed like she was ok. Tired, but eating again. Back to her normal self. Or so we thought…

Next post coming tomorrow.