We have WHAT?!

And HOME! Finally.

A friend of mine had flown into town from Colorado to help me with post-partum. I had a team of about 5 people that took turns helping me in the early days. C-section delivery was WAY WORSE than vaginal. And being the "natural-never-take-Tylenol" person that I am, I thought I could stop with the pain meds two days after coming home and found out very quickly the alternation of Tylenol and Ibuprofen was CRITICAL to living through this. So, I was a good little patient and did what I was told.

All babies are purple. At least all of my babies had some circulation issues when first outside of the womb and I would rub their tiny little fingers and toes and they would turn pink and all was right with the world. Not with Ezra. He always had this blue hue to his lips and to his tiny little fingers and toes. I would rub and nothing would happen. His pulse-ox was fine, but he wasn't right. "He's a boy. Boys are slow."

All of my girls also held their head up a few days earthside, not Ezra. They were making noises and alert, not Ezra. He just screamed and cried and nursed. Something felt very wrong. I was exhausted and back to being dizzy, but I was recovering. And I kept getting these odd cold chills and my skin felt thick, I still don't know how to explain it, but it was all "normal, post-partum".

One day, while my dad was babysitting me, he told me that he wanted to have the furnace checked. He said it sounded weird and he didn't like it. I told him it was probably fine and I would get it taken care of when I had the money. He was pretty adamant that we do it RIGHT NOW. Once those wheels are in motion, there is no stopping that man, and THANK GOD!

My bedroom was in the basement. I had a bathroom, laundry room, and storage and a HUGE living space, with a fireplace (that didnt work...ugh). It seemed ideal. I loved my little set up down there. But it would get freezing, the entire house was weird when it came to heat. The living room would feel like it was on fire, but the hall would be freezing, then the bedroom was an inferno, but the kitchen was a polar ice cap. I never understood it.

The furnace guys came, and Ezra and I sat upstairs on a gorgeous late February afternoon with the window cracked, getting some fresh air while they assessed. Fella #1 came upstairs and said "we've shut off your furnace, you need to get out of the house now. I honestly don't know how you guys are alive. Carbon monoxide has been pouring into your house".

April 2022, I bought the house. April. From April to February - 10 MONTHS! - I had been sleeping next to the furnace. Ten months I had been complaining about all of these symptoms. Ten months.

We packed up the essentials that we needed and left the house and moved in with my parents until the new furnace was put in. It was harrowing to watch my son go from purple and unable to lift his little head to pink and making little baby noises while arching his back during "tummy time" in less than 12 hours.

Come to find out, he wasn't "just a lazy boy" and it wasn't "normal pregnancy/postpartum stuff", we were actively being poisoned.

He came out of it very quickly. I spiked a 104 fever and was hallucinating and having some serious issues, but was better within a few days.

Deep breaths. Very very deep (and safe) breaths.