My journey through life: Got herself some tubes :)

Having a baby who is ALWAYS sick, is extremely exhausting!!!

Since September, my sweet little Lucy has had TEN ear infections!

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you! I said TEN!

For nine months, my baby has been living with a CONSTANT ear ache.

And for those who have never had ear pain, trust me when I say that IT SUCKS!

I have been trying for months now to convince several different doctors that she needs tubes in her ears.

FINALLY the lord sent me Dr, Botros.

He took one little look in her ears and said " how does a week from today sound?"

And although it was what I wanted for her, I was a nervous wreck.

That whole week I could barely stand to look at her!

I felt so guilty. But I knew it was for the best.

She did AH-MAZING and her recovery was better then expected!

She is like a new and improved Lucy!

I never realized how bad it really was.

Her ear problems have prevented her from walking and talking on schedule.

She came to the point where even eating would hurt her!

Now she is walking with better balance and her appetite is back with a vengeance!

And for those of you who know her, she can eat a linebacker under the table!

So anyways, the surgery is over thank God and the problem is solved.

And although the surgery was quite traumatic for both of us,

that wasn't even the most exciting part of this whole trip!!!

Warning: this story shows that I am not ALWAYS as smart as I appear haha :)

Since the surgery was about an hour and a half from our house, I decided to get a hotel for the night by the hospital. The surgery was scheduled for 8:30 am and we were to arrive at 6:30.

There was NO way I was getting both kids up at 4:00 am to drive there!

So hotel it was!

I recruited my AH-MAZING friend Ty to tag along and watch after Sophie the morning of the surgery!

Side-note: I am SO BLESSED to have Ty in my life!

So I was in charge of finding a place for us to lay our heads.

I googled "hotels near Hadnot Hospital in Wilmington, NC"

Now in my defense, Google usually understands me! I am usually impressed by google's ability to untangle my random thoughts!

But, not today!

I found a Super 8 that was supposedly 2.2 miles from the Hospital and was only $66 dollars!

The pictures looked very descent for the price and it was on a street that was familiar to me!

It was the street that all the good shopping is on :)

SOLD!

When we arrived the next day, we passed the shopping centers and kept going and going and going.

And as we drove, the buildings got more broken down, more bars were on the windows,

the people had less teeth....for lack of better word, we were in the GHETTO!

So we pull into the hotel and I go and check-in.

And another side-note: GPS said that it was 8.9 miles from hospital!

I bet your wondering why we even continued with deal and to tell you the truth, I don't have an answer for that!

I tend to over- react a lot so I just thought I would suck it up and I kept telling myself it was fine.

We got to the room and it was anything but welcoming!

It smelt of mildew and mold and the doors didn't lock.

As we opened the curtains to check out our view of the dumpsters, there was a used condom

on the windowsill.

And yet, we stayed.

We did however decide to get out of there for a few hours and go out to eat.

We were dreading going back!

Once again, we googled the hotel's reviews and it confirmed what we already knew. This place was a hell hole!

Several customers had been mugged in the parking lot and many had written that it was not kid friendly.

When we got back there was a gang of mexicans speaking only spanish and giving us extremely weird looks. Now let me paint this picture for you.

So there is me carrying little Lucy and holding Sophia's hand. Then we have 6 month pregnant Ty carrying Cohen. Can you say EASY TARGETS!?!?

As we walked to our room, we realized they were following us.

Come to find out, they own the hotel and they live there!

And how convenient that they placed us right across the hall from them!

We shut our door that doesn't lock and realized that we have to leave NOW before it gets dark!

It immediately began a rat race and Ty and I were SHOVING things in bags!

We came up with a quick exit strategy to keep the kids as safe as possible and we booked it out of there!

I was shaking the whole time but my mama bear mode came in and I knew that for all of our safety, we had to go!

So we drove to the hospital and then looked for a place closer. Directly across the street pushed to the back was like a hidden Gem! The Hampton Inn. Oh man was it gorgeous!

It was honestly heaven sent!

Ty went in and spilled our horror story to them and they gave us a pretty hefty discount on top of your military discount!

Like I said, God's gift to us :)

This room was GORGEOUS and we were safe and happy!

So I thought it was over and the worst was done. WRONG!

As I am waiting in the hospital room for Lucy to wake up, I was making small talk with the nurses.

I began to tell them the events from the night before. One nurse said " Please don;t tell me you were on Market street?" And I replied " umm yea I was!"

And she follows that up with " please don't tell me you were at the Super 8!?"

I said " umm yea guilty!"

She honestly screamed out loud and said " A prostitute was found murdered there last year and it has been under several investigations for prostitutes stings!!!"

My heart sank to my toes.

That explains the used condoms on the windowsill.

I felt stupid. I felt dirty. I felt so awful for putting so many people I love in so much danger!

I beat myself up all day about it but then I realized that everyone makes mistakes and you learn from them! I will NEVER make that mistake again!

BUT, I did manage to leave my charger there the night before because we were packing so frantically!

I had to go back the next morning to get it!

NOT COOL after hearing all those awful stories!

But I survived and I learned a lot of valuable lessons.

Never trust EVERYTHING you read on google and ALWAYS trust your gut 'mama bear' feeling.

If it don't feel right, it probably isn't!