I guess I should start this post by saying sorry that I never got to my Valentines day post but it's been a little crazy around my house the last couple weeks. My poor baby got sick and ended up in the hospital for a night. Which leads to the reason for this post. I'm going to apologize at it's length up front.
Here's the story..
Monday morning we woke up and neither of us felt very good so we just lounged around. By Tuesday morning I felt better but I could tell C just was full on sick. He had his morning bottle but was pretty lazy with it which is new because that kid can suck down a bottle in no time usually! Then he fell asleep and slept..and slept some more; actually from 9-12AM. That's when I knew something was really up. I'm a firm believer in the saying "never wake a sleeping baby" but it had been so long I needed to check on him. I tried feeding him and he just laid there and let it run out of his little mouth. I started to get nervous but thought maybe he just wasn't awake enough. So I laid him down to change him and his eyes were red rimmed and being the ginger he is his eyebrows too. I figured maybe I should take his temp, so I did it under his armpit. (Now the ped said this was the best way and then if it was 99 degrees to try rectally, I'd been taking his temp by his arm pit since Monday) It was 97.4 but he felt super hot so I thought let's take it the other way and see what we get...Low and behold 102!! I instantly freaked because in the hospital they said anything over 100.6 or something was major in an infant. So I started crying and called the pediatrician (and a few other people) and they had me bring him in right away. Now here's where it gets frustrating..
I know my baby. We as moms KNOW OUR BABES. We know when they are having an off day or don't feel well. I take him in and I can instantly tell that the nurse thinks I'm an idiot and overreacting. She gives me the line, " we are all moms here so next time instead of rushing in just call and we will tell you if it's no big deal." Now this ticks me off..I'm a first time mom!! HELLO! I'm going to overreact and by the way I've only called once about something and it turned out to be something! I KNOW MY BABY. Anyways, the ARNP comes in and he looks C over and tells me that he most likely has a cold and possibly a sore throat and that's why he's not taking his bottle. He said try pedialyte because we don't want him to get dehydrated but can't tell me how much. He says give him Tylenol for the fever and throat every 4 hours for however long it takes to get him better. Then proceeds to tell me that the reason I don't like milk is my body doesn't handle it and I'm lactose intolerant..Nope I'm not. I just don't like to drink a glass of milk. I love dairy, just not a glass. He told me he had over done it on peanut butter when he was a kid so he doesn't like it..I should've said, well that must be your bodies way of telling you it doesn't handle peanut butter but I was in shock about how very little they worried about my child. But I digress.
I should say that I'm not wild about this ped office to begin with. I signed up for one ped when C was born and ended up with another and instead of checking him out I just stuck with him.
*Advice to my soon-to-be mommy friends..CHECK OUT YOUR PED FIRST!!
He told me I was over feeding C (he was just under 2MO, 3 ounces 3-4 hours) and would make him fat. I saw red. (I never saw him again and started with another dr. at that practice.) I swear that's one reason C is small is because I was probably under feeding him after that because I started second guessing myself. All because of that dumb dr.! I started seeing a new dr. there and like her a lot..some of the nurses and the office staff not so much.
But here's the reason for this post..I should've trusted my mommy instincts! I knew something was up with C and once again I let them bully me out the door and into thinking I was overreacting. I doubted myself. Now I know being a mom is tough and it's full of second guesses and wondering if you are doing right by your child, but under all that we really do know how to do this and what's right.
I took little C home and thought I'll just make him better with lots of cuddles. We got home and he slept and slept and slept some more. I put pedialyte in his bottle at my discretion. I fed him how much he told me he needed. He was fussy that night but not terrible. Wednesday he didn't seem any better but was taking his bottle a little better. Wednesday night I had a nagging feeling he wasn't getting better. My hubby thought it was at its peak. I thought maybe we needed to take him to the ER. His fever wasn't breaking even with the Tylenol (by no means was it sky high either) and he was crying inconsolably. I thought I'd rather take him in and have them say nothing was wrong than not and have it become something major. I begged my hubby to stay home the next day. I wasn't sleeping for worry over the baby and I needed his support. Thursday came and he slowly went down hill further. All he did was sleep and cry. I was feeding him with an eye dropper by Thursday night. He would just spit up everything I gave him and now he'd developed a scary cough. I made an appointment to have a follow up with the dr. I liked on Friday. So we wouldn't end up in the hospital over the weekend.
Friday morning..he wouldn't eat, when he cried no tears and he had a temp of 103.6. Thank God I had a dr. appointment! I took him in, a new nurse who I'd never seen weighed him (he'd lost more weight again) and I broke down telling her about my week and my first visit. She looked at me and said, "we are medical professionals but if your mommy instincts tell you something's not right with your child, listen to them!" I loved her instantly. My favorite dr. came in took one look at him and in his ears and sent us to the ER immediately. He was crazy dehydrated and had a raging ear infection. I knew something was wrong, he'd never tugged at his ear but I knew he was off. I should've listened to my instincts.
Now I know there are people out there who believe a low fever is nothing and doesn't need to be treated. But a fever is indicative of something being wrong. And I'm of the mind that if he's uncomfortable and in pain it needs to be addressed. There is a fine line to walk with reaching for the meds too quickly or treating things holistically without medications. I know that we now live in a world where our food, clothing, medicine..basically most everything has chemicals and preservatives and more crap in them than necessary. But you can go too far in one direction.
*standing on soap box* I get it..breast is best but for those of us who tried EVERYTHING aside of medication (which cracks me up because most of those types are anti meds and can't believe I would stop there at being able to feed my child the "right" way)we don't have the option of rubbing every pimple or scrape with breast milk..or giving a drop here and there to treat everything ( don't you know breast milk will cure anything) Don't think I haven't agonized over this enough! I would LOVE to feed him the natural way and be able to do that but my body just wasn't up for that. I had an amazing pregnancy and a pretty easy delivery with few complications so my luck was bound to run out somewhere. And YES I had an epidural but even if I hadn't I would've ended up with one. But because I couldn't feel the pain of a stuck shoulder I was able to keep pushing and not end up in C-section which I would've ended up medicated for that anyways. No, I don't think that the epidural is the reason my body didn't produce enough to feed my babe. I guess I'm just over this idea of formula is poison or women who don't breast feed didn't try hard enough. Don't be so quick to judge, you don't know the reason that woman isn't doing it. Yes, it may be because she thought it was too hard but it could also be her body failed her. If I see one more picture that shows a medicine cabinet full of meds with the label that says "non breast feeding moms cabinet" next to a picture of a women pulling down her nursing bra with a label saying "built in medicine cabinet" I'm going to scream.
I'M SO PROUD OF YOU! And so very jealous..good for you, your body works! blech! BTW I vaccinate my child too. *getting off soap box now* Sorry about that..guess I have something new to talk to my shrink about...
We ended up with a great ER doc. He took care of C and got him started on fluids and antibiotics. I have to say we are so lucky to live in Spokane and have access to a pediatric ER at Sacred Heart. It was a blessing! But because C's pulse/ox levels wouldn't stay up where they needed to be we ended up with a slumber party on the pediatric floor of the hospital. It wasn't all that bad..glad it was only one night though! C is a champ, he passed everything with flying colors. They thought as bad as it was he'd be there through the weekend with a possibility of going home on Monday but he must have not wanted that because he was doing great by Saturday afternoon and they sent us home. His only reminder of being in the hospital is a little pin prick where his IV was.
My point to this besides just needing to get it off my chest is to listen to your instincts. You know your child best and if something doesn't seem right push the subject until you get the answers you deserve, be loud! C has a follow up with dr. Jen tomorrow to check that his lungs are still sounding good and that will be the last time we go to that office. I will be interviewing new ped drs immediately. It's too bad that because of a crap staff dr. Jen loses a patient but I need to be at an office where I trust everyone. Now who knows, maybe it was just a cold and possible sore throat on Tuesday and it blossomed into something worse or maybe it was bad to begin with and because I was "overreacting" and cold/flu season they just blew me off but it doesn't matter. I'm his mom and I should have pushed harder.
Lesson learned.
P.S. If you made it this far and are reading this..thank you for sticking with me. Here's some baby love of my little champ.
