Oh the frustration of being a mom and watching your kid be so sick and not be able to do much! I'm quite thankful that Rachel isn't dealthy sick or even running a fever...but since I've not had much experience with infants, the last few days have left me completely worn out of worry.
This all really started on Thursday. I noticed she'd developed a little cough, which if you'll remember I described as, "Sad, but cute." I no longer think that.
Thursday night she was making such awful noises in her sleep it would wake her up and make her cry. You know how it feels when your nose has drained into your throat and it's just stuck there? You can either cough or clear your throat. Rachel doesn't know how to do that or that she should, so that gunk just sits there preventing her from breathing properly and it frustrates her.
I finally relented around 4:30AM of trying to let her just sleep and decided to help clear out her nose like my mom had taught me. It worked like a charm and we finally got her back to sleep around 5:30. She got up around 8 and we took her to day care where they told me she slept most of the day. By the time we picked her up her congestion had gotten a little worse.
We noticed that she doesn't have as much trouble breathing when she's sitting up. So we've kept her in her car seat as it keeps her mostly upright. That night I tried to get her to sleep, but she kept waking up. I finally relented and let Jason go to bed since I'd gotten a little bit of sleep. This way he could get rested since he was up with her during the nose cleaning incident the night before and could relieve me and let me sleep during the day.
Then today, Saturday, came. She didn't sleep much thru the night again, so we all slept as much as possible during the early to late morning.
As a precaution, I called the doctor. The noises she was making were getting worse and she didn't want to eat. And when she was eating, it was all coming back up. The doctor said they were only open for 10 more minutes and we should probably go to the ER. *sigh* Not what I wanted to hear. An Emergency Room is just that: a room for EMERGENCIES. This is not an emergency. So I talked to Jason and we decided that would be a last resort option.
We tried to soothe her as best we could by getting a vaporizer and some baby vapo-rub. It seemed to help, but my concern came about with an odd bump located in her diaper region and the fact that she was not keeping food down.
This is where I thank the Lord for moms who have been through this or know what to do. It's so much easier for me to help people when I'm not on the inside of the situation. But in this case, I called for the best reinforcement I could think of: my mother. Praise the Lord for my mother having 3 kids of her own as well as a career in taking care of children in the hospital. She told me to stop giving her formula as it was just thickening the gunk. Give her water or Pediasure. Keep up with the vapo rub. And don't take her to the ER unless she needs it. Without a fever and diarhea, she's just fighting the day care germs.
Oh what relief!! Just getting that type of advice or direction gives me more confidence to keep doing what we were doing. I knew she wasn't overly sick, just a little baby cold (which is actually a big cold for a baby).
So we're going to spend tomorrow resting in hopes that we all can make it thru next week. I think I might be catching whatever it is she has and I don't want Jason to fall ill as well...although we were warned that we'd all get it!
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