The Plague Has Arrived

Sickness has struck our little household.

After a lovely Saturday out together (new backpack! Family Day weekend! Riverdale farm!), Amelia got sick that night. It was quite a coincidence actually - I never never never check on her at night, due to the creaky-floor=awake baby=regretful mom situation but for once in six months, I actually decided to take the risk and crept in to see her.

Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see little pieces of something sprinkled all over the inside of the crib. I was like, oh no, what did she get a hold of? Flower petals?? Turns out it was little bits of macaroni and carrot. Everywhere. She had thrown up (in her sleep?) and was soaked with vomit. (One thing I did learn as a result of this was that my baby doesn't really chew her food very well.)

I was so scared, I didn't even know where to start. What do you do - wake them up? Give them a bath at 1.m.? Keep them awake in case they do it again? I felt totally unprepared for such a mom moment. Finally I got it together, though, and got all the tools arranged (soapy water, garbage bags, clean pj's, etc). Ironically, she slept through it all quite peacefully, which scared me even more, because I kept thinking there was something really wrong. Mostly, I kept thinking of what if she'd choked when she was throwing up and we hadn't heard her?

The good news is that she was in great spirits when she woke up to find herself half naked on the change table, having bits of pasta pulled out of her hair. She was like, "Mom woke me up for middle-of-the-night playtime - my favourite!" The poor little chicken didn't even seem that much the worse for having slept in a pool of soaking cold puke, although her little cheek was red from the irritation.

Anyway, we were up until 3 am that night trying to get her back to sleep and then she didn't eat much all day Sunday, which showed us she was sick (had a fever of 100). Sunday night was awful (would only sleep an average of 10-15 minutes at a time for some stretches). Monday was a little better (ate a bit more, no fever) and Monday night was better (slept with me again but for long stretches).

And then today, I was struck down! Woke up very sick (I'll spare you my vomiting stories) and basically had to lie in bed all day. Chris luckily could stay home from work and take lead parent - I don't know what I would've done otherwise. I couldn't eat anything (had two bites of toast and spent the next hour battling the waves to throw it up again) and was very weak and dizzy.

The little monkey meanwhile seemed to be feeling better but then when Chris was feeding her dinner tonight, she threw up all her pureed veggies. Poor thing! And then she just screamed forever at bed time, until I took her into our bed and spent an hour trying to stop her from climbing the headboard (she's now learned to pull herself up holding on to the top!) and go to sleep. Every hour or so since then, she wakes up and cries so pitifully, it breaks my heart. The last time it happened, I had to rock her to sleep and then lie down with her on top of me before she'd fully fall asleep.

Question for all you moms out there: what do you do when your baby is sick but cries endlessly in her crib? When I rock her, she'll sleep okay but the second I try to set her down, she wakes up and screams. And I do need to lie down myself at some point. What did/do you do in those situations?

It's funny how being a mom means you don't come first anymore though. I've spent all evening so far taking care of her despite being weak with nausea myself. It's easy to say, well, what's the alternative, but it's quite a difference compared to how self-centered I was before.

And my biggest worry is that I'll develop a fever and it will hurt the little one on board. They say that you're in the clear once you reach 18 weeks but before that, you're at risk for miscarriage or "malformations." We're at 15 weeks today. Poor little chicken-to-be - I can't imagine any of this is good for her/him.

And to top it all off, Chris said tonight that now he isn't feeling great. He's our last man standing!

Anyway, wish us well. I just ate part of an apple and am keeping it down so maybe things are getting better.