Thursday, June 21, 2012

Sick Babies are Scary

I knew my little man was a little congested but I didn't expected it to get so bad so quickly.  Around 3 on Tuesday, I got a phone call from daycare that Gavin was getting more sick.  Daycare said he was struggling to breathe and had developed a hacking cough.  I left work to pick him up and called the doctors office on the way to see what else I could give him to help him get over this bug.  The nurse told me to bring him in immediately, and told me they have had a significant number of babies coming in with RSV.  I wasn't panicked before, but this news freaked me out.

Shortly after arriving at his doctors appointment his voice completely disappeared.  Surprisingly, he hadn't developed a fever and was still his usual happy-go-lucky self, flirting with the nurse and smiling his gummy smile.  The doctor check Gavin out and then sent us home with a nebulizer and instructions to give him a breathing treatment 3x's a day for a week.  He also told me to call him on Thursday if it didn't seem to help. 

We went home after the appointment and got Gavin situated for bed time but every time he would start drifting off to sleep he would start coughing violently and would wake up.  This continued on until 2 am, when he finally slept until 5:30.  He would periodically take little cat naps here and there for the rest of the day but his coughing almost always woke him up within minutes of falling asleep.  What really scared me was his lack of interest in food and the inability to keep his food down.  I only got him to take 3 1/2 bottles all day, and I am guessing that at least a bottles worth was spit up yesterday. By the end of Wednesday night, I could tell he was just exhausted.   More than once, I began to call the late night pediatrics clinic but decided to see if I waited a little bit longer, he would get  better.

Last night was the second night of very little sleep for the little guy.  He would cry and no sounds would come out, just the sound of labor breathing.  At one point his congestion sounded so bad it sounded like he was drowning. In the early morning hours, my only option was to take him to the Children's Hospital or wait until morning to see our regular doctor.  I know some people reading this are probably wondering why I didn't just take him to the hospital, but I seem to have this fear that I am just an overreacting FTM. After all the doctor would have never sent us home with a nebulizer in the first place if he was just sick with something more worse than a common cold.  I chose to sit by his side all night until I could call the doctors office at 8am to make another appointment.

Once again they told me to bring him in immediately.  Thoughts kept running through my head that I shouldn't have waited until the morning to get medical treatment for him. I felt so guilty every time I hear him cough. 

The doctor told me he didn't think there had been much that had changed in the last two days and that Gavin probably had bronchiolitis (sp?). He then upped the number of breathing treatments I should give him a day (every 3-4 hours).  I think the doctor sensed that I was kind of terrified and told me that no matter if I came in yesterday or today, there wouldn't be much more that I could have done to make him better because this was most likely caused by a virus.  He also told me this virus normally peaks on day three (which this is day 3) and that I should see improvements in the next day or two.  I hope he is right so Gavin (and I) can get a good night of sleep.

Gavin's file must state somewhere that he was conceived through IF treatments and donor sperm because every time I walk into the office someone (nurses and doctors) bring it up.  The doctor just had some general questions for me about the process ( I should state that this doctor isn't my normal ped).  In the conversation I mentioned that I was thinking about going for number 2 next summer and he told me that I had an increased risk of having twins since my first pregnancy was a singleton.  The comment makes me want to talk to my RE sooner about T42. I guess it somewhat makes sense.  You have a 15% chance of getting pregnant naturally each month which equates to 85% of women getting pregnant by the end of one year of trying.  If I remember correctly, my RE told me that 30% of pregnancies using injectables at age 33(although I will be 36 when I start trying again) will result in a twin pregnancy.  Is it logical to think since one out of three pregnancies would result in a twin pregnancy, and that this would be my second pregnancy thus I would be more likely to have multiples? Does that make sense?  If so I might want to hold off another year when Gavin is closer to three before I start trying again.  Ahh its too much to think about right now but the comment is bothering me.  I know I should just call the RE and talk to him about it to see if this is true.

2 comments:

Little One said...

I hope Gavin feels better soon. There is no feeling more helpless than when our Little Ones are sick.

Tiara said...

Oh poor Gavin! It's so awful when your babe is so sick & there's little you can do. Hope he's feeling better.