Exhaustion and Trauma

Today marks a big milestone for Justin and I as parents. Our first trip to the emergency room. Don't panic, Roxanne is OK, but we had a scare this morning. Not to delve too much back into the poop chronicles, but Roxanne had some diarrhea yesterday, and since I had talked to the pediatrician's office about it Thursday, I decided I would bring her in on Monday. When I called Thursday, the nurse just told me to keep on eye on it, and if it got worse or she showed signs of dehydration, I should bring her in. Of course, none of that happened, but she did have some issues yesterday. The scary part started in the middle of the night last night, when I woke up to see Roxanne had thrown up. I cleaned her up, and since it was just milk and Roxanne was still eating a lot, I decided it could wait until morning, and that we would go to the Children's Healthcare Immediate Care facility over by Northpoint. However, around 9 am (I thought it was 8 because I didn't remember about the time change) Roxanne threw up two more times. Then I got scared. So I called the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta hotline and spoke to a nurse. She told me that since the last throw-up had yellow in it (bile) that I needed to take Roxanne to the closest emergency room immediately.

In tears, we took Roxanne to Piedmont. We were there for about 5 or 6 hours. They weren't able to tell us very much, just that Roxanne is not dehydrated, and that she does not have any blood in her stool. These are good signs. The doctor suggested that it is likely a virus that she caught at day care. Our course of treatment is having her drink ONLY Pedialyte until tomorrow, and to bring her in to the pediatrician tomorrow morning. I'm still nervous for her, and I hope it's nothing serious, but she seems to be feeling better. She threw up several times at the hospital, but she has been keeping the Pedialyte down so far, and it's been a few hours. Her mood has been good throughout all of this (except for when she got really hungry) and was smiling at the doctor and the nurse. She did not like the Pedialyte at the hospital, which was the clear kind, that has no flavoring. So we were bad parents and bought the orange kind at Publix, and Roxanne has been loving it. She's had about six ounces of it in a couple of hours. This is good for her, since she's usually suspicious of anything in a bottle. She also became mesmerized with her feet in our hospital room, and she was staring down at them and making her toes wiggle. She was moving her hand towards her foot, and occasionally managing to make contact. Just on Friday we've noticed that she is starting to reach for things. We are so proud. It's just amazing to watch her concentrating on a toy and then reach her hand towards it.

I guess part of the difficulty I'm having comes from the fact that I have not been coping with being separated from Roxanne very well. I cry almost every day at work, and at night I just feel sort of desperate, and like I'm being cheated out of time with my baby. What could be more important than spending time with my baby? I know she is going to be grown up in a heartbeat, and I just wish I could spend more time with her. I take comfort in the fact that Andrea is a wonderful child care provider. And I realize that there are thousands of moms in much worse positions than me, but that somehow doesn't make my heart hurt any less when I drop her off every morning. Consequently, I'm actively looking for work from home stuff I could do. It's tough since 90% of it is just scams and pyramid schemes. I will do what I have to do, and if our family can't function without me working at my current job, I will do it. But in the meantime, just the act of looking around provides a little comfort.

For now, I'm going to nap. Roxanne has finally fallen asleep, and I think I'll join her. It's been a long day.