sick baby

As you may know already, when we returned from our trip to Ohio, Stella fell sick a few days later. Her symptoms started off with a cold, but she kept getting worse instead of better. The first picture below was taken the day after we got home from Ohio. I took her to my grandparents' house for a visit and she fell asleep on the way home. The poor girl didn't know she would become so sick just a few days later.

peaceful baby

Thursday morning, she coughed so hard that she threw up. At that point, I didn't know if she had the flu or something, but since she only threw up once, I thought it was just a flukey thing. Susie came by after work at 5:30 to visit on her way home. As soon as she walked in the door, Stella coughed and then threw up on me as I was holding her. Talk about a nice welcome for her aunt! We took her to Urgent Care to get her ears checked that night because she kept tugging on them and crying, and she just seemed miserable in general. He checked her ears and they looked fine. That night she cried on and off and her breathing sounded bad, so we sat in the bathroom with her and steamed it up in the hope that would help. In the morning on Friday, we made an appointment with a pediatrician. She had an ear infection and a fever. The dr. sent us home with a prescription for amoxicillin.

on the way to the pediatrician

She slept through the night on Friday, and we thought she was on the mend. Saturday she fussed all the time, which is very unusual for her. She is usually talkative, smiling, laughing, and playful. I would try to nurse her, and she would only nurse for a few seconds or not nurse at all. We tried feeding her baby food and she would clamp her mouth shut. We put her down for a nap, and when she woke up, she seemed even worse: she still had a fever and her breathing sounded labored and we could hear her wheezing.

fever :(

We decided to take her to Urgent Care again because we called the nurses' line and she advised us to do so based on what we told her about the breathing sounding so bad. There was a long wait for our turn, and as we sat there, Stella seemed to be doing better and even laughing and smiling at another little kid. Brett and I laughed at how it seems kids always seem to do better the minute you enter the doctor's office. The dr. saw us and took a look at her chest and ribs to see how she was breathing. She was concerned because we could see her ribs when she breathed-that is how hard she was working to breathe. They swabbed her for a RSV test and gave her a nebulizer treatment while they waited for the quick-results test. Although the test came back negative, the dr. advised us to take her to either Children's or the Methodist Hospital ER because of the way she was breathing. Since Methodist was closer, we drove there.

We got in right away at the ER, but then we waited, waited, and did some more waiting. She threw up again when we got there. (She had an empty stomach and kept swallowing all the junk in her chest - not a good mixture!) They were concerned she wasn't eating, so I tried to nurse her again, but she was still not interested, so they gave her a sippy cup with some apple juice mixed with Pedialyte (she has never sipped from a sippy cup successfully nor ever tasted apple juice before). My mom and dad had come at that point to bring us dinner (we had been at Urgent Care and then ER for a few hours and it was now dinnertime), and Mom was able to get Stella to take some sips, but it was still not enough. They came back and took Stella to another room to get her chest x-rayed. The ER doctor saw pneumonia in her lungs and then conferred with the pediatrician on call on the pediatrics floor, and they thought that she should stay over night for treatment and monitoring.

feeling miserable in the ER

The pediatrician was so nice. She came in and explained what was going on. She diagnosed Stella with bronchiolitis (yes, it is different than bronchitis), pneumonia, dehydration, and diarrhea. She said that there was also a possibility that she had RSV as well and explained that even though the test came back as negative, that didn't necessarily mean that she didn't have RSV since the test result depends on the person who administers the test (they have to swab pretty far back in the nose). Since Stella had already gone through so much, and because they knew she had pneumonia and bronchiolitis, she didn't want to bother an already miserable baby with another test. The dr. took a hook and removed a bunch of wax from Stella's ears. This actually helped her to want to nurse a little bit. Unfortunately, after I nursed her, she threw up all over me again. Poor thing.

our sad, sick stella joy

IV put in and ready to be hooked up to fluids, antibiotic, and a steroid upstairs in pediatrics

After what seemed like forever, she was finally hooked up to the IV. I was able to nurse her before she fell asleep, and she kept it down this time. As a mother, it was so hard on me when she wasn't nursing nearly that whole day, and when she finally did nurse and kept it down, that was such a relief.

Brett and I shared a tiny hospital bed that night and we only slept a couple hours. At one point when I was holding her and rocking her in a rocking chair, she fell asleep, and I cried. I was so exhausted from worrying about her and seeing her suffer. It was a relief that she was getting the care she needed and that she was now nursing. It was pretty rough because Stella woke up a lot, too, and they also had to check her vitals, her temperature, and give her breathing treatments throughout the night.  The following morning was Sunday, and my parents visited us before church. My sister, Susie and her husband, Jesse also dropped by. Stella had a brief period of playfulness and perked up for awhile, only to conk out exhausted immediately afterward.

fascinated watching a baby mozart video

There was lots of cuddling and wanting to be held.

Brett calming her down by singing Amazing Grace

We stayed at the hospital all day Sunday so that she could be monitored and finally got to go home at around 7 at night. The day seemed to drag on and on, and I was so happy when Susie came by later again to visit. The dr. sent us home with a nebulizer. We went home and it took us about three hours to put Stella to bed instead of the usual 5 minutes. She only wanted me to hold her. As soon as I would try to lay her down in her crib, she would scream and cry. Since she had been through so much, I just rocked her and held her and then she finally fell asleep.

Brett took the Monday off because he was so tired and also wanted to help me, too. He was able to do some work from home, so that was good. Naomi dropped by with a meal for us and these lovely flowers for Stella.

I took her back to a pediatrician for a followup, and the dr. was concerned about Stella's weight loss during her time of being ill. She weighs 16 lbs. 6 oz. and so she told me to keep pushing the baby food. Fortunately, her appetite returned and I have been able to feed her what she was eating before she became sick. She is pretty petite to begin with (50% for weight; 75-90% for length), so that extra weight loss put her in the 25% range for weight.

Being back at Methodist felt so surreal, considering I had just given birth to her at the same hospital 8 1/2 months earlier! We felt encouraged by our friends' and family's prayers, messages, and visits. God was so good to us and healed our little one very quickly. I am so delighted to see her laughing and back to her playful little self again.

we bought her a sippy cup with a straw and she is doing great with it!

a few days after being home from the hospital