After a happy Christmas, Miss Evie Mae had an awful first experience with throwing up.
Fourteen hours of it.
Starting at 2 in the morning.
I sat up listening.
Luckily she was in the same room with us,
otherwise I don't know if I would've heard her over the monitor.
The gurgling soon turned into...well a different sound.
It still wasn't any sound I was familiar with,
but right as she started to make it again I realized what'd been happening,
grabbed Jeff and told him she was throwing up.
The next 14 hours were so sad.
For a while it was every hour almost exactly.
We tried bowls, we tried towels, but she seemed to prefer turning
and throwing up on Mama, which sounds gross but somehow wasn't so gross.
Maybe because it was baby puke.
Maybe because we just felt so sorry for her.
Dada was lucky enough to experience it some too.
Grandma Rainy even had it happen to her once.
My mom cleaned everything up while I held Evangeline.
Evie got to watch Polar Express for the first time.
Pretty much the whole thing.
She finally fell asleep right before the end.
I don't know if she was really watching.
We don't let her watch TV, but we didn't know what else to do to distract her.
We called our doctor and they were so shocked when we told them she'd thrown up 10 times already.
Her wet diapers were decreasing quickly, so they told us that 5-10 times is moderate for throwing up and 10 or more times is severe, so we'd have to take her to an ER if she threw up again.
She didn't.
And she luckily had another wet diaper.
We thought she was better after she went to sleep and woke up puke free.
The next day she seemed better, so we headed to our next family visit in Atlanta.
She slept pretty much the whole way minus our two pit stops.
The bad part about the trip was that she had two blow outs on the drive down.
Lucky for us I'd been so scared about her throwing up again, I brought a ton extra clothes for us all.
That night/morning I woke up to her gasping for breath and found her standing up in her bed.
She kept making these horrible sounds from her throat like she couldn't breath.
Then she'd cough, start to panic, and gasp for air again.
I grabbed Jeff and told him she wasn't breathing well.
I was so scared she had croup and we'd have to go to an Atlanta ER.
So sick.
I'd been to Atlanta (never been a fan) several times growing up on youth group temple trips ,
and if you've never seen it...
well an Atlanta ER + baby = something I never hope to experience.
We tried to steam her with a hot shower, but for some reason this Marriott decides no one needs hot water at 4:30 in the morning.
So Jeff boiled lots and lots of water instead until the hot water came on around 7 that morning.
The one great thing about Atlanta was that is was so freezing cold there.
We were worried about her being in the cold while we were there but realized later that the cold is actually what helped her stop coughing for a while.
We left Atlanta a lot earlier than expected because we were so concerned about her.
She seemed better when we got back to NC, put her to bed, and I woke up to her again at 2 in the morning gasping for air.
She and I spent a lot of time in the steamy bathroom or outside in the cold humming this song.
I changed the words to say "everything is gonna be okay" and our
little Evie would calm right down every time.
Poor Jeff was so exhausted from driving and lack of sleep from the previous nights, he didn't even hear her until 7am, which proves how exhausted he was because he's a light sleeper and she was gasping for air/coughing the whole night.
This coughing/gasping turned into wheezing during the morning.
Jeff took over and let me get a little sleep before Evie wanted to nurse again.
Luckily for us I hadn't finished weening Evie and breastmilk was the only thing she'd drink/eat.
By noon when she was still wheezing we called the advice nurse.
She told us to go to the ER right away and when she heard Evie cough/gasp over the phone, she said to not delay.
We choose an ER that was out in the country to avoid the homeless people that might be at the ER in Winston. We don't regret our choice because I know the Winston ER would've been gross.
But this ER experience was ridiculous.
A supposedly 18 minute wait turned into a 5 hour visit.
Lots of Evie screaming. Lots.
Two ROUGH rectal temperatures (her first experience of that ever),
one traumatic chest x-ray,
two hours of waiting for test results for a test that they'd never taken,
one RSV/flu suction,
and two syringes of nasty medicine later...
we got our final diagnosis...
(in a thick Southern accent)
"She Got Dianosed wit da Kroop!"
and tested positive with RSV.
Hopefully 2013 ends better than 2012!
