Sick Baby

Well, our good luck sticking to those regularly scheduled "Well Baby" visits at the pediatrician has run out. I noticed yesterday that Avery had developed a bad-sounding cough. I didn't think much of it as she played, ate and slept normally all day, and wasn't fussy at all. Before putting her to bed, I took her temperature just to put my mind at ease and was startled to find she was running a fever. I called the pediatrician who prescribed Tylenol and asked us to come in this morning.

The doctor checked her and after listening to her breathing, diagnosed a respiratory virus, mostly likely RSV. RSV can be very serious in young infants, but is less of a serious risk in babies over 6 months old. It requires a lot of invasive testing to diagnose, which is why our diagnosis is "most likely RSV." Poor little Avery has to to a two week course of breathing treatments, which she didn't take kindly to this morning when the nurse showed me how to do them.

I filled a laundry list of prescriptions, including one for the breathing device (a Nebulizer) and will be home from work with her today and tomorrow. Hopefully, the fever will go away today and she can go back to daycare Wednesday. For now, I'm trying to remember what I found to watch on daytime TV while I was on maternity leave...

Oh, and did I mention that I'm doing all of this solo? Baby Daddy is away on a business trip. Not an ideal situation for baby girl's first illness, but we're getting through it and learning some important lessons:
1. Trust your maternal instincts. Mommies know their babies best!
2. When administering medicine from a dropper, angle the dropped in towards your baby's cheek. If you put it too far back in her mouth, her gag reflex will trigger and she will vomit all over herself, you, your new leather couch, and your carpet Poltergeist-style. Rookie mistake.
3. Get yourself a good pediatrician and find out what their after hours call policies are. I had our doctor on the phone within 5 minutes of diagnosing Avery's fever. That definitely put me a little more at ease with the fever.

Well, little one is stirring, so Nurse Mommy is back on duty!