Here Infection

All last week Brett was fighting off some sort of bug (which is uber weird because he is NEVER sick), so it was really only a matter of time before someone else came down with it as well. And sure enough, on Sunday morning Beatrice woke up with a nice, low grade fever. She was clearly under the weather, but the fever came down with Tylenol and she went down for a nap super early, so I figured she would rest and bounce right back.

But not so much.  When I got her up from her nap the fever was higher (almost 102), and it didn't respond to the Tylenol.  Which isn't surprising in hindsight because I was still dosing her like a 10lb infant, duh.  She was still eating so I wasn't too worried, but she was miserable.  She lay on me for several hours just pitiful and barely moving, until she finally fell back asleep and I put her back in her crib.

But then when she woke up the fever was closer to 103, and for the first time all day she wouldn't eat anything.  So away we went to urgent care without even bothering to wait and see if the Motrin I gave her would finally bring down the fever (it did).

Of course she was feeling better once we were at the doctor's, so the hour and a half wait was super fun for me because she was no longer still, but still didn't feel good so she desperately wanted to be cuddled.  Or held standing up which isn't so easy on the back after awhile.  Cuddling/ holding a 20lb sick, squirmy baby for over an hour in a hard chair is less fun than you'd imagine.  But I'm glad we went because it turns out that she had an ear infection (my very first since becoming a mom almost 7 years ago!), which I never would have even thought of so it would have gotten a lot worse before it got better if I hadn't decided to take her in that day despite my initial intent to wait and see how the Motrin worked.  Mother's intuition is not something to be ignored.

So now we are doing twice daily doses of amoxicillin, and she is almost back to her usual delightful self.  The past few days she has been all smiles and activity, and while her appetite is still down, the fever hasn't come back and she seems to be feeling pretty much ok.  I, on the other hand, am exhausted, because she is all congested and breathing like Darth Vader, which makes me wonder if she is slowly asphyxiating whenever she wakes up at night and starts panting.  Panting is her normal reaction to excitement, and now it is just so much louder, so when it finally quiets down as she falls asleep I have to turn up the monitor so I can hear the little baby snoring to reassure myself she is indeed only sleeping.  Not restful.  I'll be glad when the congestion fully resolves itself and I don't have to worry anymore - and her voice comes back.  It is so much harder to gauge what type of crying is happening when instead of her normal timbre she is bleating like a lamb.  But the total lack of volume sure makes the crying in public easier to handle, lol.

And the waiting is fun too - Brett was sick for 3-4 days before Bebe got sick, so I figure the window on anyone else coming down with this bug is still open.  Considering that Bee was sucking on my face Saturday, I'd put the odds on me.