sick baby

"We may have to do a spinal tap" are not words you want to hear from your pediatrician about your 7-week old, let me just say.

Last Tuesday, Hudson woke up with a bit of a fever. He usually feels warm to me when he wakes up--could be the swaddle--but on this morning, he felt extra warm. And then he screamed when I tried to feed him. And he screamed even harder when I tried to set him down. (And Hudson is not a fussy kid, so I knew something had to be really wrong.) My first thought was, "How did Hudson get an ear infection? He's breast fed! And he's not even 8 weeks old!" When I called the pediatricians office, they fit us in right away.

Hudson had a fever of 101.8. He didn't want to be moved and screamed during his exam. I was pretty surprised when the doctor said Hudson didn't have an ear infection. The doctor wasn't able to determine right away the source of the fever...which is when he said we may have to do a spinal tap. I wanted to cry, and probably would have if I didn't feel the need to keep my cool in front of Reese. But the doctor seemed calm, bless him. They gave Hudson some Motrin to see if his fever responded and did a foot prick to do some blood work. The doctor came back in the room as soon as he saw that Hudson's blood work was clear. Phew! And, while we waited, Hudson did appear to respond to the Motrin. He was finally calm for the first time all day. But, of course, I was still on edge. We sat in the exam room for almost two hours waiting for Hudson to pee so they could do a urinalysis. He never did. So, the doctor told us to keep an eye on things and come back the next day. Later that evening, Hudson did manage to eat a little bit and even sat contently on my lap for a while before bed. I was feeling encouraged.

The next morning, Hudson's temperature had spiked to 103. I freaked out and moved our follow-up visit earlier in the morning. Back at the doctor's office, we went through all the same checks--still no ear infection or other obvious reason for the fever--and made another attempt at a urinalysis. It took another two hours to get his urine sample. The doctor said at that point we had two options: check him into the hospital and give him antibiotics, or just keep a close eye on him and come back again the next day. The safer option was to go to the hospital, but the doctor said that Hudson didn't look like a sick kid and responded to Motrin; so when I asked what he would do (this was not a decision I wanted to make by myself), he said he would bring us in for another check up the following morning. I knew my doctor would be on call that night, just in case something happened and we needed to go to the hospital in the middle of the night, so I felt comfortable opting to wait to see how things played out a little bit longer. (I did call Michael and he agreed that we should follow the advice of our doctor and see how Hudson did for the next little while.)

It's a pretty tense feeling to be watching your baby like a hawk trying to decide if his situation is getting worse or remaining the same. With every cry you wonder if he is more uncomfortable than before or just still uncomfortable. Every time you feel his skin you wonder if he is slightly hotter than before, or if the fever is just holding steady. Luckily, Hudson seemed to be feeling better and even slept well all night. So you can imagine my relief the next morning to hear my doctor say that we made the right decision by not checking into the hospital, that Hudson was on the mend, and that whatever virus Hudson caught was running its course. Sigh. His fever never did go back up, he started to eat a little bit more and he slowly but surely got back to his happy self. By the weekend, when my mom came for a quick visit, you would have never even known that he had had a bad week...he was cooing again and making faces.



(see? back to his happy self! and, don't mind the pink blanket...reese loves to trade blankets with hudson.)

So scary to go through this with such a little guy! I don't think Reese caught as much as a cold before she turned at least one, so I felt completely unprepared to take care of a sick infant. So glad it is over and that he made a full recovery! So sweet to hear Reese ask Heavenly Father every time she prays to bless Hudson to be healthy and not have any more tummy aches. Here's to hoping that Hudson's immune system is now completely bolstered!