My baby is sick

My baby is sick. We were blessed in X's first year with a child who pretty much was never sick. I mean he has his breathing issue (a separate post to come), but no particular illness. But now at 12 months and two weeks, he is making up for lost time. He's had the family cold for the last few days (tired, achy, congested, seriously runny nose) but seemed to be doing a little better. He hasn't needed to swim breathe in order to nurse in a day and he can suck his fingers (the middle and fourth finger of his left hand are his best friends) without choking and having to suck in air through his mouth.

He's been feeling antsy and he was looking better so I took him to the first class session of Baby Boogie at the YMCA (we just joined two weeks ago) this morning. He enjoyed the first part of class, playing with the kids his age (playing = crawling over and attempting to play with the same toys they are already using) and then he suddenly started melting. We were in the middle of doing the "meet another baby" segment of class and he started crying and clinging to me. So I excused myself and sat down to nurse to see if that helped. He hadn't had his morning nap and Em and I had agreed that if he got tired at class, I'd just pack him up and come home. Nursing didn't help and he had started wailing in a way that he has done so rarely that I started getting worried. I strapped him into the Ergo and walked to the bus, took the bus home and walked to the house. He sobbed the entire time. He collapsed into sleep five minutes before I got to the house, but woke as soon as I got inside, beginning to scream, the scream he only does if he is in pain.

He felt hot, so Em and I took his temperature and it was 100.8. We called the doctor and were told to bring him in. We packed him up and took the subway to the clinic while X finally slept for 30 minutes. Em checked us in. She told the office staff we were here for a sick visit, they asked if he had a fever, we said yes, they said don't even sit down, we'll put you in a room and we were ushered right in. They are clearly pulling all potential flu cases out of circulation, which is really smart. He woke up and started crying again and continued to for the full hour we were there, except for five minutes where Em lay on the exam table and held him. The poor baby doc (intern/first year resident, he didn't say) was so scared of him. He found it impossible to listen to X's lungs or check his ears because he wouldn't stop screaming. Babies are like dogs, they can smell fear. The intern finally said he just go get the doctor and fled the room.

I love our pediatric practice. There are four doctors and I like all of them. The doctor we saw today was the only one I hadn't met yet and he was great. Friendly, good with X, and very informative, explaining everything really well. We are really lucky that the practice we had with our awesome insurance pre-job loss is also the practice that runs the peds clinic at the hospital X was born in and takes Medicaid. Dr. G checked his lungs and ears and declared them clear. X's fever had gotten to 101.3 by the time we got to the office. We are to give him tylenol and ibuprofen in rotation to bring down his fever and watch him closely. We took him home and he nursed and fell asleep for an hour and when he woke up, he was much more like the baby we know. Tired and hot, but friendly and smiling and playing some. He went down around an hour early for bed and I am hoping will sleep through the night and feel less dreadful in the morning.