Last night was a night like we haven't had in more than a year. Both Gerry and Bailey were in bed and asleep by 9pm. There were no bedtime battles...no whining...no crying...no begging to stay up later and watch tv with mommy and daddy. It was, in a word, amazing.
I put Gerry to bed at 7:45, fully expecting his now-normal screaming fit but he surprised me. He whined for a minute and stood back up in his crib, but I laid him back down and gave him his bottle, and he was out cold in a matter of minutes. And Bailey...oh, my Bailey. She hasn't gone to bed before 10pm in at least a year. She doesn't fight it like Gerry has been lately, with tears or screaming, but she's a master negotiator, always asking for one more show, for mommy or daddy to lay with her "for these many minutes", not staying in her bed. There were nights {many, many more than I'd like to admit} where Scott and I would go to bed around 11pm or midnight and Bailey was still wide awake. And then, of course, she'd creep into our bedroom in the middle of the night asking for juice, for one more show, anything to keep from having to actually sleep. Eventually, we just kind of gave up on an actual "bedtime" and just let her pass out whenever she felt like it.
But last night, after Gerry had gone down so easily for me I figured what the heck? Why not try and get Bailey to actually sleep in her bed at a decent hour for once? She was "helping" us fold laundry around 8:15 and I gave her the warning that when the laundry was folded it was time for her to go to bed. By 8:30, we were walking upstairs to her bedroom -- without a fight or a word of protest from her. Scott and I looked at each other and shook our heads in disbelief. Don't jinx this.
We tucked her into bed, gave her a million and one kisses, turned on her night light, and went back downstairs. I don't know about Scott, but I hightailed it out of there on my tip toes like my hair was on fire. No way was I going to hang around and potentially screw this magical evening up. So Scott and I settled on the couch with some drinks and Game Of Thrones ready to go on the DVR and we didn't hear a peep from upstairs.
Until Bailey came flying down 20 minutes later.
I'll give her this: she tried her damnedest. "Please can I stay down here with you, Daddy? I just love you guys. Please, please, please?" I saw Scott wavering and I stuck to my guns. When *I* started wavering, I resorted to less-than-honorable tactics. "You know, Bail...they won't let little girls who don't sleep play t-ball." I asked her if she thought I should call her coach and tell him she won't be playing after all, and she nodded her head. So then I just basically said, too bad. I gave her a piggy-back ride to her bedroom, tucked her back in, gave her a million and one kisses, and reminded her that if she wasn't tired she didn't have to go to sleep but that she did have to stay in her bedroom. And I didn't hear from her again until she woke up at just after 8 this morning. And, with the exception of one quick wake-up around midnight, Gerry slept all the way through, too. Success!
It's been months since we've gotten anything resembling a decent night's sleep. Months. Just when I thought I was hitting my breaking point with Gerry, some switch flipped and he decided that freaking out at bedtime and waking up 4-5 times during the night wasn't fun anymore. I've probably jinxed myself by posting this...and I'm crossing my fingers for another restful repeat tonight!
Oooh, Gerry. I love this boy, but he is slowly, slowly draining the life out of me.
For the past week and a half or so, nighttime has been a nightmare. His normal bedtime is between 7 and 7:30pm, but he's been freaking out when we put him down. I'm a total wuss when it comes to my kids crying at bedtime, so I always just bring him back downstairs with me for a bit. This past week, I haven't even attempted to put him to bed before 8pm, and it's still a battle.
Gerry used to just take a bottle and go right to sleep with no problem. He was always my good sleeper and I used to brag about how awesome he was with it {especially after surviving Bailey's nighttime battles}. Not so much anymore! Instead of just rolling over, clutching his stuffed bear, and drifting off to sleep like he's always done, Gerry has started fighting the whole process big time. We always say, "Alright, Gerry, time to go night-night! Say night-night to Bailey!" And then she and Scott tell him goodnight and give him kisses and up the stairs he and I go. And he's perfectly fine and happy...until I go to lay him down in his crib. At this point, he just starts whining, which leads to crying, which leads to full-on screaming if I don't pick him up again. And he really lays the guilt trip on thick these days, too, standing up in his crib with his arms held out to me and whining, "Mom-my...mom-myyyy". How can I just turn away from that?
So I do what most "experts" would say is a big no-no and I pick him up out of the crib.
I hold him close and whisper in his ear that it's bedtime and time to go to sleep. I walk around his room with him in my arms, and if he's crying I sing "Hush Little Baby, Don't Say a Word" {and make shit up, because who really knows all the words to that song?} because he calms down as soon as he hears it. And then, when he's calm and I think he's ready to lay down, I gently lower him into his crib. And he rolls over and stands up and starts screaming again. Rinse and repeat. And then when he finally does go to sleep, it's only a matter of hours before he wakes up screaming again. My formerly awesome sleeper is no longer sleeping through the night. Like, at all. Last night it took us until 9pm before he actually went to sleep, and he woke up twice. The night before that he was up four times.
I hate not knowing why he's crying. I've tried giving him Tylenol in case his teeth were hurting {he did sprout a couple more teeth this week}, I tried extra talking and snuggles before putting him to bed, we've tried rough-housing and running around in an effort to tire him out before bedtime. Hell, yesterday I changed his clean sheets just in case they were the problem. The "bedtime battle" still ensued.
I can't bring myself to just let him cry. He's 14 months old and I know he's old enough to be sleeping through the night and yada, yada, yada...but I can't do it. I've always believed that, no matter how old they are, if your kid is crying in the middle of the night, there is a reason. He might be crying about something as silly and simple as the fact that he's just missing mommy and daddy, or something more serious like pain or a fever. But I really do feel that {for me, personally} a kid's cries during the night shouldn't go ignored.
So, I haven't been sleeping much these last couple weeks. And I'm exhausted. I know this is "just a phase" and in a few more weeks he'll be back to sleeping just fine and these last few sleepless weeks will just be a distant memory. But in the meantime...man, does it suck.
As usual, I'm not 100% on dates here, but I'm thinking this picture was taken in the late '80s. My sister {on the left} looks to be about 2 years old, which would make me 3. And that's my mom smiling behind us because we're such awesome kids. {insert sarcasm font here}
Look at the big cheesy grin on my face. I'm thrilled, probably, because (1) I'm buried in the sand which, to any 3-year-old, is an awesome time; and (2) because my sister has a mouthful of sand {check out her face} which I was mature enough, even then, to know is not a viable option for eating. She's a lot thinner than me now, though, so maybe I should have eaten more sand as a kid.
Awesomely enough, more than 25 years after this picture was taken we still go to the beach for vacation each year. Back then, there were just a few of us -- my mom, my sister and I, my grandparents, and maybe an aunt or uncle. Now, though, we go as a gang. My parents, my brother and sister and me, our husbands and {my brother's} fiance, our grandparents, 2 sets of aunts and uncles, 3 cousins, and 4 grandkids. We travel in a pack these days!
A friend of mine is pregnant and having a rough time of it. Exhausted, nauseous most of the time, and just general feelings of blah-ness. She mentioned to me the other day that, almost halfway through the pregnancy, she still isn't feeling well and is worried that she's not feeling that excitement and that bond with her baby that she thought she was supposed to feel. Her worries made me reflect on both of my pregnancies and "inspired" this post because I felt much the same way she is now during my second pregnancy. And, like her, I felt worried and inadequate because I didn't feel that instant connection to my baby. And no one told me that this is completely normal. So I'm going to say it -- it's completely normal to not feel thrilled and elated and connected to your baby during pregnancy.
When I found out I was pregnant with Bailey, I did feel thrilled and elated. I felt like finally...finally...I was doing something I was "meant to be" doing. I felt connected and felt that bond pretty much immediately, and I enjoyed every second of my pregnancy and her birth. I was expecting the same feelings when I found out I was pregnant for the second time and felt, in a way, ashamed when I didn't.
I spent weeks after finding out we were expecting again just waiting for those feelings to come. The complete and utter "one-ness" with my body and my baby. The fragile yet overwhelming peace of realizing that I get to do this all over again. The joy. I waited and I waited and...it never came. Unlike my first pregnancy, I was working from home this time around, running my own daycare. For 12 hours a day I was the only adult around surrounded by tiny little tyrants who, while very adorable, were sucking the very life out of me a little bit at a time every single day. And then when daycare "closed" for the day I was 100% in Mommy Mode, getting dinner cooked and ready, playing with Bailey and diffusing any boo-boos or tantrums, getting her bathed and then enduring the almost hour-long production that was bedtime before passing out myself. It was the holidays and Scott was working his part-time job, so the parental duties fell almost entirely to me just about all of the time. I was busy and exhausted, and so focused on soaking up every single moment with Bailey before she became a big sister that I didn't get much of a chance to sit and attempt that bonding with Gerry. There were times, of course {many of them}, when I sat down with my hands on my belly and tried to feel something. Something that let me know that this baby and I were connected...that this was meant to be...that he knew, even on the inside, how much he was loved and wanted. And it never came. Sure, I was excited. Of course I wanted this baby. And I absolutely loved him the minute I got that positive pregnancy test. But I was busy raising my first baby and working 60 hour weeks. I was in pain a lot of the time. And I was tired -- so very, very tired. I'd feel Gerry rolling and kicking and, in that millisecond before feeling a rush of love, I'd feel just the tiniest flicker of annoyance because it only exacerbated the pain I was already feeling.
In the weeks before he was born, I worried so much about my ability to love another child. I adore Bailey and I worried about how she would handle having a younger sibling taking some of the attention normally reserved for her. I worried that this baby would grow up feeling like I didn't love him as much as I loved his sister. I had nightmares that I just left him all alone in his crib until he was old enough to climb out and fend for himself. I worried that I wouldn't have enough time to try and create some sort of bond with him after he was born because I was only taking a week's maternity leave. I worried that I wouldn't be good enough. I just worried.
The night before Gerry was born, I cried. I was scheduled for an induction the next day and Bailey was staying with my parents so that Scott and I could just head to the hospital as soon as daycare closed for the day. I missed her and I was sad that she was spending her last night as an only child away from Scott and me.
Gerry's birth was somewhat unexpected for me. My epidural failed, and I wasn't prepared for a painful delivery. My focus during the hustle and bustle at this point was less on the sweet moment of meeting my baby for the first time and more on getting him out so the pain would go away. When he was born and the nurses took him across the room to weigh and measure him, I felt nothing but relief. Relief that it was over, relief that I didn't have to lug around a huge belly anymore.
Relief.
I didn't strain my neck to see him and my arms weren't itching to hold him like they did in the first few moments after Bailey was born. Truth be told, at that moment, I would have rather taken a nap. But then the nurse brought him over and laid him in my arms. I looked at his tiny little face and there it was. The love. The joy. The bond.
Your hormones are all over the place after giving birth and in that moment I was just hit with wave after wave after wave of love for this little boy. For days afterward I would just gaze at his sweet little face, drinking in his big blue eyes, his tiny little bird mouth, his button nose that was so much like his sister's when she was born. A case of jaundice left us with strict instructions from the doctors to keep him near sunlight as often as possible, and I'd snuggle up with him by the window and talk to him about life and how much I loved him. I caught up on all the bonding that we'd missed out on in the previous 10 months, and it was wonderful.
Today, Gerry is 14 months old. Scott and I call him a beast because he's into everything. Any opportunity he gets to make a mess, open a door, or throw something he takes. And he takes an obscene amount of pleasure in being mischievous. But when he gets hurt or scared or overly happy, guess what? He comes toddling over to me. He follows me from room to room, lifting his arms up for me to hold him. He giggles when I tickle him and he's just started to give hugs and kisses unprompted.
That bond that I was so worried about not feeling a year ago? It is absolutely there. In every smile, in every tear, in every single time he walks over and sits in my lap or raises his arms to be held. It's there.
TGIF!! I am soooo ready to get the weekend started.
We've got plans to get hair cuts (Scott and Gerry) and highlights (me) at my sister's house tonight, and I seriously can't wait. I'm 29 years old and I have gray hair. There. I said it. Thank God I have a sister who's a cosmetologist, otherwise I'd go broke getting my hair done every couple of weeks. That, or I'd just be cheap embrace the gray that continues to creep up on me at an alarming speed.
Scott is with Gerry right now at his 12 month check-up. Yes, he's 14 months old, but I completely dropped the ball and forgot to schedule his 12-month, so we're doing it a little late. Poor kid has to get a shot today...he walked out the door with his usual goofy smile this morning, having no clue what awaits him when he gets to the doctor's office.
He's still been pretty clingy lately, but I think it's due in large part to the fact that he got a ton of new teeth in the last week...like 6 or 7 of them all at once. When he's not hanging on my pants or whining to be picked up, Gerry is quite the mischievous little guy. We've had to buy a toilet seat lock because G thought it was his own personal splash pad. We're <this close> to running out and purchasing a refrigerator door lock, and I'm pretty sure the only thing holding us back is the fear that we won't be able to work it. For now, we're just continually running back and forth from the living room to the kitchen and calling out different variations of "Gerry! Get out of the fridge!" He figured out how to open the drawers in there, so I keep finding apples and strawberries on the shelves with a few teeny bites taken out of them.
Nap time has been interesting, to say the least. He goes down with no problem but when he wakes up he causes all sorts of trouble. Without making a sound. The other day, he talked and giggled to himself for almost an hour before falling asleep. When I stopped hearing him on the monitor, I went upstairs to check on him and make sure he was asleep, and I found this.
No pants. One sock missing. All of his stuffed animals and blanket thrown out of the crib. The blinds torn. In the big picture, he's sleeping on top of the changing pad that he pulled into the crib with him. But look how peaceful he looks! (I never did find his pants...they've been mysteriously missing since he took them off.)
He's pretty much mastered stairs, and is able to climb up and down a flight with ease. Watching him go downstairs still makes me nervous...he used to just slide down backwards on his belly, but yesterday he started attempting to actually stand up and walk down. He is fearless! I, on the other hand, feel like I need to be medicated when he does stuff like this.
Also, it cracks me up when he grabs a book and sits down in his Mickey Mouse chair. Such a scholar!
In addition to all this, he's walking like a pro these days, and I'm not entirely sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing...
We're also working on teaching him some manners...
Now. On to Bailey. She is fantastic as ever. Still a night owl...still sassy...still my favorite little girl. She and Scott had their annual Daddy Daughter Date Night at Chick-Fil-A on Monday, and B had a blast. She spent an insane amount of time choosing just the right dress to wear for Daddy. In the end, she picked her Easter dress from last year. Surprisingly, it still fit her. She got to wear her fancy new Easter shoes with the high heels, and we did her hair and put some lip gloss and perfume on her.
"Mommy, get a picture of the back of my pretty dress!"
We signed her up for t-ball yesterday, and she is beyond thrilled. I don't have any information yet about practices and/or games, but I got an email saying to look out for the Little League newsletter for more information. I think I'm just as excited as Bailey is! I played t-ball for the same league when I was little (back then they called it "lassie ball") and I remember having so much fun. I'm excited for B to get involved in a team sport, even if she is young. She took dance classes last year and I teared up at her recital. It was so, so cool to watch her up there on that stage in her little tutu and tap shoes. That was the first time that she'd done something completely 100% without my involvement (parents weren't allowed in classes and we couldn't be up there on stage with them the night of their recital), and I was so incredibly proud watching her. She keeps telling me, "I can't WAIT to play baseball!"
When I told her that I had signed her up yesterday, she was so excited she ran up to her room and came back down wearing this shirt:
She said, "Look, Mom! I'm wearing my baseball shirt!" It's actually Scott's soccer shirt from when he was a kid, but hey. It works. She's pumped and I'm not messing with that.
It's TBT again! This photo of my Pop Pop and me was taken sometime in the mid-'80s...I'm thinking 1985 0r '86, based on how small I am. My parents were very, very young when I was born, and still lived with my dad's parents. Growing up, I always heard stories from my mom and my Mom Mom about how my grandfather would quietly sneak into my parents' bedroom when I was a baby, take me out of my crib, and put me in a bouncy seat on the kitchen table to "chat" while he brewed coffee and cooked breakfast.
Over the years, I've been blessed to enjoy weekends and vacations and sleepovers and random days with both my Pop Pop and my Mom Mom. Growing up, their home was my home, and was always one of my very favorite places to be. My grandfather and I share a love of coffee (though not as strong as the love for coffee that my grandmother and I share!), black licorice, figs, breakfast, and all things family. He is one of my most favorite people in this world and someone that I have always and will always look up to. Smile, Pop Pop!
First things first. Scott and I are planning a date night tonight, and I'm ridiculously excited about it. No kids all night. Alcohol will be involved. Fun will be had.
Starbucks has recently come out with pink cozys (cozies?) for their hot beverages and I love them. I'm not a pink person, but I AM a coffee lover, and this pink cozy wrapped around my mocha last night made me incredibly happy. It's the little things, guys.
Speaking of coffee, check out my handsome Friday morning coffee date.
He's usually up fairly early, so we enjoy coffee (for me) and a bottle (for him) together when he wakes up and before our day gets crazy. When he finishes his bottle, he likes to pretend to drink from my coffee mug. And I let him, even though there's usually still a sip of lukewarm decaf left in there. Start 'em early, I say!
While we're on the subject of Little Man...he's been soooo clingy lately. More so than usual. To the point where I can't get anything done and most days I count the minutes until bed time. He's walking now, but he constantly wants to be held and carried and God forbid I try to wash the dishes or go to the bathroom without him. It drives me crazy sometimes, but then I realize that one day very, very soon he's not going to want me to carry him anymore. He won't come to me and lift his arms up for me to hold him and he'll be running away from me before I know it. So, as tiring as it can get, I lift him up. I snuggle his little body close to me and I kiss his cheeks and I hold him until he squirms to get down. And when he comes back to me 3 minutes later, whining and pulling on my pant legs wanting to be held again, I stop what I'm doing and I pick him up again. And I snuggle him close and kiss his cheeks and hold him until he squirms to get down. We dance this dance over and over and over again throughout the day, and we're both pros at the steps.
Bailey has become quite the daddy's girl lately, especially this past week. She stops what she's doing in the middle of the day and tells me she misses him when he's at work, and when he gets home she wants hang all over him and talk a mile a minute about anything and everything. She's nuts for him.
She's also really into using the computer these days. She uses ABCMouse.com and she loves it. Parents, this is a great learning website! You have to pay for it, but it keeps her occupied and she's learning and really enjoying it. I highly recommend it!
Also, she got busted drinking my coffee the other day and, because it's what I do, I took a picture of her face when I caught her.
Not too much else going on these days, though there's also never a dull moment in our house. Til next time!
This was our engagement portrait, taken in 2009. I can remember this day so clearly still. Our photographer kept having us walk around holding hands, and kept telling us to "stop and kiss each other". I'm not huge on PDA, and definitely not forced or posed PDA, so it was strange for me to walk-stop-kiss-repeat. When all was said and done, we had 1700 pictures and were told to choose one to display at our wedding in a frame for all of our guests to sign. One picture. Out of 1700. We didn't go with a kissing photo because they all looked awkward and forced to me. We didn't go with the far away shot of the two of us holding hands in front of a barn because why would we want a far-away shot of us and a barn? Instead, after hours of viewing and debating, we chose this one. A close-up of the two of us. The lighting is good, we're standing close together, and we're happy. It's not the greatest photo we've ever taken, but we like it.
Since this photo was taken we've gotten married, bought a house, had two kids, lost a bunch of weight (Scott), gained some weight (me), and laughed more than I've ever thought possible. It feels cheesy to say "I married my best friend", but I did. The years haven't always been easy and any marriage takes work, but we're happy. We've come so far and we've accomplished so much together, and I know there's so much more in store for us. When this picture was taken we didn't know that we'd have a baby the following year. Or another one after that. We didn't know that Scott would be offered a good teaching job, or that I would leave my job to open my home daycare in order to stay home with our kids. We don't have as many laugh lines in this picture as we do now, or as much gray in our hair (and I still don't, thanks to a cosmetologist sister and the wonders of hair color). When this picture was taken, we didn't know about the wonderful vacations we'd take as a family, or the little day-to-day doings that we'd turn into family time. We didn't know all the little ways that becoming parents would change us. We didn't know about the daily joys and struggles that would make up our adult life and bring us even closer together. We had no clue what was to come, but we were looking forward to it all. We were excited. And today, five years after this picture was taken, we still don't know what's in store for us in our future. But we do know love. And happiness. And joy and excitement. We've learned that it's the little things that make the biggest impact in our marriage. We've learned to find joy in the smallest aspects of our lives. We're still as in love today as we were when this picture was taken. More so, even. And it's only getting better.
We're still snowed in (we got over a foot yesterday), so we're all enjoying our day at home. Scott got coffee and donuts for breakfast, and we gave the kids their Valentine treats from us.
The plan for tonight is a little shopping and dinner out...the restaurant we're going to has an ice cream bar and Bailey is downright thrilled.
Hope you're all enjoying your Valentine's day! From my little valentines to yours...
I'm used to illness. I was sick a lot as a kid and Bailey had her fair share of illness her first year (fevers, RSV, Roseola, vomiting and the usual colds and illnesses) and Gerry has had his fair share of ear infections and colds. I'm no stranger to doctor's offices and hospitals. But this past weekend, we hit a new level of health scares. At 13 months old, Gerry had a seizure and it was the most frightening thing I've dealt with as a parent.
Saturday night started out like any other. I put Gerry to bed around 8:30, a little later than normal because we had been visiting my parents and my brother. Bailey was spending the night with Scott's parents, and he and I were watching tv in bed. Around 11:15pm Gerry woke up crying. He does this every once in awhile, so we decided to leave him be for a few minutes to see if, like always, he'd fall back to sleep on his own. After a minute, his cries turned to screams like we'd never heard before and I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall to his bedroom. He was lying on his belly in his crib, which is nothing new (he falls asleep on his back, but always rolls over to his belly in the middle of the night), and he didn't roll over when I leaned over the side of the crib and touched him. He was just laying there crying, completely unable to lift himself or roll himself over. I grabbed him up out of the crib and ran down the hall to our bedroom and told Scott, "I don't think he can move his arms." Scott took him and snuggled him to his chest, rubbing Gerry's back and murmuring soothing words in his ear. He wasn't calming down and still wasn't moving his arms; not lifting them to reach for us or to hold anything. Then he stopped screaming and got this blank look on his face. He stared into space for a second and then his upper body started shaking back and forth. A minute later his eyes came back into focus and he started screaming again. Then the blank stare and rocking back and forth. This pattern repeated for about 25 minutes, with him going out of it and rocking about 6 times. After the 4th time, he wasn't screaming in between anymore--just silent. Scott and I got dressed, grabbed the diaper bag (always have one packed and ready to go, moms!) and took Gerry to our local ER.
The ride to the ER was a quiet one. Gerry didn't speak, didn't babble or giggle like he usually does in the car. He moaned a few times, but was mostly silent. We got there around midnight and were immediately taken back. Vitals were taken, along with Gerry's temperature (he'd had a low fever around 7:30pm but a dose of Advil brought it back down to normal), and the doctor had us change him into a hospital gown...the teeniest, tiniest little hospital gown I've ever seen.
After 2 1/2 hours in the ER and a very thorough explanation to the doctor and nurse about Gerry's "episode", it was determined that the doctor here didn't feel comfortable diagnosing or treating Gerry since she hadn't seen the episode herself. She made a call down to Children's hospital in Philadelphia, and an ambulance came to transport us down there so he could be evaluated by the Pediatric Neurology team there.
We loaded into the ambulance around 2:40am and made sure that Scott was following behind us in our car. By this point, Gerry had been awake for 6 hours and I knew he was exhausted. He was bundled up in his car seat and kept dozing off, but then his eyes would pop open and he'd look around. I kept talking to him and reassuring him that I was there (who knows if he understood what I was saying or not, but at least he could see me and knew he wasn't all alone) and he'd start to doze off again but then pop back up. We made it to CHOP a little after 3am and were admitted, taken to our room, and met with another doctor and nurse. While we were relaying the events of the night before to the doctor and nurse and they were checking his vitals, Scott noticed that Gerry had a rash on his back--and his arms, legs, back and belly. His cheeks were really red, too, and it turned out he had spiked a fever of 103 in the ambulance on our way over. He was given Tylenol for the fever and rash (which both cleared up in about an hour) and then it was a waiting game. We spent the next few hours (unsuccessfully) trying to get Gerry to sleep, but he wasn't having it. He wanted to be held the whole time we were there, and he cried every time a doctor or nurse came near him.
It hurt my heart to see him looking so incredibly small in this big hospital crib
At 6am I gave up trying to get him to sleep in the crib and went down to the parking garage to get his stroller from the car. I made him a bottle, snuggled him up, and rocked him back and forth in that thing for about 10 minutes before he finally fell asleep. Scott was passed out on the couch so I wheeled Gerry over next to him and snuck down to the cafeteria for some much-needed caffeine.
I got back to our room about 15 minutes later and Scott and Gerry were both still asleep. I turned on the news, called Scott's parents to check up on Bailey, and downed my coffee. As I was finishing up, the doctor came back to the room to let us know that they needed to draw blood and do an EEG in about an hour or two. Poor Gerry was only going to get about 2.5 hours of sleep before we had to wake him up and put him through hell.
As expected, the blood draw was horrible. Thank God the nurse knew what she was doing because Scott and I were a wreck. We laid Gerry down in that giant hospital crib, and Scott held his flailing legs still while the nurse held his arm out and I positioned myself right up by his face. He was scared and he cried, and as soon as the needle went into his arm he screamed and thrashed like I've never seen. I kissed his cheeks and wiped his tears and stroked the arm that wasn't being stuck with a needle, all the while whispering in his ear that I was so sorry and that it would be over soon. Two tubes of blood were drawn, and Gerry looked into my eyes and cried the whole time. I felt so guilty and so sad for him and so utterly helpless. He was scared and he hurt, and I couldn't do anything but stand there and watch. As soon as the nurse put some gauze and a bandaid on his arm I scooped him up out of that crib and snuggled him as close as I could. He was still crying and squeezing me so tight and, I'm not ashamed to admit this, I cried too. I know it was necessary, all the testing and poking and prodding they were doing was necessary, but it didn't make me feel any less awful and it didn't make me hurt any less for my baby.
After the blood draw, Gerry and I walked down the hall to the play room. He was completely worn out by this point and couldn't have cared less about all the cool toys and books in the room. He snuggled up in my lap with his blanket from home and watched Blue's Clues on the tv. He didn't move except to sigh every once in awhile or to rub his soft blanket against his cheek while he leaned against my chest. So there we sat, until he started to yawn loudly. Then I scooped him up and carried him back to his room for a bottle and a nap.
An hour and a half later, it was time for his EEG. The nurse who would be doing the test, Irene, was quite possibly the nicest woman I've ever met. She explained to us how the test would go, and tried to get a grumpy Gerry to smile while she spoke with us. Everything was fine until we walked down the hall and into the room where the EEG would be performed. It was a small room with a long table in the center. The lights were dimmed and quiet music was playing, and Irene reminded me that this wouldn't hurt a bit and that she could start as soon as I laid Gerry down on the table. Simple, right? Except that as soon as I loosened my grip on Gerry he screamed bloody murder...and didn't stop for 30 minutes while the EEG was taking place. Irene ended up having to fold him up in a papoose, which terrified him and made him scream even louder, but it was the only way to keep him from reaching up and pulling off the electrodes attached to his head. And so went 20 minutes of him non-stop screaming. He had one arm free, and kept reaching for me with his chubby little hand. I leaned down and snuggled against his neck, whispered and sang in his ear, tried to make my voice as calm and soothing as possible even though inside I felt sick and sad for my baby, and guilty that I was putting him through this. The whole time he was crying, he kept looking into my eyes and I could feel how frightened he was. How exhausted. How done. So I did the only thing I could do in that moment. While Scott stood next to me and rubbed Gerry's feet, I held his hand and wiped his tears and kissed his sweaty little cheeks and held back my own tears as best I could. We were able to unwrap him and hold him for the last few minutes of the EEG, and Scott rubbed his back and played Peek-a-boo with him while I held him, and in minutes he had calmed down.
Smiling again after blood work and an EEG
We went back to our room and cleaned him up, then gave him a bottle and got him ready for yet another nap (poor boy hadn't slept at all the night before, and was only able to catch an hour here and there before another nurse or doctor woke him up for vitals or more testing). Luckily, there weren't anymore blood draws or electronic tests that needed to be done. The neurology department was reading the results of his EEG, and our job was to wait. Gerry had lunch, Scott and I had coffee, and my sister and brother-in-law brought Bailey by for a visit (she had spent the night before at her grandparents' house, which couldn't have worked out better if we'd planned this whole hospital trip). A little while later, a resident with the neurology department came to talk to us. He explained that all of Gerry's blood work and his EEG looked normal. He had a few extra brain waves on the EEG, but we were assured that this wasn't anything to worry or be concerned about. It was determined that his seizure was most likely a one-time thing and that we shouldn't expect it to happen again. We were given instructions on what to do if, by chance, it did happen again and told that we'd be discharged in a few hours.
We made it home around 4:15 Sunday afternoon, ate an early dinner, and were out cold before 6. We slept for a solid 16 hours, then woke up and got ready for our follow-up appointment with Gerry's primary doctor. After the appointment, we picked up Bailey, who had spent Saturday night at my sister's house, and took her and Gerry out for lunch. Scott and I have been keeping a close on Gerry ever since, but he seems to be his usual, goofy self. A teeny bit grumpier and clingier than normal, but he could be teething. And who can blame him for being clingy after spending a day in the hospital?
It's been almost a week since his seizure, and Gerry seems fine. Back to tearing the house apart and climbing on things he shouldn't and leaving toys in the refrigerator. He still has a tiny mark in his elbow where he had blood drawn, but otherwise you'd never know he spent his weekend in the hospital.
I keep going to bed each night and expecting to be woken up by him screaming or seizing in his crib, but he's back to sleeping through the night again. I think it's going to take Scott and me a little while longer before we stop worrying about him, stop holding our breath every time he takes a tumble, stop staring at him to make sure he's okay. But Gerry's a trooper and he's back to his goofy, smiley self. The house is a mess, and there's a trail of toys and DVDs that he's left in his wake. And Bailey's not ever safe from his quick little hands, ready to reach out and swipe her bink or a snack before she even realizes what's happening. All is back to normal over here and we couldn't be happier.
