Being a parent is hard

Aubrey has been to the ER twice in her young life.  To me, that's two times too many.  When she was two weeks old we took her in late at night due to some gastrointestinal pain.  I prayed that would be the only time we saw the Riley Children's Hospital ER, but unfortunately, we were back there on Sunday.

 

 

I know I'm going to get lots of silent nods from all of you more experienced moms out there, but the worst feeling in the world, I have learned, is when your child is suffering and you can do nothing about it.  Aubrey woke up from a nap Sunday evening just screaming bloody murder.  She's a very chill, happy baby, so when she fusses, you know something is up.  And she never screams.  But was just inconsolable.  I snuggled her, massaging her tummy since it was rock hard and she just kicked back, obviously in pain.  Nothing was working, so T called the after hours nurse who instructed us to take her to the ER just to make sure.  A little thing her age can't tell us what is wrong.  Needless to say, both of us were scared to death and I was in tears at this point. 

 

 

She did calm down as we drove to the hospital.  I sat in the backseat with her, and she just grabbed onto my finger and stared at me with her big blue eyes.  It broke my heart because she just looked sad like she was thinking "Mommy, make this go away."  So yeah, I cried the entire way.  The look in her eyes just tore me up inside.

 

 

T dropped me off at the door so I could check us in, and we were both relieved to see that they weren't busy like they were before.  We got in pretty quickly into a room, were seen by the resident, Aubrey was hooked up to all of these monitors and vitals taken.  I could barely tell the nurse what was going on, but at this point, I was at least relieved that Aubrey was feeling better because she was rolling all over the bed, playing with the wires from the monitor hooked to her toe.

 

 

The doctor there and our pediatrician, who we saw the next day, seemed to think it was intusussepction.  My non-medical self will explain it as when agitation down near Aubrey's intestines causes them to tangle up in a sort of manner, cutting off the flow of her intestines causing an extreme amount of pain.  There really isn't much you can do about it but to ride it out and try everything to soothe her.  I guess touching the stomach makes it worse, so I feel just awful for massaging her tummy. 

 

 

We were all just so exhausted by the time we got home from the ER somewhere around 10:30 p.m.  I wanted to follow up with her doctor the next day so I knew Aubrey and I would stay home the next day.  By the time the alarm went off that morning, T couldn't get out of bed to save his life.  Very little sleep was had by all.  I checked on her before we went to bed and then at 4:00 a.m. when she woke up crying.  I wanted to sleep in her room I was so worried about her.  But the best sound I have ever heard was the sound of her babbling over the monitor when she woke up at 6:30 a.m.  No fussing, just happy babbling. 

 

 

So she's doing much better.  But I think I've lost a few years off of my life in the process.  Being a parent is hard.  But seeing that smile on her beautiful face this morning? It's so worth it.