RSS FeedI thought I would do a little tribute to my (almost) teen with one year for each week until her birthday, but, low and behold, there are only 9 weeks until she turns 13. Yikes! Nine, Nueve, Neuf, Neun, Nove, 9 short weeks! I am still going to do this, but the first couple of weeks you just might have to get a couple per week. She is worth it, really, though.
Here she is during her 1st year. She was 2 1/2 months old here:
I went back to work right at four weeks after having her and had the scare of my life when she had only been in daycare for two days. I got a call at about 4:00 and they said that she had slept most of the day and wanted to know if I wanted them to wake her up. I just joked it off (remember, I was young and dumb) and told the lady that if she was up all night, I would be calling her in the middle of the night to come over and take care of her. My mom picked Alex up shortly after that and took her to her house. I got off work at 7:00 and went straight to moms. When I got there, mom said that Alex had only wanted to sleep the entire time. I took her home and thought that she felt a little bit warm so I took her temp. 101. Ok, I'm freaking out. I called the Dr. and of course had to wait for the nurse to call me back. She told me to give her Tylenol and a cool bath and call back in an hour if the fever had not gone down. It didn't. I called back and was told to call the office in the morning but to give her the Tylenol every four hours and call her back if the temp went up.
I didn't sleep at all that night. First thing the next morning, I was on the phone with the Dr. office and by 8:30 we were in an exam room. The Dr. did all kinds of blood work and pushing and prodding and who knows what else. I once heard him on the phone with his nurse (the one that I had talked to the night before). He wasn't really happy with her and I don't know that she worked for him after that day since I never heard her name again. At about 1:00 the Dr. comes back into the room (for the 100th time )and says that they need to do a spinal tap. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to leave that room, but thinking back, I'm glad I did because if I would have seen her crying like she was (I could hear her from outside of the Dr. office) I would have probably punched the Dr. and his nurse for hurting her like that.
The spinal tap came back positive for meningitis. I was told to go directly to Breckenridge Children's Hospital. Do not stop by the house, do not stop for gas, do not pass go. We were met at the hospital entrance by nurses that immediately wanted to take my baby for another spinal tap. She was admitted to the hospital and that is where we spent the next few horrifying days in quarantine. On day 3, they determined that the meningitis was viral and we could go home.
As you can tell from the picture, being on IV fluids and nothing else for 3 days did not affect her growth at all! We had all the normal 1st's including a 1st haircut at age 3 months but I am such a horrible mother, that I never recorded any of it in her baby book.
Check back in a few days for the second year when little brother comes into the picture! (I promise it won't all be about her health and when I sat down to write this I had no intention of even mentioning her meningitis but when I started typing, that is all that I could think of. I guess because it was the most scared I have ever been in my entire life.)
