Tag Archives: sick

Flu

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Well now I know for sure that having the flu while pregnant is the worst.  Probably not as bad as a stomach virus, though.  But yikes.  I thought I was just being a big baby about a cold.  Last night I had 101 fever and I called the on-call OB, and she told me to go to urgent care in the morning.  So I did, and they tested for flu, and I have it, but it’s too late to do anything to help.

So my husband is working from home so he can be here in the evening when things seem to get worst, and we’ll be watching TV until it warms up enough for the kids to go back and forth on the part of the lawn where the snow has melted.

SICK. AGAIN.

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Well, I will be honest this pregnancy has actually so far been a lot less fun than my first one, even though the first one was with me lying on the couch moaning with nausea.  Possibly my memory isn’t so good, I don’t know.  This time I was moaning with nausea, too.  But I also have two germ monsters, plus their germ monster visitors, and with my immune system shot I am getting sick over and over.

And not only am I getting sick over and over, but I am TERRIBLY sick.  Like getting fevers.  These are just regular colds, but I am knocked out.  Fevers for the last 3 days, all low grade, but enough to make me feel like absolute shiz.

I’ve had low grade fevers off and on since Friday night.  I can’t breathe through my nose enough to do net.i po.t so I am struggling.  I’m waking up a million times a night, ending up sleeping on the couch, and am a total zombie during the day.  My nose is running despite the blockage, by some miraculous process I have yet to understand.

I remember getting one really terrible cold last time I was pregnant and it was really bad.  But now I have had 3, and I am getting really sick of being sick, on top of having to take care of the kids, I am going nuts.

Shortness of breath is one of my big pregnancy symptoms and being blocked up on top means I can’t even pick up the kids for a second without having to sit down and catch my breath.  I feel like I can’t breathe, like I am gasping for air constantly, unless I am and have been lying down for a while.

Sorry for the whine, just feeling really miserable.  I was hoping for a second trimester boost and instead I am still lying on the couch watching more movies with the kids.

Sick house

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This is the worst cold we have had in this house since they were 6 months old, and that cold ruined their sleep for 6 weeks and we had to call a specialist.  So obviously we are unhappy about this cold for a few reasons.

It started with Banana getting sick last weekend and I thought it was just Apple’s old cold but manifested differently in her.  But now Apple has it, and Banana is still fighting it.

When Banana gets sick she gets terribly, terribly sick.  But she is willing to lie around and watch TV all day and drink juice, and sleeps pretty well through illness, when she wakes up it is relatively easy to get her back to sleep.

When Apple gets sick, if he doesn’t actively have a fever, he wants to play.  He does not want to lie around and watch TV.  He gets bored after a short amount of time.  But he also doesn’t feel well and is less patient.  He doesn’t want to eat or drink, even juice.  He does not sleep well at all when he is sick.  Also when he is sick he often starts wheezing and needs a nebulizer.

So what happened was, after a long stressful weekend of Banana being sick, we thought it was over.  But then Monday night Apple started coughing and needed the nebulizer.  He didn’t have a fever so we sent them to school Tuesday.  But Tuesday evening he had a fever and his cough was terrible.  Tuesday afternoon I had to lie in bed with him for nap time so he would stay in bed and rest.  Tuesday evening I spent the night in his bed, rubbing his back, giving him water.

I tried having him sleep in the rocking chair with me downstairs but he wouldn’t settle and I realized that my very routine-driven boy would not fall asleep in the rocking chair unless he was exhausted, and I was too exhausted already (at 2am) to try to sit with him until he got tired enough.  So we moved back to their bedroom.  So this of course disrupted Banana’s sleep, too.

At 6am I couldn’t handle it anymore.  I had sent my husband to bed at 1am because I felt like it would be a better use of our resources if one of us slept.  But at 6am I was so tired I was dizzy.  After spending the whole night rubbing Apple’s back, and trying to get him to settle, and wiping his nose, and giving him water, and trying desperately not to move when he finally did fall asleep, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I stumbled into the bedroom and told Mr. Brightside he was on duty.

Well, part of the reason why I chose to be the one on duty at night is that Banana isn’t super interested in me (haha).  So my presence in the bedroom wasn’t exciting or fun or interesting or in anyway related to her being awake.  She was willing to try to go to sleep while I was there.  As soon as my husband walked in, she popped up, and refused to go back to sleep.  Imagine if that had been 2am.

So the kids woke up at 6, and went downstairs, and cried for over half an hour.  Then they watched TV and did the nebulizer, they finally got quiet, and I drifted off to sleep close to 7am.  When I woke up at 8am they were having breakfast so I went down in my pajamas (pants on backwards all night long, I discovered, and as of right now still backwards).  Mr. Brightside decided to take the day to work from home, so after breakfast he went upstairs to work, and I put on some movies.  With predictable results: Banana wanted to snuggle and watch TV (she wanted to snuggle!) and Apple wanted me to read books and come into the play room with him.  If I had had more than 1 real hour of sleep plus three hours of dozing I may have gone with him but I just couldn’t.

And so, two snotty screaming toddlers fought over my lap all morning, while my husband worked upstairs until he could come downstairs (had a phone meeting he couldn’t miss).

We ran out of tissues.

They thankfully did go to sleep at nap time.  I took a 1 hour nap while they napped, was woken up by Apple coughing and crying, but he put himself back to sleep.  I did not.

To top it off I am feeling nauseous now.  I can’t tell if it’s pregnancy or illness.  So far nobody has been nauseous from this illness.  Apple did throw up last Tuesday (a week ago) but it didn’t seem to be a virus, and nobody else got sick.  I’m becoming overwhelmed with smells – last night, snuggling Apple, all I could smell were his farts.  It was kind of overwhelming.  I was calling him Toots Ma’Goots.

If it were nice outside, I might have taken them out.  But it’s winter.  We’re stuck in.  I don’t even want to bundle them up to put them in the car to drive around, and anyway where would we go?

They just woke up from their nap crying and coughing.

I HATE WINTER.

Sick child, cranky parents, not good.

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When Banana is sick I have no patience.

It’s not fair, because she also happens to get hit the hardest.  Even a cold that is mild for the rest of us will hit her hard and knock her out.

Today she has a fever and a cough, and she had a cough yesterday, she just looked so miserable when she woke up this morning.  Could barely open her eyes.

This should inspire sympathy in a good mother but this mother has no patience.

When Apple is sick I have more patience.  When Banana is sick, I don’t.  I don’t know why.  I kind of hate myself for it and am really hard on myself and pretty much every time she is sick I have en existential crisis about being a mother and whether or not I deserve it.

The funny thing is at night I have patience.  When she wakes up at night when she’s sick I will go in, offer her water, adjust her blankets, rub her back, give her a kiss, and out I go.  Maybe because I know she will try her hardest to fall back to sleep after that, I know I can just do my Official Mother-Tending-Sick-Child Routine and that is my task, and it has a straightforward path, and maybe that straight forwardness and “plan” helps me have more patience?

During the day when she’s sick she is whiny.  Understandably!  I mean if you look at her you will see how awful she feels – her eyes are puffy and closed and leaking, her nose is leaking, she’s coughing, she’s got a fever.  WHY CAN’T I BE MATERNAL?  She’s whiny, and won’t sit still, and won’t get comfortable, and won’t let me hug her, and won’t let me give her water, and won’t let me take care of her.

Maybe that’s it?  During the day she won’t let me mother her when she’s sick.  If only she would let me rub her back!  If only she would let me snuggle her in the rocking chair!!!  She fights me, she doesn’t want my care.  And then I get frustrated and lose patience.

When Apple is sick he just wants me to hold him constantly.  I can do that.  When Banana is sick I don’t know what she wants.  I want to mother her but what I want to do maybe doesn’t line up with what she wants me to do, and I can’t figure it out.  Except at night, apparently.  We’ve got that part down.

Today I took Apple to synagogue and out to lunch with me while my husband stayed home with Banana.  For two reasons: 1, my aforementioned struggles with being patient with sick-Banana; and 2, Apple was really struggling with not being the center of attention and we had to get him out of the house.  So at 10am I loaded him into the stroller in less-than-20-degree weather, and we walked for 20+ minutes to a shul we almost never go to so we could wander around until it was time to go to lunch at a friend’s house a few blocks away.  I have to say it was a treat to be tending to only one toddler.  We went to the children’s service for a bit, we went to the babysitting for a bit, then ended up in the sanctuary where we caught the end of services together.  Then we walked to my friend’s house (he walked, too, didn’t want to do the stroller), stayed there until 4.  Then I loaded him into the stroller again and went on the 20+min walk home, when he promptly fell asleep, and I let him sleep until 5.  Which made bedtime kind of challenging, being that he wasn’t tired and was again not happy at not being the center of attention and he didn’t go to sleep until after 9.

My husband and I had an argument about me constantly saying how much sicker Banana gets, he says I say it too much and he’s probably right.  I think I am mostly just reassuring myself that she doesn’t have some new mysterious cold that we will all fall prey to.  But I am probably also blaming her illness on her, which is unfair.  She does get sicker than the rest of us when she gets the same illness (and this is one of the worst times in a while), but why do I need to keep saying it like it will make her feel less disgusting and miserable ????  I don’t say it TO her, but still, it isn’t helpful, so I won’t.  And it is frustrating to my husband.

And any time we fight any negative feelings I have are amplified, so then I felt like a really shitty mother, and cried later.  And drank a way too large glass of chocolate milk, and now I have reflux not surprisingly.

All this to say, I am not good at mothering my sick daughter, and it makes me feel like a terrible mom.  And then I think, oh my Gd, what if this next child I am also not good at mothering, what if I am worse at being this next baby’s mom than I am at being Banana’s mom (btw I don’t think I am so great at being Banana’s mom in general, but definitely even worse when she’s sick).  What if I am mostly a bad match with my kids.. what if we don’t get along when they’re older because we are such a bad personality match ……

Tired, cranky, aggravated anxious-about-being-a-bad mommy.

Forever Ill

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I think part of why I am struggling with parenting is that my babies have been sick for the last three months off and on (but mostly on).  This is the fourth cold we have dealt with.  It is unbelievable.  I know kids get sick a lot but most of the people I know with babies have had one, maybe two colds so far.  Our babies are six months old and have had four colds and Apple has bronchiolitis.

I’ve had two of those four colds, myself.  Mr. Brightside has had three.  I am probably going to get this last one soon.  So not only are the babies sick, but we are sick.  I was running a fever while taking care of the babies.

This on top of the thyroid stuff, the weight stuff, the depression/anxiety that I normally deal with.

I feel like we are always declogging snuffly noses and propping babies up at an angle for sleep and humidifying the crap out of the room and bringing them into the bathroom for a shvitz and listening to them cough themselves awake.  Oh, and staying away from play groups and not wanting direct contact with other babies and not sharing toys and washing hands obsessively.

So for the first three months I was dealing with learning to be a twin mom, and two preemies.  And then they started getting sick, and my thyroid tanked, and now that I’m on medicine I am still dealing with some of the emotional stuff from the early days but at least I have the energy to constantly manage our very uncomfortable babies.

THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE AMAZING IMMUNE SYSTEMS.  RIGHT???  Or is that just another one of those myths like breast-fed babies don’t get colds? (Because guess what, their first (3-week-long!) cold was while they were still almust exclusively breast feeding!)

This is the cold that doesn’t end…

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Yes it goes on and on my friends!

Somebody gave it to us but we didn’t know it then

But now we’re snot sucking noses every night just because this is the cold that doesn’t end… yes it goes on and on my friend…

😦

Two full weeks of snot.  Two full weeks of having them sleep in their rocking chairs or else they are up every hour because they can’t breathe.  Two full weeks of two snotty, crabby babies (who are admittedly adorable when they don’t feel so congested).

GUYS.

WHEN WILL THIS COLD END?

I wish I could neti pot the babies!

We are now getting desperate for these poor little guys.  Yes we desnot, and give them saline drops, and bring them in for a shvitz (turn on the shower and get the room all steamy like a sauna).  I’m buying the baby vapo rub stuff (not planning to rub it on their skin but on a cloth and attach it their swaddles / jammies) and the nose frida.  Seriously, if there was a baby neti pot, I would try it.  I guess that’s the nose frida.  Bleh.  It grosses me out but they are suffering and therefore so are we!

Bleh, feeling so terrible now

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Last night I googled “Feeling worse at 11 weeks” because I was really confused…  Aren’t I supposed to be on the upswing now?  I spent the day yesterday lying on the couch moaning again, this time also feverish, and so, so nauseous.  Also I threw up!  What the hell!

Apparently tons and tons of people getworse between 11-12 weeks, and then it starts to get better again sometime after that.

GREAT.

But also, this is combined with getting a cold from Mr. Brightside.  He was being SO CAREFUL.  He was washing his hands so often that they were cracking and he had to keep putting lotion on.  He never touched any of my food without washing his hands.  We had almost no physical contact whatsoever – direct or indirect – for a week and a half!

Then he went to the doctor for antibiotics because it didn’t go away and it seemed to be turning into a sinus infection.  He asked the doctor if he was still contagious.  He said, my wife is pregnant and I don’t want to get her sick, so am I still contagious?  No, the doctor said.  So when he came home he was much less cautious, assuming that now he was no longer contagious and we were in the safe zone.

Well, nuts to that!

I know someone else who had this cold and let me tell you the people who have gotten it have not been pregnant and it knocked them out on their asses.  Mr. Brightside took a day and a half off of work because of it.

And me, well, it seems to have combined with my blossoming allergies and the “morning” sickness to create a perfect storm of symptoms that, if I weren’t pregnant/allergic, I would clearly label … THE FLU.

I don’t have the flu though.  Just a cold, allergies, and nausea.

I’ve slept on the couch for the last two nights so I can prop myself up, sleeping pretty much sitting up.  Actually it hasn’t been so bad, once I fall asleep.  The cats love this part.  The main reason I wake up while sleeping on the couch is because some kitty wants to sleep on my belly, and I have to keep pushing them off because the pressure of a cat on or next to my belly will make me vomit.  They don’t understand it’s for both of us that I keep kicking them off.  They’re just like.. HUMAN SLEEPING ON THE COUCH! YAY!!!! …You no want snuggles? (dejected cat face)

Anyway, I have a tradition of having a cold pretty much every Passover that I spend with Mr. Brightside’s family.  The sad thing is that if I have a cold this year then I miss out on holding the 4 new babies.  Oh well…

Last night we noticed a definite increase in bump over the last 24 hours.  I am going to have to start making Mr. Brightside take bump pictures of me because it is starting to get obvious.  Like I can’t suck in my stomach anymore, it’s just out there.  That is at least one exciting development!