A Mother's Intuition

After spending so much time with Carter when Chad was sick last week, my mother’s intuition was going strong and I started to feel that Carter was getting sick. He had an occasional cough and just seemed unhappy more often than he had before. Nothing I was doing seemed to console him and I realized that he had really bad gas and seemed to have an upset stomach. My mom and I tried a gentler formula with less lactose, but it didn’t seem to help. Chad & I then tried ready-made formula thinking that maybe our tap water was bothering Carter’s stomach. Nothing seemed to do the trick and by Tuesday night Carter was sleeping more than usual between feedings and when he would eat he would get bad diarrhea almost immediately. Chad thankfully called the doctor for us and on Wednesday morning I took Carter in. We saw Chad’s old pediatrician because Dr Crawford was on vacation and he thought the cough and the upset stomach were two different issues. For the cough he agreed that it could be allergies after I told him about the breathing episode the weekend before and said that unfortunately since Carter is so small there are not many meds he can have for allergies. We started him on saline nose drops and started up a humidifier in both his room and the living room. We also had to elevate his head while he was sleeping and the doctor suggested putting him to sleep in his car seat. For the upset stomach we started him on just Pedialyte on Thursday and moved on to half strength low lactose formula for Friday and then finally, full strength low lactose formula through the weekend. Once his stools have returned to normal we can reintroduce his regular formula again. So far the stomach issues seem to be much better. Unfortunately, the cough did not get better and by Saturday night he was actually wheezing a bit. Riley has had some history of wheezing and we have a nebulizer for him so on Saturday night I called the on-call nurse from the doctor’s office to see if we could maybe give Carter a breathing treatment. Since Carter is still so young, she could only recommend that we take him to the ER at Cooks Childrens Hospital. Chad & I discussed it and we decided that he would stay home with Riley who was already asleep and at 10:15pm, Carter and I headed to the ER. When we arrived we were taken back fairly quickly because of how young Carter is. When we got there his pulse/ox was 100% and his lungs sounded clear, but they could tell he was congested. They ended up sticking a tube down his nose and sucking out the gunk so they could test it for RSV, which he thankfully tested negative for. They also tried putting some drops in his nose to dry up the congestion, but that didn’t work. He was still wheezing, so the next step was to do a breathing treatment with Albuterol. Thankfully, that worked better and they were able to release us around 2am, with an infant inhaler to use as well as some decongestant nose drops. When we got home Carter slept great and seems to be doing better so far. He is sleeping better, which for me means that he is feeling better. He is still coughing a bit and sounds congested, but overall seems to be headed in the right direction.

On Wednesday Grammy was released from the rehab hospital and is now at home! She is doing good from what I hear from my mom, but I haven’t been to see her at home yet. My mom has had to stay away too because after spending two days with me, she came down with a cough, headache and sore throat too. Seems that she may have caught it from Chad, but we’re not sure. She is feeling better though, so that is good.

On Friday night we took Riley to Chick Fil A to play. Chad had called me on the phone to see if I wanted to go to Chick Fil A, Chuck E Cheese or order pizza. I told him I wanted to go to Chick Fil A or order pizza and Chad decided to order pizza. Well, Riley overheard the options and informed Chad that he wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese. I really didn’t want to take Carter around all those kids so Chad told Riley that Chuck E Cheese was closed. Riley’s response was “Chick Fil A is open!” so we took him there. We sat under a picture of all of their desserts and Riley wanted a milkshake and an ice cream. Chad traded his unopened toy in for an ice cream and Riley wanted to eat it with a spoon!

On Saturday Kate & Elizabeth picked us up to go to a playdate at Ethan & Caleb’s. Riley really knows his way around their house now that he has spent the night there twice. It was a fun time because there were only 5 moms there total and 6 kids so the moms were really able to all visit while our kids played. It was a great time although I had a time getting Riley to leave. We must have worn them out because here was how they spent the ride home:

On Saturday night we went over to my cousin Jill’s house to see her, Rich and Riley Scott. When we went over it was snowing! On the first day of Spring! Crazy! The Rileys played and played and played. They played so much they didn’t even eat and they seemed just fine with that.

I am in love with that picture of them! We finally knew it was time to go home when the boys started picking on each other. But we had a great time visiting with them and we are excited to hang with them more often!

On Sunday I picked up my friend Tracy and we went to a sip and see for our friend Tiffany and her baby Brody. We had a really great time visiting and holding Brody! After that Grandmommy & HaHa came over. Grandmommy had been in Boston for the week and had Lion King t-shirts for the boys. They then took us to dinner at Joe Ts and we had a lovely time.

Carter slept great Sunday night and I felt well rested for my Riley wakeup call yesterday morning. Riley has started getting himself out of bed and Chad is usually up with Carter already so he keeps Riley out of our room until at least 8am, so I can sleep, but then Riley comes in and the first thing he wants to do is get in bed with me and get under the covers and snuggle! I was telling him yesterday that it was my favorite part of the day! After Chad & Riley left for school, Carter was sleeping great so he & I were able to go to the grocery store and the post office all while he slept.

We also got some really exciting news yesterday! Our friends Mike & Christina are adopting a baby girl and she was born today!!! Welcome to the world Macey Jane! After work Papa happened to come by to see the boys and so he stayed with them at the house while Chad & I went up to the hospital to meet Macey!