Sickly baby

Oh dear, little Emmeline go sick again, only this time instead of getting a cold, she got diarrhea! She started last on Monday . . . well Sunday night really by waking up every 2 hours! I will admit that at 4am after waking up countless times, it didn’t click that she must be sick, I was just so tired! I should have realised that she was not well! But I didn’t! I had a suspicion when the next day she screamed blue murder at me when I put her in her crib to sleep in the morning and again that afternoon! After 2 dirty nappies (yellow and very liquidly to be precise) Xavi said that it seemed she had a bad nappy. I scoffed at him and said she was just having a dirty nappy day. After a total of 8 poo’s and a very bad night’s sleep again, I conceded that xavi did indeed have a point!  

I waited a few days and off we went to the paediatrician. She checked Emmeline out and said that she seemed fine and she just had gastro and that it would pass. I expected that response, but just wanted to be sure. So off we trundled home with the hope of fewer poo’s and better night’s sleep.

Well she didn’t get better. She kept pooing, she kept sleeping badly. Consequently I then started to stick a boob in her mouth at every possible opportunity to make sure that she was hydrated. The paediatrician said that we could start to offer her water, but Emmeline found it more fun to chew the bottle and not actually drink from the bottle. It was all new to her as she had only ever drank from a bottle about 3 times in her little 6 month life! After a few days Xavi said that he thought Emmeline was skinnier. Again, I scoffed at him thinking her was paranoid. The next day whilst tickling Emmeline I noticed her ribs sticking out more than usual and she seemed light as a feather. It would appear that once again, Xavi had a point! So I then started to put boobs in her mouth even more frequently to keep her weight up (consequently our feeding schedule is now gone to pot!). By now it was the weekend, and we couldn’t go to the doctor. I had to wait until Monday absolutely wracked by new mommy guilt at not having rushed to the doctor on Friday.

Monday came along and off we went again. The paediatrician was a little surprised to see us and I explained that Emmeline was not better. I told her that she had already had 3 poo’s that day (in reality it was only 2 but I knew that I had to exaggerate to get her to take me seriously) and then explained that Emmeline had just had one in the waiting room so it was actually 4! We took off her nappy, me hoping that it was a bad one so the doctor would take me seriously. Unfortunately it was a tiny pathetic little thing, mostly just left over from her previous poo. The doctor took that poo away from me going “oh well, we can’t count that one, that isn’t even a poo, that is just extra from the poo before” whilst I grumbled “yeah ok”. She checked out Emmeline and said that she seemed fine, no tummy pain, well hydrated etc. She started off by saying something about how these things normally ‘just get better’ at which point I interrupted and said ‘yeah well she is not getting better, maybe you could give us some medicine?’ she slowed me down and explained that with a gastro virus there are two ways that it can be worked out of the body: 1) it basically get rid poo’d out or 2) our bodies intestinal flora (I guess like our bacteria and immune system) will get rid of it. It seemed that Emmeline’s flora appeared to be a little destroyed after having diarrhea for so long and so she gave me some capsules to give to Emmeline with my breast milk. That was 4 days ago, and we are now down to around 4 poo’s a day and waking up around 3 times a night. I really hope that she gets better soon, because I feel so bad for her especially when I see her pushing so hard having a poo, and her little tiny bum is all red. Selfishly I also want my happy baby back, I want to sleep a little better again, and I am sick to death of changing fricking nappies!

Tomorrow is her 6 month check up with our regular paediatrician, so I will check the whole thing out with her and just pray that tomorrow is the day when everything is better!