BABY FEVER
🌷One of Phil and my concerns is what will we do when Evie gets sick for the first time. She is over two months old, and thankfully, she’s avoided all sickness except for the errant congestion. This week, she got her first set of shots during her check-up, and one of the common side effects is a fever. She avoided this too!
We have been mentally preparing ourselves for what we may need to do. Baby Tylenol, calling nurses, etc. We are so thankful our little peach puff has yet to come down with anything (I’m assuming now that I wrote that, she’ll proceed to get sick.)
For all the mental prep we have done to prepare ourselves if Evie got sick, we didn’t even think about what would happen if one of us got sick.
I felt it coming on a couple days before it hit with all its power. Whatever flu or cold has been going around hit me hard. The timing coincided with the weekend my brother and sister-in-law were to be in town to meet our daughter. Ironically, my sister-in-law is also sick, so she had to cancel her trip. My brother-in-law, however, still made the trek, and I had to quarantine my ass in our bedroom.
On the one hand, looking from the outside, it probably sounds nice. Sleeping all day, lying in bed, having Phil bring me soup. It was not nice. It was awful. The worst part wasn’t that my whole body ached and my head felt like it went through a meat grinder, the worst parts were missing the introduction with her uncle, it was not being able to touch my baby or feed her. She knows my voice now, and I would talk to her from afar. I wondered if she questioned my mom wouldn’t hold her. I found myself staring at her in the crib camera (and talking through its microphone.)
I felt helpless. My husband and family picked up all the slack, while I was on the sidelines. I am beyond grateful for their help. What do people do that don’t have that support and get sick? How do you take care of a child when you’re sick and you know they’ll likely get sick. Do you just let them get sick? I’m glad I don’t have to make this choice.
Raising a baby is a lot of work. They need 24/7 attention and you can’t just “take a break.” This little illness forced me to take a break from parenting, and I can say, with 100% certainty, it’s not a break I want. I want to be there for her every cry, dirty diaper, every need.
Now to figure out how to avoid getting sick once she starts daycare….🌷
