Week 138 motherhood – 100 days celebration finally, another round of sickness, double lids

Red dyed eggs and ginger to celebrate a baby’s 100 days

Week 138 of motherhood with a 2.5 year old and 4.5 month old:

May 10: I was caressing the baby’s left lower cheek/jawbone area and she was chuckling/laughing. I got this on camera. She has started to giggle and laugh more.
I realize I need to reset the toddler’s play area almost every night so that she wakes up to a clean slate of toys — in particular, her magnetic tiles. Whenever she sees that they’re stacked up, she gravitates towards it and starts building. Her creations are getting more and more varied and sophisticated. She began building two-storey houses last time and this week, she built some kind of long train and used the triangular tiles to give it some pattern.
I can’t believe that we had been trying to stay healthy and well for the past month and a half and yet finally some sickness still got to us. We were sick in late March/early April with RSV (both kids plus me and DH). Then DH got sick with a cold in late April. Grandma was feverish for half a day and thankfully was better. The toddler started to have some mucusy nose drippings which turned into more runny nose. And then finally this past week, the baby got it. 😭 She was already feeling a bit warm to me on the Friday but we checked her temperature and she was fine. However, once she woke up for her middle-of-the-night feeding at around 3 a.m. was when she felt really warm to me. I can tell whenever she is warmer than normal because her little head, when resting on my chest/body, is so hot and warm. We checked her temperature rectally (I also finally figured out how to put on the thin plastic coating for the thermometer) and it was 38.2. Sheesh. Anything over 38 is a fever for a small baby. Both of her little cheeks were bright red too. So off we went to the ER once again in the middle of the night. Sigh. 😪 Going to the ER in the wee hours is much better than attending during the day because there’s usually less people and less waiting.
We got there and unluckily, that was the exact time that the check-in system to get a ticket decided to reset itself. We had to wait around for a few extra unnecessary minutes before we got a ticket. Once we did and waited a while, we were called to triage. There was one young boy ahead of us. The baby’s temperature was taken axillary (surprisingly) and it was 37.7, so no fever. That was good! But it made me wonder had they checked her rectally would the fever had presented itself because arm rectal temperature is more accurate than axillary. The nurse at triage was also able to take her oxygen levels without difficulty. It’s interesting that we have seen so many different nurses at work since her initial RSV diagnosis that we’ve seen some who are able to get the reading faster and some who weren’t able to without a lot of fidgeting.
After triage and registration, we joined the line-up of people sitting in the hallway waiting to be seen by a doctor. I was really surprised to see that there was such a wait. I really was expecting nobody there again like the first time when we arrived at 1 a.m. I guess it was Friday night/Saturday morning and some people use the ER as a walk-in clinic and go there after the week is over to see a doctor. The baby was starting to fuss in DH’s lap, so we put her in the car seat and she fell asleep.
When we were called in to the ambulatory area and a doctor saw us, he asked us what the issue was. We told him fever. He surprisingly didn’t even check her temperature again or even listen to her lungs. He asked us if she was coughing and we said no. Then he said a nurse would come to get her swabbed for COVID-19 and then we could go home. Both the doctor and the nurse assumed our baby was a boy because of her name. I told the nurse it was a baby girl and he apologized and said according to his experience, the name told him it was a boy. 😑 Well, clearly in our case, we used the name for a girl. Why do people do this? Just apologize and leave it at that/own up to it. No need to defend yourself when you are in the wrong.
When the nurse came back, he actually came back with tylenol to give to the baby. We were surprised about that because the doctor didn’t say the baby needed it. Well, we let her take it anyway. By that, the nurse actually offered it to me to give to the baby myself. Last time, there were two nurses who helped to administer the dosage to the baby and they were so quick and efficient at it. It was a little syringe and I pushed the bottom to get the red liquid into the baby’s mouth. She took most of it but some of it crept down her chin.
The nurse also did the swab. This swab was the long Q-tip-like one that looks like the ones that we use for the self-COVID ones. It wasn’t a short one that was used last time for the baby.
The nurse also gave us the discharge papers along with a prescription for more baby tylenol in case she needs it. I couldn’t believe that when we left the building, it was already 5:30 a.m. or so and the sun was beginning to come out. This meant that I had barely slept the entire night and it was already starting to become daylight.
I waited for the lab results to come out for her swab test. Last time, the swab was done at 1 a.m.ish and the results came out at 8 or 9 a.m.ish. This time, since it was done around 5:30 a.m., it didn’t come out so quickly. It was about 2 p.m.ish that it was released. Very thankfully, the baby didn’t have COVID or RSV again or any other virus (there were only three other ones listed and the swab wasn’t as thorough and didn’t test for other virus compared to last time). This meant it was just a common cold.
The belated 100 days celebration went as well as could be. DH went early to the Chinese restaurant to set up, make sure the tables were correctly sized, decorate the stage. He hung up the ten photos of the baby (taken throughout her first three months of life) on the stage. The pink paper balloons we got from the doctor store were difficult to affix on to the stage so we didn’t end up using them. It was fine anyway because simple is clean and nice too. The restaurant did provide the Chinese surname and “100 days” signage in Chinese. DH brought the toddler with him so that I could have more time at home to rest with the baby, nurse with her, and then we could arrive closer to the scheduled dinner time.
There were close to 60 people altogether at night. Unfortunately, we had two relatives who weren’t able to make it that night. One due to a cough/cold and one due to an unexpected teeth filling that fell out. It was the first big family gathering we had had on our side of the family since COVID-19 began. It was really so nice to see everyone.
The baby was sleeping in the car seat/stroller. It wasn’t until people wanted to see her that we opened up the top and she was oogled and ahhed by all the aunties and uncles and small kids. The baby did really well by staying in the car seat for the first half of the night. She would smile back at people who came to talk to her.
We started dinner promptly around 6:10 p.m.
The whole thing felt like a mini wedding reception. We had multiple courses of Chinese food. I love that they were plated and served individually to us so each person got their own plate and there is no confusion about whose food is whose or that we had to continually pick up more food. DH and I barely ate or when we did, we were shovelling food down our throats. I could barely taste the flavours. This was because people would come up to us to look at the baby or talk to us or we had to wrangle the toddler too who wouldn’t stay still and either wanted to sit in my lap or in DH’s lap. It was hectic.
We were able to get a picture with each table as well as a picture with each family or group of families on the stage. This was an accomplishment in itself.
The toddler did pretty well for the most part and didn’t shy away from people as much as a year ago. However, I don’t know why people kept wanting to pinch her cheeks or touch her cheeks without asking. It’s actually not okay.
I was glad that the restaurant had the private room for me to nurse the baby. The baby didn’t take in much milk though. I nursed her twice that evening. Yet another public nursing session in the books.
Towards the end of the night when we were taking the group photos on the stage, the baby was thoroughly tired and needing to sleep. Her wake period is not that long usually. She was crying and writhing in my arms when we were taking the photos and I was like “hurry up”. We put her in the car seat and rocked it and she eventually fell asleep that way.
It felt like such a huge, huge relief to finally have the 100 days celebration dinner over with. There had been so much anticipation and waiting for it to happen, for us to “stay healthy”, before we resumed our other activities. Now we are free and can plan outings again without reservation! 😄
The following night or so, when it was time for the baby to take her middle-of-the-night feed, she wouldn’t take the breast at all. We tried both sides of me sitting on the armchair as well as both sides of side lying on the bed. She just wouldn’t take it at all. I was concerned because it was at the 2-hour mark where she would usually take milk yet she wasn’t drinking. We deduced that it must have been because her nose was congested and she wasn’t able to breathe while drinking. Babies and toddlers don’t know how to breathe through their mouths so if they’re drinking milk and their nose is clogged, it’s like they’re drowning and can’t breathe.
I immediately went online to find answers. The common things I already knew about colds is to keep the room moist with a humidifier (we have one) and that can help her nose stay moist so the boogers can come out. Putting some saline water into her nose was another tip. We didn’t have that. Another tip was to rock her to sleep and then once she’s asleep, to then feed her. For some reason, the baby will feed while asleep and not realize that their nose is very clogged and uncomfortable.
We tried this. DH rocked her to sleep and amazingly, despite being hungry and it was the time of the night for her to feed, she fell asleep. Then I took her and fed her in the armchair and she actually nursed. Yay!
The next morning, I actually tried another method I read online. In addition to saline water being a remedy to unclog the baby’s nose, breastmilk was an effective tool too. A parent was commenting how awkward it was to try to shoot up breastmilk into her child’s nose but it worked to loosen up the dried-up mucus. I put the baby on the bathroom counter and I squeezed my breast and some breastmilk shot out and landed on her face. The baby was visibly shocked and taken aback. I couldn’t help but laugh. It didn’t matter how ridiculous the situation was though because it worked. The breastmilk really helped to unclog her nose and for the rest of the time after, she wasn’t as clogged up. I shocked/amazed DH too when he saw the streams of breastmilk shoot out from my nipple lol.
(Long-winded blog post this week because I’m actually using my stenograph to write out the posts as opposed to typing on my phone.)
I finally got a go at bathing the baby this week. It’s always been DH and grandma bathing her. The baby has started to kick her legs vigorously during bath time such as the water splashes out of the tub.
I had a record amount of breastmilk come out of the haakaa this past week. I had 92 ml of milk! The secret is actually in refastening the pump again midway through the nursing session so that more pressure is applied. I don’t always refasten it and the average output is 30 ml if I let it suction, loosen, and hang.
Grandma has started to help the baby wash her hands in the sink (since she’s sick). The baby really enjoys handwashing.
The baby continues to be able to reach for the toys on the jungle gym and play with them.
We noticed this week that the baby has double eyelids now! They have finally revealed themselves now.