It’s been a few days again now, so a bit of catching up to do on the blog again. But the last few days have seemed to fill themselves quite well with other stuff and the weekend didn’t turn out quite the way we thought it would – Jessica and I ended up spending Saturday night and most of the Sunday in hospital…
During the Saturday, we noticed that Jessica wasn’t her usual self. In the morning, we just thought she was a bit tired – maybe she hadn’t had a very good night’s sleep, as we thought she’d seemed a bit extra restless in her cot. But as the day progressed our concern increased as she just kept sleeping, seemed to have no energy when she was awake, wasn’t interested in eating much at all and when she cried, her cry was quiet and very tired, sounded more like moans and whimpers. She’d barely wet her nappy during the day either – we presumed because she hadn’t eaten/drunk that much, and it was all very worrying. When we checked NHS Direct’s online checklist for baby health, all of the above were included on the list for when to contact them for further advice. So we phoned NHS Direct, where they advised us to phone the out-of-hours doctor’s service, where in turn we got the advice to go into hospital for further checks.
We had taken Jessica’s temperature at home in the afternoon when it was only 37.2 degrees – the doctor who saw Jessica took her temperature again and it was 38, so she definitely was having a fever and got referred to a paediatrician. The diagnosis was some sort of infection, but uncertain whether it was viral or bacterial. As they’d prefer to be safe rather than sorry, especially when it came to a little baby, they needed to do some blood tests and while waiting for the results of these to come back, they recommended that Jessica was admitted to hospital, most likely for two days(!), and given antibiotics. As her Mum, I was welcome to stay with her. The paediatrician and a nurse put a cannula in the back of Jessica’s right hand, with a little splint on her lower arm for support, and it all felt pretty serious and scary – Ian and I were looking at each other across the bay were we were sat: our little baby really was ill…!
While Jessica and I were waiting for a room to get ready, Ian got a lift back home to get some overnight stuff for the two of us. Just before midnight, Jessica and I were shown to the ward, where we got a room to ourselves with a big cot bed in the middle and a camp-bed next to it for me. Jessica was ‘plugged into’ a heart rate monitor, which made her look even worse… I managed to feed Jessica a bit before putting her to bed. The nurse that took care of us was friendly and very helpful, which reassured me, as I was feeling a bit lost and worried – especially since Ian wouldn’t be able to stay with us.
During the night, nurses came in every so often to check on Jessica and I was asked to let them know when and how much she fed and whenever I changed her nappy, as they were keeping a fluid chart on her. I didn’t sleep very much, mainly because of worry, but also because it’d been near 2am when I finally got ready and settled myself, and then when a nurse came in to check on Jessica at around 6am I decided to try to feed her and so the day had started.
My meals were brought to me in the room, so all I needed to worry about was looking after Jessica. Ian came around to stay with us during the day – he hadn’t slept much either… Thankfully, as the day progressed, we noticed Jessica was getting happier and more energetic, she fed better, ‘talked’ and enjoyed being tickled by Daddy – our little girl was back! Her fever hadn’t returned after the paracetamol she’d been given by the paediatrician the evening before and the two doses of antibiotics she’d been given through the cannula wouldn’t have kicked in yet, so basically she’d got better all by herself. The final diagnose was some sort of viral infection, without any real idea of how she’d contracted it. Jessica got discharged at around 4pm and we all returned home, much relieved…!
At not even 9 weeks old, Jessica seems to already have spent a lot of time in hospital already for someone in such general good health. But – as Ian said – hopefully this means that she’s getting all that kind of stuff out of the way early…!