Stress in the Home

I don't handle stress well. My heart pounds, my body shakes, my blood sugar skyrockets.

Stress is in my home.

I don't want to be home.

Something was revealed to me today: an interesting facet to the life that all four of the adults in this house had been living with, but of which I had been blissfully unaware. Today the main perpetrator decided to get it off their chest and let me in on the secret, and it turned my comfort and understanding of this household upside down. Why did they have to tell me? I tense up just sitting here thinking about it.

I know that ultimately I need to become the bigger person and rise above the muck, but right now I feel so mired down into it that I don't know if I can get past it. I must get past it. As much as I want to say "f*ck you all, get out of my house," I can't do that. That is my lowest character. It is on my shoulders to suck up my stressed out feelings and continue to be the understanding and compassionate person that I thought I was. That I want to be. How do I get past it? Set the drama aside. Wring out this stress and hang me up to dry.

What a day.

I was a bundle of nerves today. R woke up at 7 am this morning screaming. She would fill up her lungs, pause all blown up like a balloon, and then scream again to let the air out. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Needless to say, I was freaked out. I've seen her upset-- oh yes, this colicky baby has been plenty upset in her 6 months of life-- but I'd never seen her unable to normally exhale like that.

Being a massage therapist, I've taken pathology classes, and my mind was reeling. She was absent of any nasal congestion. Emphysema? Doesn't make sense in a baby, but we had the air vents cleaned yesterday and that surely stirred up lots of dust. Anaphylactic shock? She's started eating solid foods and I've been giving her a small variety (I'm talking 3 here, nothing huge) instead of sticking with just one type of food. I also make her food. Did something bad happen in the production of said food? Oh God, I made her some apple-prune baby food and I used the orange-flavored prunes since I had a ton of them leftover from the pregnancy. Orange-flavored prunes!!!

Yeah, freaking out.

After she calmed down I continued to watch her like a hawk. Is she breathing right? Is she still having problems? Sure enough, she'd breathe normally for a bit and then stop for 3-5 seconds, only to pick back up again with a little gasp. I went back and forth in my mind about taking her to the hospital. I remembered in my childbirth classes that the nurse said to always take your baby straight to the emergency room when it came to respiratory issues. That statement completely agrees with my mindset that, above all else, babies must breathe. Breathing means heartbeat. Breathing means oxygen. Babies must breathe!!! I called Senpai at work and he agreed that the hospital was a good idea.

I flew, throwing together bags of diapers, toys, milk, bottles, and pumping supplies. Anytime I thought, "Oh, they have that at the hospital," I decided not to take the chance and bring whatever it was with me; just because the hospital has diapers/wipes/breast pump/bottles, does not mean that you will get them when you need it, if at all. It was a lot of crap to lug to the car, but I am so glad that I had just about everything I needed when I needed it. The only thing I did not bring was a thermos of hot water to heat up R's milk, and of course the nurse had to give me grief when I asked for a cup of hot water. I can't imagine getting through today if I had depended on the hospital for all of the other things I thought I could get there.

I took her to the emergency room, keeping a sharp ear out for her breaths the whole drive there. The triage nurse put a pulse ox on her toe (Side note-- The last time R had worn a pulse ox was in the NICU, when she weighed from 4 to 6 lbs. They wrapped the pulse ox around her entire foot back then, and today it went just on her big toe! Her big toe!!! My baby has gotten so big! :-D), took her temperature, and listened to her chest. She had no fever, no suspicious chest noises, and, surprisingly, thankfully, her blood oxygen was 100%. All that meant we could sit in the waiting room instead of being rushed back immediately to see the doctor.

Back in a room, the nurse couldn't find anything wrong. She had an attitude about her that rubbed me the wrong way, and I had to firmly impress upon her that no, it's not normal for my baby to stop breathing for any period of time, and yes, she is stopping breathing, if only you'd have the patience to stop talking at me and listen. This is the same nurse that didn't want to give me hot water. Not my favorite person of the day. Anyway, the doctor came in with more patience than the nurse, and she did notice the gaps in R's normal breathing pattern that I was talking about. She couldn't find a reason for the gaps so she sent R to get chest x-rays. The x-rays came out clear of any problems, and the only thing the doctor could think to do at that point was transfer R to Children's Hospital to see if they could find anything wrong.

Let me point out here that after the initial call to Senpai in the morning, my cell phone then decided to stop working. It could act as if it was making and receiving calls, but the call would never actually connect. Instant stressor on top of everything else going on. I'm in the hospital with my baby who isn't breathing properly and I can't call my husband to tell him what's going on, or my friends to ask someone to come help me, or my Mom to summon my inner b*tch (I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 6 years old: whether at doctors' offices, emergency rooms, or even restaurants, my Mom knows all about standing up for your child's health). Though I couldn't make any calls, I was so relieved to still have internet connection on my phone. I typed on the touchscreen keyboard with fury, sending out e-mails like a mad woman. When I mentioned in an e-mail to Senpai that the x-ray technician had equated my description of R's breathing problems to a person drowning, he immediately left work. I got the text from him saying he was on his way. And that was the moment I realized I could text, too. My brain had been too fried to consider it.

I drove R to Children's Hospital in St. Louis, while Senpai went home to gather more resources in case they were needed before meeting up with us there. After another lengthy intake process, the doctor at Children's was very nice in explaining to us that R was perfectly fine. Yes, her breathing was off, but it was nothing dangerous. The doctor said that since R has grown bigger, she doesn't need to breathe quite as frequently as she had before, and her body is in a sort of transition period of figuring out the new pace. Hmmm... I've never heard of such a thing. Have you? Regardless, I had to agree that her breathing had normalized from what it was doing this morning, her vitals were perfect, and all of my concerns over baby food and dusty air had been shot down. I'm still going to keep a close eye on her, and she has an appointment with her pediatrician on Tuesday. For future reference, the doctor clarified that babies need to come to the ER when they stop breathing for any longer than 20 seconds (that is WAY too long in my book), and turn blue.

Spare me any more days like today. What a day.

Gravity Always Wins/ Right Foot Sonata

Today was not a good day for my right foot.

I love our house. It is a two story brick house built in 1892. It is a gorgeous house... As such, nothing about it is kid friendly. Senpai and I bought it before we were even thinking about kids. We were young newlyweds in love with each other, and we made the mistake of falling in love with the house, too. There is no carpet, only worn wood floors. I love wood floors, but these are OLD wood floors. The flooring upstairs is caked in paint (what to do, what to do..), and the flooring downstairs is a mix between the 1892 original, 1 cm gaps between splintering planks floor, and a cheap laminate that gouges easily. There used to be carpet in the guest room, but it stank of cat urine (Not from our cats. If it was our cats, that would have been a different story) so we ripped it out and replaced it with bamboo mat. The guest room is now R's room... I'm kinda thinking I'd like carpet in there. Sigh.

Aside from the floors, the staircases are steep. I never really thought about it until a friend mentioned, "Hey, your staircases are steep," and now I can't stop thinking about it. I go up and down the stairs many times a day, mostly because our laundry machines are in the basement and we're using cloth diapers. One load of cloth diapers equals 6 jaunts up or down stairs. Daily. (I love cloth!!!)

Today I was on my way down from the second story. We were all going out to a nice Italian dinner using a coupon I got in the mail for my birthday, and I wanted R and I to look nice. As soon as I started changing R (should've changed myself first, whoops) she was not happy and started to scream. I got her to calm down, then tried putting her down so I could change, haha, no. I managed to change my shirt, but I was still wearing the wrong skirt. The usual tricks weren't working, and I realized this situation called for the sling. It was downstairs. I picked up the crying baby, also grabbed some other things I wanted to take to the main level, and set off down the stairs.

I always watch my feet as best I can going down stairs because I never want to miss one. Even if I can't *see* my feet due to a baby and other miscellanea in my arms, I still look. Well, today I missed one. I thought I was at the landing already, but there was still one step before the landing, and down we went. My right foot folded back against the stairs, my left knee hit the landing, R was jolted, and I was in shock: I wasn't expecting that to happen! I had made a promise to R that I would never drop her, and even today I kept that promise, but if she didn't need sling therapy before she certainly needed it after that! I picked us up, safely finished descending the steps, and gingerly walked on my right foot. My main concern was, "Can I walk? Because if I can't do laps around the dining room table with R in the sling then I'm in big trouble! Nothing else can calm her down!!!" Thankfully, I could still walk, the sling worked its magic, Senpai came home, and we all went out to dinner.

Sling Therapy, with the amazing Hugamonkey sling.

That would've been a happy ending, except while at dinner I scraped my right foot against a sharp piece of metal that was sticking up from the floor. Ow! It didn't break the skin, though. And no, we can't get all pissy at the restaurant for the metal sticking out of the floor. The reason it was exposed was because Senpai had moved the booth seat to make more room for R and I. Ah well. I'm fine, really. Just hoping that's the last of the unfortunate mishaps. My right foot thanks me in advance.

Carseat of DOOM/ Cabin Fever

Oh, the carseat. Yesterday could have gone so much better if I hadn't tried to put R in her carseat. I just wanted to go to the Target down the road and buy creamer! We now have three different bottles of creamer in the fridge and I doubt they'll last until next week. Girl has made me a coffee addict. So yeah, Target. Creamer. Easy. Right?

It was supposed to be perfect. I had just pumped my breastmilk (check!), fed the baby (check!), changed the baby (check!), and the diaper bag was packed and ready to go. She always wakes up in stores, so I figured it would work out better to have the outing be playtime, instead of doing playtime and then going out with an overtired baby who can't fall asleep. That's so smart of me, right? No. Oh, no. I did not check that the carseat straps were loose enough before buckling her in. R grows exponentially, and, sure enough, the straps were too tight. No biggie, I loosened them, and that should have stopped her screaming, right? Once again, no. No amount of carseat rocking, or jiggling, or pacifying would calm her down. She had an unpleasant memory from 5 minutes ago of the straps being too tight and she wanted them off NOW. So I had to pull her out, rock, sway, cajole, all to no avail: please calm down, baby, PLEASE. 40 minutes later and she still hadn't stopped crying at me. Partly because I had tried again to put her in the carseat. Yeah, like that would work. An hour had already gone by, I was losing precious time before needing to repeat the pump/feed/change routine, and she still hadn't slept yet, wasn't going to sleep, and certainly wasn't going to let me buy a bottle of decadently sweet creamer. I called Senpai and sobbed over the phone to him, as R sobbed in my arms, that she will never ever let me out of the house.

I should tell you that the only way we (note, I said WE) do leave the house with her is to have one person driving while the other sits in the backseat and holds a pacifier in her mouth. Oh, child, please discover that you have thumbs!! So me, being one person, can't possibly take her anywhere in the carseat (especially not when the straps are too tight!), and it's too hot outside to walk anywhere. So... I'm frothing at the lips trying to get out of the house. I don't even have anywhere to GO really, it's just nice to have the thought of, "Oh I could go somewhere, whenever I want to..." Haha, not in this reality.

As a step in the right direction (freedom!!!), tonight Senpai threaded the carseat straps through the higher shoulder setting and left them really loose. He gently placed a calm R-baby into the seat, and gradually tightened the straps to the proper fit. Then we all watched SYTYCD. Happy ending.

Sometimes I feel like we had R to make other people feel better about their babies. I don't mean that. Maybe I do. Luckily, she pays me in cuteness. And she pays well. I guess I can put up with this.