The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, & Worse

I'll try to start the rant with the Good: Jett progress highlights. He's laughing now (started on Christmas and I almost cried it was sooooooo adorable), cooing and babbling more, reaching for and grabbing at objects (and Mommy's glasses and hair...), attempting to sit up, and rocking on his back. On occasion, he'll even roll over, but it's infrequent for now. He just seems more aware of his surroundings now and is rather interactive. We really enjoy playing with him, when he's not exhausted and his gums aren't killing him. He's also started sleeping in the car (like normal babies...) and we've gotten the green flag from his pediatrician to start the introduction of solid foods. As such, we're feeding him teeny amounts of rice cereal and some mashed carrots.

I'll also add the cessation of breastfeeding to the Good list. Jett, at the tail end of his last cold, decided he didn't like nursing anymore (though he's warmed back up to a bit since then) and now that he's almost sitting and eating, and teething, we've decided it's an okay time to ween him. My major reason to keep him breastfed is for the potential antibodies that I'm passing to him. My major reason to ween him is his ever-churning tummy. It doesn't seem to matter what I take out of my diet, there's always something else I'm eating that is causing him digestive issues. Formula doesn't vary in it's daily makeup and I think that consistency will help him IMMENSELY. And Mommy will get to freely eat dairy, chocolate, beer, orange juice, beans, spices, etc. again... Besides, what antibodies I'm passing to him don't appear to be doing a whole lot (as he's almost got a constant cold now) so the gas avoidance far outweighs the antibody benefits in my book. I should have him solely on formula in a couple of weeks I think...which will have gotten me past the five-month mark. I was shooting for six months as a still-pregnant ideal, but won't have fallen too short of that in the end.

I do wish Jett's first teeth would hurry up and make their appearance because his teething issues are Bad. We make sure he gets his baby Tylenol every four hours on the dot. We've applied baby Oragel (which seems do to more harm than good as the cherry "flavor" makes him instantly cry for the five seconds it takes to apply before numbing his gums), provided various teething items, and made little soothing pacifier Popsicles. And generally, we can keep the teething pain under control, but it doesn't seem to dent his desire to gnaw on his hand, a stuffed animal, my knuckle/shoulder, etc, and he is a drool-FACTORY. Completely soaks the collars of anything he's wearing, with just his saliva. And I'm not a big fan of saliva...

As alluded to above, Jett is sick. Again. Which is Ugly. We anticipated some frequent illness in a multiple-child daycare setting. Frequent like every other month...not for months at a time. Jett has been struggling to get healthy for the last seven out of eight weeks, having temporarily disabled both Kenny and I earlier this month with our own colds...THAT cannot happen again - a family activity in illness. Bah. Even if Jett was sick every month (not continuously), we could deal, at least somewhat. The worst part still is that we can't do anything to fix him. In my opinion, his immune system sucks. Maybe that's how they all start. I know as a baby he's vulnerable to acquiring various bugs but I feel like his system should be doing a better job than it is now. That, or he's getting some rather virulent strains of cold...which could very well be the case. Kenny and I have been talking seriously about pulling Jett out of daycare and situating him with an in-home nanny, at least temporarily, until he's a little older. Or, at least until we're done with cold weather and the height of cold and flu season. Sure, it's going to cripple us financially...but it's only temporary (for a few months maybe?) and it's worth it because...

& Worse...we can't sleep. I really feel that if Jett had a chance to be healthy again, he'd be a good or at least decent sleeper. Unfortunately, with him being sick, he sleeps like penguins fly...not so much. His sinuses either drain into his face all night or he's stopped up and can't breathe and then wakes...or, if we happen to be in a particularly awful week when the illness has progressed into his lungs/chest, his coughing fits frequently wake him. Kenny and I have settled on a schedule to take turns sleeping. I try and get to bed as early as possible (8 pm) and get to sleep until about midnight, when Kenny's shift formally ends. If Jett's sleeping at that time, good for me- I get to keep sleeping. I'm on call though for any stirring after that, since Kenny's got to be up at 5:30 am. With this routine, I'm guaranteed at least a four-hour stretch of uninterrupted, gloriously-precious sleep, and Kenny should get about five and a half to savor. Which is ridiculous. I want more than four hours of sleep. I NEED more than four hours of sleep, if nothing else but to give my body a chance to keep Jett's germs at bay and NOT get sick myself. After discussing the idea for a month now, we are taking formal steps to hire a night nanny for once- to twice-per-week night relief. I told Kenny that getting 6+ hours of uninterrupted sleep would be more exciting than I could handle, but that I'm happier with this arrangement more for the effect on my psyche. My outlook on the immediate future has been, understandably, a bit bleak, and honestly, just having a day each week to look forward to that I DON'T dread coming home and starting a futile night routine...well, not to sound like a MasterCard commercial, that would be priceless.

Luckily, Kenny and I still take turns feeling utterly defeated by our baby son. Which is good. We can't both need a timeout at the same time...I just wish I knew how to fix this other than waiting for time to pass and sleep maturity to set in. Whether it's the snowballing colds or some underlying medical issue or just Jett's natural disposition (and just our luck...), the kid does not sleep. I might need to take a day off from work just to sit in his room at daycare and see how they do it. Even then though, per his daily activity sheet they write up, he doesn't seem to nap much for them either. Jett's completely and utterly over his swing here at home. You set him in it and he screams. Hates it. The only thing that seems to get him to sleep these days is me bouncing him in my arms while sitting on a yoga ball (wish my lower back were a bit stronger...) or Kenny taking him for multiple car rides to nowhere. Rocking him, walking around the house, swinging, even putting him in his carrier doesn't seem to work much anymore. And Jett is frequently tired. Because he's not napping. And when he gets super tired, he crosses over into that over-tired, fussy state. And then there's NO getting him to sleep. Because he's a flailing, crying mess and it's soooo frustrating because he needs to sleep and he just can't. Which is craziness to Kenny and I, who could nearly fall asleep standing up these days (actually, I do believe I fall asleep rather frequently while rocking Jett in the rocker in his room for his nightly wake-ups, because I notice that an hour has gone by sometimes, but there's no way I fed him or was awake for that long...). So Jett's not napping easily, and doesn't stay asleep for long, and the night-time routine takes at least an hour typically to get him asleep, which frequently entails two or three immediate attempts to put him back down. And this week, he's been averaging 3 to 4 wakings per night (between midnight and 7 am). Monday was particularly special as I tried to shield Kenny from the ensuing sleep deprivation for at least one night, and took Jett to a guest bedroom to sleep on my chest while I slept sitting up. I figured this would be better for Jett since the position didn't cause his sinuses to drain to his face or run down his throat and gag him, and he likes the co-sleeping. And, when he awoke frequently as I anticipated, I'd be right there to attend to him vs. having to get out of bed and move to a different room to reach him. I don't think either Jett nor myself got more than an hour of sleep at a time. And Kenny didn't sleep well either because he was having flashbacks of how significantly sick Jett was a few weeks ago with Bronchiolitis and worried about him all night.

I've done a better job at going into zombie-mode this week vs. hysterically crying and getting mad at Jett. Obviously, this is not his intentional doing. And he's sick, which sucks for grown adults, let alone a tiny infant. I'm more quietly sad this week, mourning our defeat and my resignation to this dismal future for the next couple of months. I'm hoping our efforts in the month of January - getting a nanny and hopefully staving off such frequent illnesses; getting a night nurse to allow us some MUCH-needed respite; Jett turning five months and just being more mature and maybe ready to sleep better? - will help bring the future into a much hopeful light.

I just feel like we, like many other first-time parents, read all the online articles & must-have books, subscribed to the new-parent forums, talked to experienced friends and family, observed others with children, even took a hands-on approach when available, and readied ourselves with eyes wide open for the sacrifices and changes we would have to make in welcoming a child into our lives. And as much as we could have been ready, we were. It's like we'd been outfitted in full-on hockey goalie gear and had steeled ourselves for whatever was about to come, poised with our sticks in hand...and then an earthquake hit and we were swallowed up into the subsequent hole in the ground. How do you prepare for that?

Two additional notes: I couldn't do this without Kenny. I love, love, LOVE you. I couldn't appreciate your more for everything you do and will do for us and Jett.
For as much as we complain about our struggles in raising Jett, I do have some perspective on our situation. It could be worse. It could be FAR worse. I could be doing this alone. Jett could have some debilitating illness that required medical interventions. So, yes, on the whole, we feel fortunate to have what we have. But, it's still been a rough time for us as this is our first (and potentially last) foray into child-rearing and it's still kicking our ass. But we do love him. And I'm happy with our decision to start a family. I could definitely understand why someone might choose never to have children...but having held my child and locked eyes with him, and getting to listen to him laugh and smile at me and try to hold a conversation with me, and seeing him rest peacefully when he's finally and happily asleep...I absolutely adore those moments. And I'm told they'll occur more frequently. And I look forward to that.

Concerned, Panicked, Relieved, Annoyed

Jett started daycare on November 1st and by the end of the following week, had come down with his first real cold. We both did. That cold lingered for about three weeks, disrupting the very precious sleep routine we'd established for the one, golden week when he'd just turned 12 weeks and had slept through the night six days in a row. We're back to three hours at a time...if that.

So after being sick for three weeks and missing a week or two already of daycare, this cold developed into bronchiolitis, which is a common virus (RSV) in kids under 2 years old during cold and flu season. It WRECKED Jett. He'd have serious fits of coughing, which frequently turned into almost choking, then sometimes vomiting. His eyes would water and his nose never stopped running (it still hasn't). We'd had his 4-month well-baby visit scheduled last Monday, to get his first round of immunizations, but instead, got tested for whooping cough and sent home with a nebulizer machine (like a portable humidifier that sounds like a generator with a tube leading to an oxygen mask for dispensing of inhaled medication). We'd been concerned that he'd been sick for three weeks already, but the choking thing was really concerning, and he wasn't getting better. That Monday night, I was in a full-blown panic as he was having a really difficult time breathing - his nose was completely stuffed up and his chest was just so congested - it sounded like his wheezing was wheezing. Terrible. I ended up calling his pediatrician after-hours to calm my fears and sent Kenny rushing out to a still-open pharmacy for some last minute Rx fills. It was rough. I slept sitting up with him in my arms, partly so that he could breathe better, and partly just to make sure he kept breathing. Kenny was concerned as well, but didn't fly off the handle as I had and thank god. Two of us can't both lose our heads and I am thankful every day that he's so very, very rational.

We'd had a trip to New Mexico planned that week, but postponed it on Tuesday with Jett's health in mind. Kenny and I took turns working from home so that we could tend to our son and take him to his daily doctor visits. Later that week, the pediatrician confided that she almost had us admitted to the hospital after seeing us Tuesday morning - he was in that bad of shape - if she didn't have the utmost faith in us to dispense his medication on a very rigid schedule. Whooping cough and pneumonia were ruled out in the course of the week, and bronchiolitis was diagnosed. We'd been given a fact sheet on this two or so weeks prior, when I'd first brought him in (to rule out something more serious than a cold), and I'd been looking for a fever, which never developed.

Now that he's on some medication to help open his airways and keep the phlem down, he's doing better. However, it's still a virus like the flu, and there's no medication for prescription to cure a virus. As such, his immune system simply has to kick in and kick this. The medication prescribed can only help ready his immune system for the epic battle. It sucks though because I can't even give him an antihistamine to dry up his runny, runny nose. There's no over-the-counter meds to give a baby.

He's been doing better and can breathe now and is hacking less and there's no more vomiting. But he's still struggling. His immune system had been depressed already in battling a cold for three weeks...and now this. And I can only think that we're going to send him back to daycare and he's going to pick this up again...Kids don't become immune to this, just as adults who've gotten the flu can still get the flu. And the pediatrician has informed us that the next cold he gets can easily turn into bronchiolitis. We anticipated him getting sick...we did start him in daycare, surrounded by 11 other snotty babies, at the beginning of cold and flu season...but we didn't anticipate almost hospitalizing our son. I don't want to go through this again.

So now that we're relieved that Jett's on the mend (though bronchiolitis can run a 21-day course...) and in no dire straits, I am impatient for him to be healthy again. This virus can stick around though, and it's messing with his sleep...and subsequently ours. He's still got just enough of a runny nose to stuff up his sinuses when he slumbers in a forward position. He's still got just enough of a cough to wake him several times a night. And oh yes...I forgot to mention that with all the hacking and snot spewing from our son...it was bound to happen that Kenny and I both caught colds. Bronchiolitis, per our now-worn fact sheet, will present as a simple head cold in adults. But contagious nonetheless. So we've been dealing with that. And being sick already sucks - the exhaustion and the endless river of mucus - but to try to function in a parental capacity and without the much-needed sleep my body sooo desperately needs while healing, well, it's pretty friggin awful.

And I can't be annoyed with Jett; he's just healing. But I need some sleep. And Kenny needs some sleep. It's just awful luck that we've all gotten sick at the same time, despite trying to keep Jett's germs at bay with several homeopathic remedies, herbal teas, daily meals of chicken noodle soup and antihistamines. It's just the situation that's irritating. I wish I could afford an in-home nanny (at least for the winter months) so that we wouldn't have to send him back to daycare to potentially get this awful virus again. A cold I can deal with (and expected). This, I never want to see again. But daycare it is.

Parenting is kicking my ass.