Nursing Strike

Leah came down with a little cough yesterday. I didn’t think much about it most of the day and just continued on with the usual course of motherhood. I did notice though how small and wimpy it sounded. Different kind of. It wasn’t the usual hacky, scary, head for the hills kind of cough my kids usually get so I thought it must not be much to worry about.

When evening came around, I realized that Leah hadn’t been willing to nurse at all that day. Whenever I tried, she’d just roll out of my lap and moved on to something else. I thought she was being “too busy.” I even showed Jer, “Look, she wont eat,” and sure enough she wanted nothing to do with it.

By bed time, the poor girl looked utterly exhausted so I chucked it up to having 2 itty bitty cat naps in the car instead of her usual long snooze. When I sat down to feed her and tuck her in bed she latched on for half a second and then clenched her teeth down on me hard. I screamed, of course, and  scared her into a big fit of tears. I suctioned out her nose, realizing that that was the problem and then tried to feed her again but boy was she mad.

I put her to bed hoping that she’d be interested in a few hours. She did wake up around 1:30 but still, nothing but tears and an arched back.

Morning came and I was so surprised that she wasn’t hungry enough to take me. So I pumped and she took the bottle. Bummer. I wasn’t so sure it was a breathing through the nose thing any more because she didn’t appear to have any trouble drinking the bottle.

But she was terribly fussy. I soon noticed that her breathing was weesy and a bit labored from her chest and belly. I thought I’d better make a sick appointment with the pediatrician.

After a quick phone call and the nurse hearing me say “labored breathing” they had me come in right away.

With the oxygen thingy on her foot, the doc was ready to send me off to the children’s hospital because her oxygen was so low. He suctioned out her nose and gave her an albuterol treatment with a nebulizer. Luckily her levels came back up and stayed at a normal level. He was happy and surprised that I wasn’t riding off in an ambulance and sent me home with antibiotics for an ear infections and my own nebulizer with an insanely large supply of albuterol.

I guess her diagnosis is RSV which I think has such scary stories to go along with it. I’ve had many friends with babies in the hospital for way to long because of it but I guess it’s more common then I realize. I’m just hoping Leah is big enough and tough enough to kick it quickly. My instructions are to go to the emergency room if she get any worse and he did say babies often get worse before they get better. Great.

I read on line the babies don’t really want to nurse while they are fighting RSV. It’s too laboring. I’m sure the ear infection wasn’t helping either. I was very happy when Leah woke up from her nap today willing to chow down.  A 30 hour strike isn’t too bad at all so I’m just hoping she’ll keep on top of it and keep being a willing eater.