What started as a normal early morning suddenly changed so quickly into a day that I will never forget as long as I live. Olivia got up at 3:30 to nurse and ate very well. I then laid her in the bed beside me (thank God) where she seemed to be very restless. She wasn't crying so I just thought she wanted to play. About 5 minutes later she started to throw up. I scooped her up as quick as I could and yelled for Aaron to wake up. She continued to throw up all of what she had just eaten along with a little bile.
I called the doctor as soon as they opened and we immediately went in. Ironically she had already had an appointment for that day (her 2 month check-up.) At first I joked with the doctor that she must have really not wanted her shots... Little did I know that I would have much rather her had the shots then what we later went through.
I nursed her again in the doctor's office so that they could get a urine sample. From that they found out that she had an UTI (urinary tract infection.) I didn't even know it was possible for babies to get those. We finally left 2 hours later and were written a prescription to start immediately. Not even 20 minutes after we left the doctor's office, Olivia threw up again all over herself in her carseat. I panicked and so did Aaron... I called the doctor back and was instructed to give her the medicine and some pedialyte so that she didn't get dehydrated. As you can probably guess, right after the medicine was given, she threw that up as well. We then rushed back to the doctor so that he could give her an injection shot of her antibiotics to stop the throwing up. At this point it was too late because her little body had had enough.
While in the doctor's office she began throwing up yet again and this time is was purely bile. Her skin color began to fade and she just laid there not making a sound. It was then that her doctor looked at me and before the words came out I knew exactly what he was going to say.
I needed to somehow find someone to watch the boys, get Aaron home from Greensboro and get to the hospital QUICK. In a panic state of mind I called Aaron not really able to talk and just told him he needed to get home now. I then began dialing friends numbers to see who could watch my boys. Thankfully I have some amazing friends and an amazing mother in law so that was one less thing I had to worry about. I dropped the boys off at a friends house, grabbed a few things out of my house, and headed straight to the hospital.
Once in the hospital the first thing that was needed was to get Olivia some fluid. Because she was so little and she was so dehydrated they tried to get an in IV in both arms and a leg and all three of those attempts failed. When I tell you that I felt like I was going to puke during this, I am not lying. To see my little girl screaming in such agony and pain and knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it made me feel like the worst mom in the world. At one point I made the nurses stop pricking her body and I scooped her up with tears streaming out of both of our eyes. Thank God my husband was there with me because without him there I would have never made it. After getting her calmed down and myself I knew that the worst had yet to come. Because an IV had yet to be placed correctly, it needed to be done fast. I didn't have much of a choice at that point because it was either let the nurses do what they need to do or my daughter could get worse fast. With little hesitation Aaron and I agreed that the IV needed to go in somehow/somewhere NOW. The only place the nurses could get a vein was in her head. I get chill bumps now writing this because I wanted to take her place. I wanted to be the one in pain, I wanted to be the one getting stuck with needles, I wanted to be the one getting catheterized two times, but more than anything I wanted to be able to take her pain away.
Once the IV was in place she started to perk up. Her color came back, her bright little smile appeared, and things were starting to look up. We went for an ultrasound to make sure her stomach hadn't torn from all of the throwing up she had done. Thank God the results were normal.
We stayed overnight because we had more tests to be run the next day. Not being able to have my baby sleep next to me in my bed was horrible. I tossed and turned all night getting little sleep.
The next day we were sent up for another ultrasound of her kidneys and bladder to make sure there was no swelling. Those results too were normal praise God.
The only conclusion from all of this is that Olivia has what they believe to be reflux of her urethrae which causes urine to shoot back up into the bladder instead of completely emptying out. The downside to this is that she has to have a few more UTI's before they can to the dye test to see if that is truly what it is.
Thankfully we were sent home late that afternoon and my little girl was able to sleep snuggled up to me again.
We aren't out of the woods yet with all of this but thankfully we now know what to do if/when this happens again.
Thank you all who called, texted, prayed, and thought of us during that difficult time. Things could have been a lot worse for us and we are so grateful to God for providing the care that He did while we were there. Many parents who were at the hospital when we were looked more exhausted than me, had been living in the hospital for weeks/months, and some wouldn't be leaving with their little ones. I am so fortunate that we spent just one night there yet I can't imagine anything worse than what we went through. So go give your little ones a big ole kiss right now because you just never know when an ordinary day becomes anything but ordinary...
