Friday, April 16, 2010

First Fever

Well, it happened.

I arrived home from on Wednesday work to find my son with a 103 degree fever. Several months ago, right after C split, one of the scenarios that kept running over and over in my head was his first fever. I pictured it happening and being alone and scared and not knowing what to do. In my mind, that scenario was with a 3 month old baby and not a 10 month old, so in that sense, I think it was a bit easier, but it was still pretty brutal.

I gave him some Tylenol which he promptly threw up. Looking back on it, I think it was just spit up because he it only happened once, and it didn’t seem to cause him much discomfort. He didn’t sleep at all that night – he just wanted to be held and rocked in his glider. He was pretty cheerful and playful considering, but just couldn’t sleep. Around 3:00 am after a luke-warm bath, I moved us to the couch, which is where we slept together for the first 4 months of his life, and we had a little luck there. I was able to doze for a couple of 20-minute stints while he lay in my arms.

My babysitter arrived that morning so I handed him to her and crawled into bed to try and get a few hours sleep before going in late to work. He was so tired and so uncomfortable, he just cried and cried, so I couldn’t fall asleep. I know this is the understatement of the century, but there is just nothing worse than the no-sleep. All of my fear and worry about him is already there, all of my self-doubt about being able to do this on my own is right under the surface – and when I don’t sleep, they just multiply. It is so hard and takes so much energy to talk myself out of that fear and to soothe myself.

I took him to the doctor last night to rule out a bacterial infection since the fever stuck around for 24 hours and was happy to hear that it was only viral. We got home and his fever broke pretty fast. I managed to get him to sleep in his crib for about 30 minutes and we spent the rest of the night on the couch together. We were able to get some 90 minutes stretches in there – but not too many. At least it was better than the night before.

Anyone else have any traumatic first fever stories?

2 comments:

Strawberry said...

Miles first fever was also 103. It's a bit traumatic to see that high a reading on the thermometer. But we gave him ibuprofin and the fever went down. It broke a day later I think.

Since then, he's had roseola, which is awful...and then a fever that's gone as high as 105. Talk about scary. But again, everything was viral...everything responded to ibuprofin. Man, do I love ibuprofin. lol.

Glad your boy is ok.

Anonymous said...

We had a scare after a vaccine and then she got Roseola. She went to sleep fine but then two hours later, wham! 104. I was so worried, the fever didn't break for days.

I'm glad he is okay now, good job Mommy :-)