Oliver is Fine Now...

...but my heart is still a little broken.

Oh I just don't know how to write about the week we've had! I might have to hurry through this so I don't start crying about it again.

I'm always telling folks to keep their newborns home for the first few months and force Purell on those who simply must squish their baby. I used to be a nurse at a Children's hospital and so I absolutely know how horrible it was when a newborn got a fever and had to come in for a septic workup. Newborns are tricky because they don't always show illness the same way we do and if they do have a serious infection (most don't end up having had one) they can go from looking just fine to being deathly ill in hours. So... if a newborn gets sick, especially with a fever, everyone takes it pretty seriously. And by seriously, I mean tons of invasive, painful tests (including a spinal tap). Which is why its so important to keep newborns from getting sick.

Which is what I am always telling other people.

Because I used to have to be the one to help hold the tiny babies while they got a needle poked in their spine (with no anesthesia at all!). And I really, really, really, wanted to avoid my baby ever have to go through that.

And then last week my own tiny baby got sick. Sick enough that the pediatrician was very concerned. And we landed in exactly the place that I prayed I'd never have to take my baby. And my sweet little boy had to have every one of those painful tests. I'll go light on the details, but it was horrific. Each test had complications and had to be repeated (7 pokes to get an IV in and blood drawn, 3 attempts at catheterization to collect urine, and 3 attempts at a lumbar puncture to get spinal fluid-- which is horribly horribly painful...he cried so hard he had to have oxygen).

I could write for pages about how horrible the whole thing was. There are other awful details...lots of them, but I can't even write about them... I already lay in bed at night and re-live them over and over in my mind.

The most important thing is that Oliver is doing great. None of the really bad things he could have had came back positive. He likely just had a run-of-the-mill virus, but in a baby that small you just can't risk it.

Which is why I just have to do whatever I can to keep him from getting sick again while he is still a newborn. I can't risk putting him through that again.

So... we won't be leaving the house for the next month. And we won't be having any visitors either.

You'll forgive us for being anti-social won't you?

Because while I watched all these terrible painful things being done to my baby-- knowing that they were necessary because he was so sick-- I also knew that they could have been avoided if I'd have kept him safe.

And I'd failed to keep him safe. And that guilt is unbearable.

And still, when I gathered his tiny mottled sobbing little body in my arms between each poke, and his wet little eyes found my face, he'd somehow smile yet.

My sweet sweet boy.

I know he'll recover and won't have any conscious memory of the whole thing,

but I won't ever forget it. Traumatic just begins to describe it for us both (for us all really).

Right after I'd delivered Oliver, my midwife asked me if it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I said no. Because although it was really hard, I was sure it wasn't the hardest thing. It was too wonderful.

But this whole experience ranks right up there. Hardest and worst.

I know it could be worse-- could have been worse. Parents and children endure more every single day. But for our little family, right now in our lives...this felt really, really, bad.

We are all healing (with the help of Trav's parents who flew in to our aid). And there is a lot more to the story (Trav left the hospital after the first night to be with Avery who was also really sick, then he got the flu, plus I was sick, then my milk dried up from not sleeping or eating for three days, then poor little Avery has had the toughest time after "mommy disappeared for so long!", and little Ollie just needs to be held most of the time--which is fine, because frankly I need it too).

But life will go back to normal. We are sure of it.

For now we are staying put (nursing constantly),

washing our hands a lot,

and looking forward to Spring--the end of Respiratory Virus season--

and sunnier days.