The hardest part of motherhood

Sorry its been a while since I've had a post. Here is why....

There is a lot to deal with when you are a mom. It feels like every six months, Ethan goes through a new stage. You finally learn how to get him to sleep, then he suddenly doesn't want to go to bed at a reasonable bed time. You finally get him to sit down at the dinner table, then he suddenly doesn't care to eat anything you serve him. Its constant frustration and struggle. Don't get me wrong, there are a million more good things then bad, but the bad - well, they make motherhood a very difficult job.

The hardest part though is when your child is sick. Ethan had his first hospital stay 2 weeks ago. The week, well it began on a Saturday, started out with really bad diarrhea, and a mild fever. (Something that I never knew until I had a kid, babies can have a temperature of like 103, and doctors don't get worried. You hit 104, and they want to see you, but up until that point, the kid is basically fine. If I had a temp. of 103, you would think I was dying!!!)

At first I figured it was a simple bug and he would get through it. But then he started to complain that it hurt when he peed. Then on Tues, he was so lethargic, and he has never been like that, and so I began to worry.

The hard part about a kid being sick at this age is that they can't fully express how they feel. As a mom, you want nothing more than to know what's wrong. But if you're child can't tell you, you don't know what to do to fix it, and all you want to do is fix it.

So I called his doctor and he ordered some urine tests and luckily, I got Ethan to pee right into the cup. The doctor called Wednesday and said that the results came back fine. But, there was blood in his stool now. Actually, Greg and I thought we started noticing the blood on Monday, but it didn't look like normal blood, so we figured it was something he ate. We should have gone with our natural instinct. The doctor ordered some stool tests, and called us Thursday to say there definitely was blood in his stool. The other tests he ordered would hopefully tell us if there was an infection or what-not. However, with us ordering the tests on a Thursday, we would have to wait until Monday to get the results. ARGH!!!

When our doctor called us on Friday to see how Ethan was doing, his condition hadn't changed. So the doctor suggested actually come in. We went in about 3:00pm. First he had to go to the lab to have blood drawn. (I took my dad with me cause I hate watching them poke my son, it makes me want to cry) Then we had to go to x-ray, which took forever. By the time that was done, we went to our doctor's office, but because it was so late, we had sit around over 30 minutes to wait for the overnight clinic to start. We finally got to see the doctor, who wanted to admit Ethan into the hospital. They wanted to keep him over night to observe him. This way they could rule out anything serious. There was 85-90% chance Ethan had some sort of bacterial or viral infection, in which case he would be fine. But the doctors couldn't know that until the stool tests came back on Monday. There was a 15-10% chance it was more serious than that. They were afraid it might be this thing where your intestines kind of telescope itself, going inside of itself. Its common in kids from 18 months to 3 years. The only way to rule that out was to observe Ethan when he had pain and to actually see a stool right when it came out.

So I agreed and Ethan and I were finally sitting in his hospital bed at 8pm. Part of me was so scared cause here was my son, my little, little boy, sitting in this hospital bed with this little hospital gown, and all of this hospital equipment and even though I felt like nothing was really wrong, there was still that chance. But part of me just couldn't help and smile cause he just looked so darn cute in that hospital gown. (I even stole it cause it was just to darn cute.) But like the title says, this is the hardest part of being a mom. The waiting, and not knowing, and just praying. Sure, the praying makes me feel better, but I would rather not have to pray that my son is all right.

By the next morning, Ethan had a "normal" poo, and there was only traces of blood in it, so the doctors were happy and ruled out the serious possibility. When Monday came around the doctor called to let us know that it was a bacterial infection, called campylobacter which people get from eating contaminated food or milk, very similar to salmonella. The doctor didn't put him on antibiotics cause he was already on his way to doing a lot better. And it took only 2 more days for him to be perfect again.

I wish I could say that this experience has made me a lot more patient - that I no longer get frustrated with him or mad at him, but I'm only human, and doing this 24-7 proves that. But there are times when I'm tired and I don't want to play, and he just really wants to, that I remember him sitting in that hospital bed. All it takes is that memory for me to get up and join him. Cause if that one hospital stay is the worst thing I have to go through with him, I am one lucky mom.