Sick :-(

I started a couple of blogs (on my phone or ipad) last week, but never got further than a couple of sentences.  The first one was about how helpless you feel as a parent when something is wrong with your baby and you don't know what it is and there is nothing you can do to make them feel better.  Another was about the experience we had at night when Asher would not sleep and would not even lay down, only wanting to be held because he was so congested and having a hard time breathing.  Another was about our visit to the doctor when we found out that he had croup, and the last one was some details about our week with a sick baby.  Rather than trying to finish all those blogs and post, I figured I would just sum it all up in a quick post now. 

Last Tuesday Asher woke up with some chest congestion and Nick and I just assumed that he had a cold.  Tuesday night came and there was NO sleeping in the Freeman house.  Asher would not sleep, could not get comfortable, even in bed with us, and could hardly stop crying long enough to cough.  We considered taking him to the emergency room, but didnt think that it was something that could not wait until the morning.  It was the most helpless we have ever felt as parents.

Wednesday morning, he had calmed down a bit, but was still VERY congested and breathing very loudly, so we took him to the doctor.  We found out that he had croup with stridor and needed a dose of steroids.  The doctor was concerned about him and asked that we come back the next day for her to re-check his breathing.  The next day, his breathing was better, but still not great, and Dr. Worly was concerned about a relapse so she wrote us a prescription for another dose of steroids. 

While the steroids helped a little, they made sleeping very difficult for our little man.  Naps were non existent, and if they did happen we had to be holding Asher, upright over our shoulder, and even then, the didnt last much longer than 20 minutes.  Nighttime the first couple of nights were difficult and he wouldnt sleep without me holding him (and was not happy if I was holding him while in bed) So we spent most of the first couple of nights in the rocking chair (not comfortable for momma).  After a couple of nights, he was a little bit better during the day, took some short naps, but had to be rocked to sleep.  But at night the stridor would come back and each time he would cough or try and take a deep breath, it would wake him up.  He woke up consistently every hour or two, and the only way to calm him down and back to sleep was to nurse him.  He wasnt eating much during the day and absolutely refused his bed time bottle, so in addition to not feeling well, I knew he had to be hungry, and if he was willing to eat, I was not going to stop him.  While I secretly love the middle of the night nursing sessions...doing it every couple of hours makes for a very long night for momma and daddy.   This continued pretty much through the weekend with his naps and night time.

Finally, this past Monday morning we had our last dose of steroids.  We were hopeful for better nights, but not really much luck.  Although during the day we saw an improvements (he was happier, ate a little bit more, took short naps)  our nights have still been difficult, he is still waking every couple of hours (sometimes even more frequently)

Asher is still not 100% but he is quickly heading in that direction.  Through out all of this we have definitely developed some bad habits that we are not looking forward breaking.  After a week of picking him up every time he cried, holding him most of the day, letting him sleep on our shoulders, waking up frequently through the night and getting picked up and nursed back to sleep every time, I think that we have a difficult road ahead of us.  But when your baby is sick, you do what you have to do, not just to make them feel better, but to make yourself feel better too.  Those were the only things we could do to keep from feeling helpless.