Tuesday night nobody got sleep (maybe two hours max). Bug was coughing , up and down crying because she didn’t feel good. Littlest’s apnea/brady alarm kept going off, about 15 times total during the night and her cough was getting worse. Finally we made an appointment for Littlest at 6:30 pm and because her oxygen saturation was low, the doctor sent us to the ER. They wanted to send us back to Doernbecher, but I said no-no-no! I wasn’t going through that experience again. Instead they sent us to Emanuel. So through the hood I went, to the pediatric ER. It was scary just walking in from the parking lot. Holy cow, I almost drove up to OHSU instead just because of the clientele. They took us right into a room, checked her oxygen sats, then a chest x-ray. Her sats were good, but they thought they saw pneumonia on her chest x-ray. So I cried. I felt like a bad mom because I wasn’t even going to take her to the doctor. Anyhow, they admitted her, gave her a strong antibiotic IV, some IV fluid. The thing about Emanuel was they got us in a room fairly quickly, got her food pronto with the thickener, and the nurse was in the room waiting for us. The nurse seemed to know her stuff, the monitors worked, and she came in frequently. Two different doctors saw us all within the first hour of being in the room. About 3 a.m. everything was taken care of and I felt comfortable to fall asleep, so I got the cot out, thought how uncomfortable it looked, laid down and passed out immediately. I got about two hours sleep, called Daddy on the dying cell phone, and then laid down again for a while.

Two of the residents who saw Littlest today, plus the head resident had seen Littlest up at the Baby Factory, so I didn’t have to repeat the whole birth process and Littlest’s life up until now. The radiologist said that Littlest didn’t have pneumonia, the RSV study was negative, and her white count looked more like a virus. So they said if I felt comfortable, they would send her home. They gave her another power dose of antibiotic, plus a prescription for five more days of antibiotic just in case - which I’m fine with. They were all wonderful, the nurse bent over backward for us and was quick with the discharge. The whole experience was exactly opposite of the Doernbecher experience. Just as we were leaving, Littlest’s home monitor started constantly alarming. The nurse listened to her heart to make sure it was not a false alarm. Sure enough, her heart rate was slow. She got the doctor while I called the monitor company to have the parameters reset for Littlest’s age. The doctor checked Littlest out again, deemed her okay, we got the monitor fixed and out the door we went. The nurse walked us out all the way to the car. I got in the carpool lane on the freeway (it was 5 pm) and we were home in no time flat.

The only frustrating thing was I really wasn’t expecting them to keep her overnight, so I wasn’t prepared. The cell phone wasn’t charged and therefore died at 5:30 am, I didn’t have any phone numbers or anything else I usually carry, and I only had enough food for Littlest for one meal and she had that before she went into the ER. The phone was the worst part. I couldn’t call Daddy because it was long distance and I made one collect call to him and that, according to the operator, probably cost us about $15. I got creative though. I remembered that hometown hospital had a Portland line, so I got that number, called Vancouver Nana at work and then she called Daddy for me. I felt really isolated though not being able to call people. Littlest had excellent care, but it was stressful taking care of everything on my own and still try to take care of the appointments we had and worrying about Bug and Daddy. I was so tired this afternoon I kept falling asleep with Littlest in my arms. The nurse would leave and I would pass out, she would come back in five minutes later and I would jerk awake. This went on for about an hour.