We hit a rough patch last week with the weaning.  When Courtney was sick on Friday she wouldn’t take any milk from the cup, and she wouldn’t do it over the weekend either.  It was making me really nervous.  I have a drop dead date of October 8th to have this kid off the boob.  Fortunately for Paul, Courtney and myself, she seemed to pick it up on Monday without missing a beat.  At this point I’ve got her off the lunch feeding and we’re (back to) cutting the night time feeding now.  I hope to cut the night time feeding completely in the next couple days.  I think the morning nursing is going to be our hardest though.  And I’m going to miss it.  I’m going to miss lying with my girl, having her put that little hand on my face, look at me with those big brown eyes, and smile her beautiful smile.  But she’s not coming to Vegas with me so no more boob for her.

And the best news of all for this rainy, wet, Atlanta Wednesday…  My cousin who had a long and ugly battle with breast cancer, and won, had a scary doctors appointment last week.  She went in to her oncologist yesterday and it turns out that her PET scan was clear.  PHEW!  What a relief.  I just LOVE good news like that.

Courtney loves the remote, even if she isn't allowed to watch TV.

So here I am on what should be day 8 and I’ve just showered and gotten dressed which in my mind means: No more exercise today.  However, I did decide last week to do the September Fitness Challenge so I did day 1 this morning (I did do the “test” last week on one of my fail days).  And during the resting period of the squats, when I could actually just sit there, I lifted some weights.  That has to count for something, yes?  No?  I know, FAIL.

Also, I’m been dying to bake something.  Pumpkin muffins.  Oatmeal bites.  Something.  But I haven’t.  In lieu of baking something delectable last week, I made these broccoli cheese bites for Courtney which taste a great deal like cardboard.  And I have a million of them.  Even Paul thought they were bland.  So they must be terrible.  Oh well, as long as I dont’ bake some chocolate chunk 1000 calorie per cookie piece of goodness, that’s a step in the right direction.

Courtney seemed to have a good day today.  She wasn’t a great napper but hasn’t been for the past 4 day.  I’m not sure if it’s because she hasn’t been feeling well or we ‘re getting ready to lose a nap.  But she seemed to be less congested and her cough is almost gone.  I’m REALLY hoping that in the next day or two, my happy, smiley, laughing baby girl comes back to us.

Stacking cups, proving our genius

Mo-om, I'm eating my dinner.

I know there are more Cheerio's in this bowl...

After turning off the TV, I got Courtney up from her nap and we headed out to run some errands.  We went to Costco where I had put Courtney in my Ergo carrier, strapped to my chest, to do my shopping.  By the time I was done, I was sweating.  I couldn’t get over how hot I was.  Why was I so hot?  I get to the car and take Courtney out of the carrier and realize that she’s the source of the heat.  She’s burning up.  We get home and I take her temp: 103.6.

At this point it’s 11:58am, and the pediatricians office closes from 12 – 12:30 for lunch.  I RUN downstairs with Courtney in my arms and immediately call the doctor, hoping to get through before I get that voice saying, “The office is closed.”  I hate that voice.  I manage to get through and get in for an appointment at 1:45.  I have to admit, I’m pretty panicked at this point.  Courtney had had a slight fever the night before but I chalked it up to teething and didn’t really worry about it.   I called Paul at work and he tells me to put her in a tepid bath.  So after a bath and some Motrin, we sit in her rocker and she falls asleep.  To my delight, Paul came home on his lunch break to make sure that we were both ok, and held her so I could take a quick shower and get out of my sweats.

Anyway, Courtney and I head to the doctor where they draw some blood via a finger prick (shot #1).  They run the blood work and her white blood cell count comes back high – 20,000 (5k – 15k being normal).  The doctor can’t determine anything without further labs so she tells me she’s sending me to the children’s hospital for a complete workup.  But, before we go they’re going to get a urine sample, with a catheter.  My stomach just dropped.  The nurse brings in the stuff and swabs her up and has me lean over Courtney, so I’m not looking at her, and hold her legs in place so she can input the tube.  As you can imagine, Courtney is screaming and there are these huge baby tears streaming down her face.  And I can’t really see her.  And I can’t kiss her.  And I’m dying inside.  When she finally gets buckets a tube of pee, we head over to the hospital.

Now, keep in mind it’s 3:00 on a Friday.  When we’re done at the hospital, we’re to go back to the doctors office to get a shot of antibiotics.  A preventive measure.   We could get the shot at the hospital but we’d have to go to the ER and the pediatrician is doing everything she can to make sure we don’t end up in the ER, with all the kids with swine flu and other horrible illnesses that may be highly contagious.

We head to radiology where Courtney is to get a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia.  After an eternal wait, we get called back to the x-ray room.  Paul strips Courtney down and they lay her on the table, she’s SCREAMING.  We both put on our “protective” gear and the guy says to me, “Is there any chance that you are pregnant?”  Um, well, there’s a chance but to my knowledge I’m not.  “Sorry, you need to leave the room.” So I stand in the hall and listen to my beautiful girl scream and cry and there’s nothing I can do.  At least Paul was there but that only made me feel a tiny bit better. I’m her mom.  I should be there.

From there we headed to the lab for some blood work.  The lady says to me, “Do you want to give her some numbing cream?  It takes 30 minutes.”  Well, at this point it’s 5:00 on Friday and the pediatrician’s office closes at 5.  I say no, don’t numb my baby to aleve her pain, we don’t have time.  I feel just awful.  The woman has a hard time finding a vein.  Courtney hasn’t had anything to drink since breakfast and she’s been crying and her veins aren’t just popping up.  So the woman puts the needle in and then has to reposition the needle around in her arm and still can’t get the blood to come out (shot #2).  She moves to the right arm and there’s no good vein in the right arm so she goes back to the left arm and finally gets two vials (shot #3).

Courtney getting her blood drawn.

From there I literally RUN with Courtney back across the street to the doctors office.  Fortunately for us, the pediatrician was seeing her last patient of the day and was still there.  We get the shot of antibiotics in her little leg (shot #4), hang out to make sure she doesn’t have a reaction to the meds and finally head home.  Oh, we did get the x-ray results, all was clear there.

We had a good night with minimal crying and Courtney slept well.  I didn’t but at least she did.

She awoke this morning with no fever and we headed back to the pediatrician for another antibiotics shot (#5) and another blood draw (6th shot).  Her white cell count came back at the high end of normal (15,000), which is a good sign and the antibiotics are working.  The urine analysis from the day before came back ok, so no UTI there.  But we still don’t know what’s wrong.  They’re checking the blood for a bacterial infection – strep, meningitis, things like that.  The blood work takes 48 hours.

Me holding Courtney down while they stab her with yet another needle.

Courtney getting her foot pricked.

So, we’ll wait until tomorrow and hope to hear something definitive about what’s wrong with our beautiful baby girl.  If it is a bacterial infection, we’ll have to go back to the hospital, this time to the ER, for another shot.  If not, well then I don’t really know what the next step is.  I just want some answers.  I hate not knowing what’s wrong with my girl.  I hate that she looks like a human pincushion.  I want my happy and healthy girl back.  She’s so fun when she’s healthy.

I hated yesterday.

It’s equally amazing to me that these days that I cherish so much, she’s not going to remember at all.  The hours of walking around the pool, either trying to get her to stop crying or just getting outside.  Sitting on the floor, playing with her toys.  Making the most ridiculous faces all to get her to laugh.  And when she does laugh, doing that same thing over and over so she keeps going.  Listening to her squeal with delight when the dog walks into the room, as though every time is the first time.  By the time she’s 18, she’s going to have 8 million hours of video to watch, many of it repetitive and probably not even exciting to her but it will be there if she wants to know what we were doing.  But it’s so wonderful for me.

She’s been on 6 plane flights, been to 6 states (I think), waved at countless people, and made people smile in the airport, the grocery store, and in restaurants (and more).  She’s laughed her infectious baby laugh, which then makes us laugh, more times than I can count.  She’s cried at things I can’t begin to understand and those I can.  These tears don’t happen often, not nearly as often as others.  She’s a great baby.  Happy.  Playful.  Smiley.  Wonderful.

Someday I will have to tell her about all of this.  All that she’s “missed.”