Back at the Hospital

Wednesday night Penelope was making all sorts of grunting noises when I tried to put her down for bed. Instead of thinking something was wrong I felt frustrated because I was so tired. So in frustration I gave her to Tyler (who was up doing work for R&K) and went to bed. At 2am, when it was time to nurse her again, I realized she was super hot. So after nursing her, I took her temp and it was 101.4. Of course I turned to the all wise Google to see what to do with a newborn that had a fever and every single source said take the baby to the hospital immediately. A fever could just be a virus but it can also be a sign of a serious condition. Not very comforting news. 

Thank heavens my parents were still here so we were able to leave immediately to the hospital. Upon arrival, she was admitted fairly quickly since her temp was still at a 101.4 and she was breathing very rapidly (hence the grunting). Then tons of tests commenced, it was so awful to watch her go through them all. They gave her a catheter so they could get a urine sample, they pricked her heel for a blood sample, they did a spinal tap, they put an IV in her little arm so they could give her antibiotics in case it was a bacterial infection and they took an x-ray of her chest. 

After all that complete torture they took us up to a room where we were basically to wait 2 days for all the test results to come back. At this point we were pretty hopeful it was just viral since all of our other kids had gotten a fever within the last couple weeks. And as the first day progressed and her fever continued despite antibiotics, the doctors were pretty sure it was a virus as well since she wasn't reacting to the antibiotics. Here are some pictures of our poor little Sweet P on Thursday. She was miserable:

Finally late Friday morning she began to break the fever and was showing improvements. She was breathing better and nursing better by that night:

And by Saturday at noon, all the test results came back clear. Excellent news! She was doing so great and the most alert I have seen her since she was born:

We were so happy to leave the hospital late Saturday afternoon. I did not love being in there AGAIN! It was so hard nursing Penny when she was connected to an IV and a heart monitor. Plus Tyler went to work Friday and Saturday he took my parents to Greenfield Village, so it was pretty lonely being there. And I got pretty stinky for awhile since it took time for Tyler to get clothes to me and my room didn't have a shower. It wasn't until Friday night that I was told there was a shower on the floor that I could use. Wish I would have known that earlier. But regardless, we are so grateful Penny is doing well now and so grateful to be home. Not a pleasant experience at all.