Sick Baby Sick Mamma

I started getting sick on Friday last week. I was pretty upset about this because I haven't been sick since before my pregnancy, and I was hoping to continue to avoid sickness as long as possible. Since my girls were preemies, it is even more important to keep our family healthy so the girls aren't exposed to unnecessary germs and bugs.

I quickly ran out and bought some vitamin C and D in hopes of boosting my immune system to fight this nasty cold. The vitamins seemed to work until Sunday night where I felt like I was loosing the battle of fighting the bug. I decided to take the next day off of work because Riley was acting like she was coming down with something as well. Sunday night turned out to be a nightmare as Riley started getting sicker as each hour passed. My normal great sleeper regressed back to getting up every 2 hours through out the night. I was a little naive in thinking those days were past us. Riley reminded us how difficult those nights were and my mom and I took turns getting up with her. For most of the night she didn't want to eat anything since she couldn't breathe very well. This concerned me because we are close to RSV season and I didn't want her get that sick. I some how balanced getting up with Riley with getting up to pump and by morning, my mom and I were completely exhausted which made my attempt at fighting the cold even worse.

I got Riley into the pediatrician right away and learned she was mostly congested in her nose and things had not moved into her chest which was a big concern for me. The doctor said her ears looked clear even though she was tugging and pulling on them quite frequently. To treat her we needed to run the humidifier to help her breathe, put vapor cream on her chest, and feed her smaller amounts more frequently so she didn't tire out when eating. She ate significantly less on Monday which is not normal for her. I was glad to have a little bit of time to catch up on my milk supply as I was running behind on production most days.

Each day this week, she has improved and Addison seems to be avoiding this bug. I'm still pretty sick and I can't take any of the cold remedy medication because that would dry out my milk supply and I don't want to pass anything of the medication on to the girls through my milk. To make matters worse, Jesse seems to be suffering from a double ear infection again and his new job doesn't allow him to miss time to go to the doctor. He is going to try and skip out a little early today or tomorrow and get in for some antibiotics so he can start feeling better as well.

I have learned that it is no fun to be sick as a mom. You can't just lie down and relax because the children still need you to take care of them and run the house. And with two infants, the work never ends.