all a precautionary measure...

on thursday morning a couple weeks ago the baby woke up to eat, and when i picked him up i noticed he was kinda hot.  so i fed him and he was not very interested in eating... i took his temp and it was 101.  i called the pediatrician on call (cause that is what they told me to do with this newborn) and she had me give him tylenol and  come into the office when it opened.  we got to the office and see one of our pediatricians partners and after he checked him out he sends us next door to the summerlin hospital pediatric er  to do some testing and then observe him for a couple days, the fear being meningitis or the flu or something else that could be really harmful to a baby who is only 5 weeks old.

i walk over with my little guy and they take us back and immediately start doing a work up.  this was the worst part of the whole experience watching the baby get poked and prodded and squeezed.  he was a trooper but ended up with lots of bruises.  they did a little catheter to get some urine and they tried several times to do an IV for fluids and to get blood for blood cultures and what not.  daniel has sadly inherited my tiny non exsistant veins so they poked him 4 times before finally getting it in his arm.  they also had to do a spinal tap.  the curled him into a tiny fetal ball... and he hardly cried he was so wiped out by this point.

while waiting to be admitted upstairs he started getting really fussy, and when i opened up his blanket i panicked because his tiny little hand was swollen and huge and purple!  i ran out and got a nurse... after they did the IV the taped his arm to a splint to keep it straight and they did the tape too tight and it was cutting off circulation.  totally freaky.

they then took us upstairs.  this is where we spent the next couple days.   i originally thought it was only going to be one night, but when the pediatrician came by the next evening they said it would be a couple days till we got all test results back.  daniel only had the fever for the one day, so they were keeping us just to be sure it was something more serious than the virus they figured it was.  

they had him on iv antibiotics and one night the nurse was worried because little man was crying really hard as they went in, and she was like... thats not right.  so she took the tape off and looked at his arm... the left arm was twice the size of the right... the IV had not been in right the whole time and was just pumping fluid into his arm... so she took it out...  the next morning she tired to put one back in and another nurse tried and after that once more wanted to try and i said no!  we wanted to wait for the NICU nurse to come down and do it.. we heard he was the best and he does it on tiny 3 pound babies... so we would wait.  he finally came down and had no problem putting it back in.  after that it was never a problem again... but they wrapped it up real good so it wouldn't get pulled out or anything, looked like a giant club on his tiny arm.

this whole experience would have been more miserable if i hadn't had so much support from my mom and chris coming and spending time with me as much as they could!  and bringing me things from home.  my mom even stayed for a bit so i could run home and take a shower.  it was all bad timing since chris had his big licensing exam the same weekend we were in the hospital.  he did buy daniel a little get better gift.  super sweet little bear that says get well beary soon.

all tests came back negative and he was fine... just a long weekend with not a lot of sleep for me since people come in and out of the room every other second... not fun!  our room did have an awesome panoramic view of the city!!