First Fever

So, it's not one of the FUN milestones, but pretty much every baby hits it at one time or another--the first fever. Zoodle hit it a little earlier than I would have liked.

This "little virus" that Chickie had has ended up being the bane of my existence. She's doing great, but I'm still getting over my battle with it--feeling pretty good but I'm so hoarse I'm surprised the cashier at Wal-Mart last night didn't whip out a surgical mask to protect herself as soon as I started talking.

Zoodle's had a stuffy nose, goopy eyes, and a little cough--nothing too bad until he woke up fussy in the middle of the night last night, and I realized he felt warm.

After a high reading taking his temp under the arm, we went for the more accurate route--yep, in the bottom, poor kid. His rectal temp was 102.3.

Now, if you have kids, you may remember that fevers before 3 months old are not so good. I knew the doctor might send us to the ER but wanted to talk to her first. So a little after 1:30 a.m. we left our first message on the after-hours line.

I say "first message" because we left two more messages over the next hour or so. Still never heard back. Apparently I am not very good at following directions on automated phone lines--I pushed "4" too soon and, while our messages were recorded, they weren't sent to the doctor's pager. Oops.

It may have been a blessing in disguise, because instead of speaking with the doctor and having to head straight to the hospital, we were able to just monitor him at home while we waited for a call back. The temp came down pretty quickly, and though we were annoyed at not hearing back from our doctor (not realizing it was due to my impatient index finger), we felt okay about going to sleep and waiting until morning.

Except sleep wasn't okay with me, apparently. Thanks to some fantastic coughing fits (me, not Zoodle), I didn't get back to sleep until about 4:30. I'm not in the best mood today but plan to take a nap very soon, which hopefully will cure me of my dazed feeling.

We went to the doctor at 10, and by then Zoodle's fever was totally gone--hooray! If you're the praying sort, please pray it doesn't come back; if it spikes we probably will be sent to the hospital. It doesn't look like that will happen, though; the consensus is that his little body is fighting off the virus very nicely.

As I told a friend the other day (when she was dealing with a sick kiddo too), being a parent is ALWAYS a BLAST; isn't it?!

Oh, but on a positive note, this boy loves to eat! He weighed in almost a pound heavier than at his appointment 9 days ago! He was clothed rather than naked, and it was a different scale, but still--the kid is growing!