Pushing up baby style.
First night in her crib.
I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve written. And what a month’s it’s been. Olivia turned four months old today and the changes in her are so amazing. With each passing day, it seems, she learns something new – and so do we, as parents.
Brace yourselves this is going to be a long entry:
Never had being a parent felt so real until the middle of June when we had a medical scare with our precious baby girl. One Sunday before Mommy had to work a night cops shift at our Tampa office, Olivia seemed a little off. She was quite cranky, which isn’t her norm, and she seemed to be sleeping more than usual. Hesitantly, I went to work and left her in Daddy’s very capable arms. Of course, I checked in several times throughout the night. She was eating well, had stopped most of the fussing, was playing and generally seemed like her ol’ self, David said. When I got home at 1 a.m. she was peacefully sleeping and I felt relieved. The next morning, however, she awoke extremely cranky and feeling a bit warm. She was so upset I couldn’t get her temperature. After a little nap I tried again because now she was burning up to the touch. She had a fever of 102 so I called the doctor and off we went for an office visit.
By that time, Olivia’s temperature was 103 – not good for a three-month old. Dr. Sawka did a quick blood test. Olivia’s white blood cell count was 20,000. A normal count is apparently between about 3,000 and 10,000, I was told. This meant Olivia’s body was fighting something very strong. Dr. Sawka was alarmed and immediately ordered several in-office tests for my baby girl. It could be a urinary tract infection, the pediatrician told me, which is very dangerous in a baby this young because it often leads to permanent kidney damage. A team of nurses rushed in and they tried to take a large amount of blood from her left arm for a blood culture but Olivia’s veins were so tiny they kept rolling and they couldn’t get any blood after several attempts. Tears streamed down both mine and my daughter’s faces. Until this day, she had only cried with dry eyes but the tear ducts opened and poured. The nurses tried to do a catheter but had trouble also because of her teeny parts. After waiting a short while, hoping Olivia would calm down, they tried unsuccessfully to get blood from her other arm. Then they tried the catheter again and it worked, thankfully. It could be days until they knew what we were dealing with so they also gave her a potent antibiotic shot in the muscle in her thigh. Poor Olivia shrieked. Finally, I was able to call David at work and let him know what was going on. He said he would meet me at the radiologist office. There, she was strapped down to a little board with her hands secured over her head. It looked like a torture device and to my baby, I’m certain it was torture. I really don’t think I’m exaggerating. If you could have seen the look on her face this entire morning. She kept looking at me with those big tearful eyes, like “Why Mama. Why?” I felt so helpless. And parenting never felt so real.
The next two days we had to return to the pediatrician's’s office. On the second day her fever was gone but she had another antibiotic shot and they tested her white blood cell count which was starting to come down. By Wednesday, she seemed almost completely like her happy self. The urine test results came back negative, thankfully. Since they couldn’t get a lot of blood they weren't able to do the blood culture so we’ll never know what made her sick. They treated it as a bacterial infection and she had an eight-day course of oral antibiotics. Besides for a cold she’s almost over now (damn that day care) she’s been doing great ever since.
Olivia now weighs about 14 pounds - double her birth weight. She’s a great eater and an even better sleeper. She started sleeping through the night at two months. Not only that, she regularly sleeps between 10 and 11 hours a night. I can put Olivia down in her crib awake, read her a book, then turn on a musical toy and walk away and she easily falls asleep. Most mornings she wakes up with a huge smile on her face and does her little happy dance at the sight of Mommy and Daddy. My girlfriend, Monica, whose sweet daughter, Amelia, has never been a great sleeper, says we’re cheating at the whole parenting thing. Ha! We know we are truly blessed.
In the past month Olivia has also really started picking up toys, like her Mr. Moo Moo cow, and examining them. She’s fascinated by her own hands and her reflection. She’s big into drooling so we thought she might be teething early but we don’t see anything poking through her gums yet. She still likes her pacifier to calm her down but her own hands have become a means of soothing. She can practically hold her bottle herself but not for an entire feeding. Oh, and she’s “talking” more and more and absolutely loves the sound of her own voice.
Last Sunday, was a big day. We moved Olivia from the bassinet in our bedroom and into her crib in her nursery. She did great. Mommy, however, didn’t sleep through the night for two days because she kept getting up to check on her. Also, this week ago, she rolled over for the first time … at day care (damn that day care). I tried for days to get her to repeat the feat at home. No go. She showed it off to Daddy on Saturday. Last night after enjoying the 4th of July with friends (more on that in a minute) she decided to wake up briefly at 5 a.m. I heard her cooing and went to check on her because she NEVER wakes up at night. At the site of me, she smiled in the dark and did her wake-up happy dance. I said, “Oh no, Olivia. It’s not time to get up yet.” So then she decides she’ll show Mommy her new trick. She rolled over. Worried she’d fall back to sleep that way (you know that whole no sleeping on the tummy thing nowadays because of SIDS and all), I rolled her back after giving her praised. She rolled over again. And again. Then I said good night again and we both went back to sleep until 8:30 a.m.
Of course, yesterday was Independence Day and we dressed up Olivia in an adorable outfit and off we went to our friends’ the Newborns’ home in Tampa for a cookout. After enjoying delicious food and fabulous company, we headed out with Sherri, Steve, Zane (3) and Annabelle (1) Newborn and our friend, Kathy Steele, to the Florida Aquarium. It was $10 admission after 3 p.m. so it was packed. Still, Olivia loved it. She followed the fish in each tank Daddy stopped at and she seemed mesmerized. At 9 p.m. the fireworks started shooting off from the channel behind the aquarium. Uncle Rich and his friend Michelle met us outside. At first, Olivia’s eyes widened and she appeared excited by the display but then the noise caught up with her. She screamed and cried for the next 20 minutes. I covered one ear with one hand and tried to position her other ear in my chest to muffle the sound. She calmed down just a few times for a moment but mostly she was terrified by the earth-shaking booms. I felt like a terrible parent. But as Daddy pushed her in her stroller to the car, she fell fast asleep. This morning she awoke smiling. We love our forgiving, happy-go-lucky baby!
You're never too young to be a bathing beauty.
