A Trip to the Emergency Room

Last night was one of the scariest of my life...we had to take Ethan to the children's emergency room. Let me say right now that he is fine, we are all home, and everything is okay. I don't think that I have ever gone from mildly concerned to absolutley panic stricken in such a short period of time before. Ethan generally goes to bed around 6:30 pm and has been pretty good about sleeping until morning (or getting up just once) but by 10 last night when I was getting ready to go to bed he had already been up and crying several times. I didn't think much about it, until he started getting up every 20 minutes or so in tears and there was nothing visibly wrong - he was not hungry, he had a clean diaper, and he did not need to burp. I finally decided to check his temperature to see if maybe he was sick and it came up 96.5. I thought I had done something wrong so I did it again - 96.4 this time. Mother of the year award here - I still did nothing and I just cuddled him (it was 1 in the morning at this point) and he fell asleep for another half hour or so. I was sleeping in his room at this point because he had been up so much already. When he woke up 30 minutes later I decided to call the after hours nurse line to see if they had any advice/concerns. The nurse instructed me to take his temperature again and this time Patrick took it and it was 96.1. The nurse then told me to bundle him up and take him to the ER. WHAT???? I immediately burst into tears and Patrick and I loaded him up and made the same drive we made also 6 months ago when we drove to the hospital to meet our beautiful boy.

Evidently his temperature was below their acceptable limits (the same way as if he had a fever that got too high) so we brought him to the children's ER and he got checked out. He had to wear a tiny hospital gown, they monitored his heart rate through a tiny cuff they put around his big toe that blinked red (like Rudolph) and he got a thorough exam. We were sent home several hours later with instructions to keep monitoring him (but there is nothing serious that they were able to ascertain.) His temerature rose to 97.3 so off we went to make the drive home...this time in the middle of the snow that had decided to arrive while we were in the ER. What fun! Needless to say, all three Strains are pretty much exhausted today since we didn't get home until around 5 this morning.

I just keep holding Ethan tightly in my arms and am so very thankful that he seems to be alright now. Please say a prayer that whatever was causing his issue has passed and that there is nothing serious wrong. I never understood before having Ethan how strong the bond truly is between a parent and a child, but there is nothing in this world that I would not do for my son. My heart is no longer my own, because it belongs entirely to my boys. I am so very grateful to have Ethan in my life and last night was another reminder that no matter how hard it can sometimes be raising a baby, there is nothing else in this world that I would rather be doing.