May You Lead an Interesting Life

Yesterday certainly was an odd one.

It started off low-key, but lovely. Lilian and I snuggled in bed until 8:30am or so, then we managed to get ourselves ready for the day in good time. We hit the grocery store for supplies and then went for a picnic in a local park with a moms group. Then we headed home to putter around the house for a bit.

Which is when things took a decisive turn for the not-so-fun.

I won’t go into my reasoning (because, ewwww), but it quickly became apparent that Lilian’s tummy was not feeling so great. I thought I had everything under control, but then she did a remarkably accurate Linda Blair impression. And promptly fell asleep in my arms. It’s kindof hard to describe. She didn’t pass out, but she certainly went from zero to deep-sleep in a matter of seconds.

I will preface the rest of this blog entry by stating that we are all fine and nobody is any worse for the wear. Although I am now woefully behind on my laundry.

I gave our doctor’s office a call and, after much consultation, they decided that it was probably nothing, but that we should probably take her to the ER. Just to be safe. In all likelihood, it was probably just some stomach issues (spoiler alert! It was totally just stomach issues), but with her being a tiny little baby and all, better safe than sorry. Of course, this would happen the one day that Kristian was working far away and stuck in traffic. Luckily, I have local family. Because I seriously did not want to do this alone.

We drove over to the hospital and they got us checked in and roomed within a matter of minutes. They don’t mess around when it comes to leaving babies in the waiting room. Of course, as soon as we got settled in, Lilian perked up like nothing had happened. Which was a huge relief. Also, a good sign that she has inherited my impeccable timing.

My Dad showed up not too much later and I got to listen to him fight with the nurses about coming back to see us. My Dad has… let’s call it an interesting sense of style. As in, we affectionally refer to him as Grandpa Sasquatch.

In other words, this was not the first time that he was possibly confused for a local hobo.

So, my Dad is in grandpa bear mode and the nurses are all “Ma’am, are you sure you want us to let this scruffy looking guy in to see your baby?” And I got to mediate. Yes, that’s the baby’s grandfather. Yes, it’s fine if he comes in. No, I’m not just saying that.

The doctor showed up not too much later and pronounced Lilian to be perfectly adorable and totally healthy. He had to call our doctor to make sure they didn’t want him to check anything else, but her vitals were all good and, by this time, she was wide awake and acting like nothing had happened. It kindof sucks to have spent a $100 copay on what amounted to much ado about nothing… but it sure as hell beats the alternative.

The doctor did his residency in one of the worst sections of Detroit (which is really saying something). After a year taking care of gunshot victims and knife wounds, I can’t decide if a tiny baby with a stomachache was a nice change of pace or a bit of a letdown. At any rate, he had some good stories. I guess that, when he was driving home at night, he had strict instructions to never stop or slow down, not even for red lights. He’d pass by cop cars and they’d shine a light on him and then nod as if to say, “keep driving, son, keep driving.”

Kristian showed up just in time to watch me hand over his credit card to pay for our share of the bill.

We got Lilian home without incident and there were no further issues. The reigning theory is that she fell asleep like that because throwing up took so much out of her. I mean, I sometimes slump over after I’ve been sick and I weigh a lot more than 11 pounds (a lot more, sob). After she’d had a nap and a feed to recover, she was perfectly fine. The doctor warned us that her prolonged deep sleep might bode badly for how she slept that night, but she actually slept for two four-hour chunks. I guess she needed to recover just as badly as I did.

We’re both feeling pretty good today. She’s sleeping peacefully in my moby sling and I’ve decided that my maternity leave rules don’t apply today. We will both be taking it easy. I will have to find real pants at some point, because Kristian was running late this morning and didn’t get a chance to walk the dog. But as soon as we get back to the house, it’s PJ bottoms all over again. I’m thinking that I might not even put my contacts in. And I’m giving myself permission to watch all the crap TV that I want.

Yesterday, I was thinking that I’ve lived a rather dull life lately. But that it’s a nice sort of dullness. Snuggling with Lilian on our sunporch while drinking a cup of coffee is now a treasured memory, but it’s not exactly exciting. Or all that interesting to anyone besides myself. I guess this is all further proof that an interesting life can be a bit of a curse. Fortunately, all’s well that ends well.