Maybe next Valentine's day will be better!?

Oh, today was not a good day. Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Both of the girls have been sick"ish" but Nora had her first legitimate fever/illness this week. She woke up Wednesday with a high fever and it came back today. She was a pitiful little mess so we took her and Zo...who had been tugging on her little ears, to the doctor. Zoester had an ear infection which really doesn't seem to be bothering her and Nora has a virus. But, no flu or rsv so we had to take her to the hospital for a chest x-Ray and to have blood drawn because that can't be done at the pedi office and they wanted to make sure her counts and things were ok with such a high fever. 

But first back up to Tuesday night around 4am. I was half asleep walking back from Nora's room after rocking her and I WIPED out on our new baby gate. Like, knocked down the metal gate, crashed onto the floor, knocked the sheet rock off the walk and scratched up our wood floors. Leaving me with a sprained wrist and horribly bruised, possibly fractured elbow. I got up the next morning to get the girls out of bed and realized I literally couldn't move my elbow. At all! So after frantically calling lance to come home and having my mom come in the mean time just to get my girls out of bed and fed, I headed out to have my arm looked at and ended up having my elbow jammed back into the socket. 

So keep in mind I am functioning with one arm and another in a sling. 

Anyway, my mother in law is in town to help me out and so we decided even though I'm not supposed to really lift the girls it would still be easier for me to take Nora to the doctor since they were going to be poking and prodding at her and I would just do my best to hold her with my good arm. So we go in for the chest X-ray and they literally try to shove her into this tiny baby seat thing where she has to sit with her arms straight up into the air and then they close this plastic tube around her so she can't move. Well, the tube wouldn't shut because she is such a chunk....and the woman was taking ZERO notice of my child's skin being pinched and her screaming. But I finally said, "I really don't think she is going to fit in this tiny thing! Is there another option"? To which she rolled here eyes and said, "I guess I will have to prepare the table for X-rays". So she begrudgingly "prepared" the table which consisted of laying a towel on the table for Nora to lay on. I hope all that preparation didn't wear her out to much! Nora was ticked, but fine on the table, but I highly underestimated the work it was going to take to hold her down and move her for all the X-rays while she was trying to wiggle away. So I had to take my arm out of the sling and just pretend that every time I moved I didn't feel stabbing pain radiating through my arm. 

Anyways, the chest X-Ray was nothing compared to the next event. Drawing blood. This doesn't sound traumatizing and horrible. But really, it so was. We go in and they put the rubber band thing on her tiny arm and start looking for a vein. They look and look and look and I could even tell there was just NO visible vein. So they stick her with the needle and I notice no blood. They take it out and stick it back in, no blood, they move it up, move it down, push on her arm, squeeze her arm, no blood. Remember, this is a 9 month old baby who is absolutely hysterical. So they try to find a better vein and stick her again and still not able to get it. Apparently she has the family curse of tiny tiny horrible veins. At this point my sweet Nora is hysterical and I am holding her as close as I can and I'm crying and trying my best to comfort her. I finally just say "ok, enough, we are stopping". The technician immediately stopped and took out the needle and backed up and let me pick Nora up and comfort her. I told her I wasn't sure why we needed to draw from her arm, and they described why and I decided I would take the risk on missing out on this test. So they drew the blood from her heel instead, which was seemingly way more painful for her, which was so sad too, but I knew it would at least end in them getting her blood. So after they finally put a bandaid on her foot they sliced open (this was no little prick it was still bleeding at 8:15 tonight) I didn't even bother to put her Jammie's back on. I just wrapped up my poor tired, feverish, hungry little angel and put her in the car and she was asleep before I even bucked her seat. This is the child who hasn't fallen asleep without her sleep sack, bottle and sound machine a day in her life. 

I sat in the car and called my mom and just burst into tears. This was the first time I have really experienced my child being in pain and it was so hard. I can't imagine the trauma mommies go through who have children who are terminally ill and have to watch their babies be poked and prodded on, on a daily basis. Those must be some really strong mommies ! This was a simple chest X-ray and blood draw and it about sent me over the edge! 

But I have learned from this that babies with fat arms are not good candidates for having blood drawn. They kept using medical words for why they couldn't find a vein and I finally asked, "is it really just because her arms are so fat"? To which they answered "yes"! And just generally fat babies aren't good candidates for chest X-rays. Poor Nora's hefty physique really worked against her today! :( 

Oh sweet Nora, I hope you wake up tomorrow and have forgotten all about this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day! :) 

We love you and are SO glad you are ok!!!!! 

This picture in a little old....but it's the most recent I had on the iPad and she just looks SO cute!!