Worst Birthday Ever

Yesterday was my worst birthday ever.

It started out okay with donuts and free coffee, but quickly began to slide into misery.

Sitting in a meeting for 5 hours was not that much fun, but compared to the rest of the evening it was nirvana.

At about 2:30 in the afternoon Jenn called to tell me that Sonja was running a temp of 103 at daycare and she was on her way there to pick her up. No surprise about the temp as she had been a little warm the night before. I called and set up a quick dr. appt for Jenn to bring Sonja to at 3:30.

The Dr. gave Sonja the once over, declared she had the disease d'jour a.k.a. the crud and that we should continue treating with fluids and Tylenol.

I arrived home that evening and Sonja vomited about 6 times in an hour. So we did the good parent thing and called the dr. office. They said that protocol is any infant who is sick 6 or more times in an hour should go to the ER to check for dehydration.

So we packed up the little peanut and headed to the E.R.

The place was packed. We waited in the waiting room for about an hour before being escorted back to see some medical professionals. After a quick run through of the problem we were told that she would need a chest x-ray, a urine sample (which would involve a catheter) and a blood sample. "You're the experts," we said and they proceeded with the testing.

X-ray was great; no problem there. We happened to know the x-ray tech via my sister and things went well. The catheter, however, was a different story.

To make a long story short they were unsuccessful at inserting the catheter, but were successful at poking my daughter repeatedly and making her cry. Sadly this was just a prelude to what was to come. They gave up on the catheter and said they would be back in a few minutes to draw some blood.

First blood guy came in and began the routine of putting the rubber tie around the arm and looking for the vein in Sonja's poor little arm. He poked and prodded with his finger for a while but decided that perhaps a vein would be more apparent in the other arm. He saw something and decided to give it a go. No luck. Stick in the needle but no blood which means no vein, but sadly does not mean no pain for Sonja. He apologized and went back to the original arm to try again. No luck there either, but plenty of screaming once again. Again an apology and he said he was going to get some help and would be back in a few minutes.

We consoled our daughter and told her it would all be fine.

A few minutes later he was back with another nurse and they repeated the same routine and - no surprise - had the same results: lots of crying and screaming and poking but still no vein so no blood. Apology and again back in a few minutes with the 'expert' needle threader.

"It's okay Sonja don't worry; it's all going to be okay." Jenn and I tried to comfort Sonja.

In came the expert nurse. To attempt blood draw number five. No luck with five so she tried the other arm for poke number six. Apparently our daughter's main problem is that she has no blood in her veins... Actually the problem is she has Daddy's crappy small veins. Expert quit and said she would poke no more. Apologized and left.

A few minutes later the return of failed catheter nurse to explain that she was not just the catheter nurse but also an IV specialist and would attempt to give Sonja an IV although they didn't need an IV but they should be able to draw the blood they needed from it and if she did need fluids or antibiotics they could administer it via the IV.

Since Sonja's poor little arms had 3 holes apiece in them, she decided that her best chance for the IV was in a foot. Sadly she was mistaken. Left foot, poke, scream, cry. No blood. Right foot, poke, scream, prod, probe, and some blood but not enough, just enough blood to leave a stain on the sheet that made us feel awful. IV nurse shook her head, apologized and gave up.

In the end we were sent home with the same instructions we had when we entered the ER - continue to give her Tylenol, fluids and monitor her.

Sonja was a trooper, however, and was smiling by the time we packed her in the car seat to leave the hospital and slept soundly through the night. We got home at 1 AM exhausted and starving.

We went to bed hungry and frustrated.

Worst birthday ever...