THE BABY IS FINE.

About 5:30 yesterday afternoon, Baby Evan decided to do his Ebola impression again and threw up what looked like gallons and gallons of blood. DON’T WORRY HE’S FINE. I just thought I should put that at the beginning. I’ll keep reminding you.

After some frantic phone calls trying to track down E at work and the after-hours pediatrician, we all packed up the car and drove up to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center at Hartford Hospital. The doctor on call felt it would be better to be at the children’s hospital just in case he needed a pediatric specialist. HE DID NOT NEED A SPECIALIST.

Unfortunately, we must have picked the absolute worst night ever to visit CCMC’s ER. The triage nurse’s comment that it was “pretty busy tonight” was the understatement of the year. It was like saying “The surface of the sun is kind of warm” or “Home grown tomatoes taste ok” or “Having a baby might give you a gray hair or two”. Luckily, my hair is too busy falling out in clumps from that post-partum hormone shift to bother turning gray.

When the nurse saw us right after we got there, she mentioned that blood in the baby’s spit up is most often from the mother and not the baby. I explained that I have never seen any blood in my milk (SEE? Here’s a bottle of milk I just pumped! NO blood! None!), never had cracked nipples, had never seen a correlation between the blood in the spit up and feedings in the past. Our personal pediatrician, Dr. S, hadn’t TOTALLY ruled out the blood coming from me but was treating the baby as if it was coming from him. IT WAS COMING FROM ME. During one of the many times I fed Baby Evan in the waiting room (coverless! not a single comment or stare! lots of encouraging smiles!) he pulled off my right nipple and I saw blood in his mouth. Blood that clearly hadn’t come from inside him, so must be coming from me.

If I had just said right after triage “You know what, it IS coming from me! Thanks, nurse, we’ll be going now!” the next four hours would have been spent asleep in my bed instead of pacing the hallways of the ER. Even after deciding IT WAS ME we decided to wait. Eventually we saw a doctor who listened to all my concerns, examined the baby, decided it was probably me and sent us home with instructions to give my right nipple a break and come back if we can determine the blood IS coming from the baby.

He also suggested something that NO ONE HAD EVER THOUGHT OF BEFORE. He said the easy way to figure out who’s blood it was was to run a blood type test. If it’s 0- it’s mine. If it’s o+ it’s Baby Evan’s. DUH. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the equipment or the lab techs to do it right then but I’m going to ask Dr. S if he can do it at our next appointment. The 6 month appointment, a month from now, because THE BABY IS FINE and I am not dragging him around to any more hospitals for nothing.

I do have to say that although the wait was long the staff at CCMC was AMAZING. From the front desk check-in to the nurses to guy who did our paperwork to the doctor, ever single person was kind and helpful and understanding even though it was the middle of the night and they were super busy. I wish we could use that medical center for every single appointment. I wish I could go there for MY medical care. It really was totally child oriented and friendly and unlike any heath care I’ve ever experienced. It makes me feel 1000000x better just knowing that facility is THERE, just a short drive away, just in case we need it. WHICH WE WON’T. BECAUSE THE BABY IS FINE.

I, on the other hand, seem to be slowly bleeding to death through my nipples.

3 Responses to “THE BABY IS FINE.”

  1. MStrader says:

    Is there any treatment for you so you stop bleeding to death through your nipples?

  2. lalaland13 says:

    I’m so sorry you were scared. Sending hugs. This is not nearly the same thing, but I am slowly bleeding to death through my nose. Ever since I moved up here to Allergyville, I get nosebleeds, on average, once a week. I have weak nostrils, and apparently blow my nose too much.

    And I’m pretty sure “Women Bleeding To Death Through Her Nipples” is a character in a Quentin Tarantino film.

  3. Ooooh, I am so sorry for your scary times. It is one of the most terrifying feelings you can have. Every time my work phone rings I think it’s daycare again, telling me they are putting the SpaceToddler in an ambulance.

    Lalaland, neti pot. I am not kidding. it’s sort of like waterboarding yourself but it does wonders for the nasal allergies.

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