sick & tired of being sick & tired!

My mornings for the past 3+ weeks have consisted of:

• Feeding the Abigail
• Holding her up while she coughs after
• Depositing saline drops into her nose (which she HATES)
• Depositing eye drops into her eyes, for her conjunctivitis, which has come back twice (which she also HATES, more than the nose drops & clenches her eyes so tight that I worry she'll burst a blood vessel)
• Using a giant blue bulb to suck all the snot out of her nose, which usually takes about 10 sucks - 5 per nostril. Then analyzing the goo that comes out of her nose which I have squirted onto a napkin
• Then her hacking even more because the goo is loostened up & then sucking the phlegm out of her mouth before she swallows it back down again
• And last, but certainly not least, wiping her entire face & hands down with baby wipes to get rid of the snot and contagiousness

Then I go to the kitchen and take a zinc supplement and some Airborne, praying not to catch her crap. Which I've already caught and then tossed to Brandon.

My house has been SO sick for over 3 weeks now! It's gotten worse, then better, then worse, then better, and now is worse again. And I just don't know if I can take it anymore! Abigail was finally getting better over the weekend and it was lovely! She only coughed a little and was sleeping well. Then, Monday morning, Brandon called me in an outrage. The other baby at daycare was walking around like a mini Darth Vader, sans mask, of course. We both crossed our fingers that Abigail had given her the virus she had & it wasn't something new.
Then, Monday night...it started. Just a dry cough, nothing too bad, just a little more than she had been the day before. Could have been a fluke, or just me being paranoid. Then Tuesday, worse again. Every time we laid her dow she would cry & cough. It took an hour to get her to bed. But then, she slept all night without waking or coughing, so we thought to ourselves, "Maybe she's ok." Then Wednesday - she was girggly and when I put my hand on her chest it felt like one of her toys - one that rattles. Sigh...Wednesday night she did not sleep as well and had a hard time with her cough and breathing. So I called the doctor Thursday & they asked me to bring her in.

What do you know? Abigail has bronchitis for the 2nd time in 3 weeks! And it's viral, so that means in theory she could fight this off herself and it would be good for her immune system. However, the doctor listened to her lungs and it made her so concerned that she checked her oxygen levels! She was worried Abigail might have Pneumonia. My little bebe is sick, and she is smiling & cooing thru it, but the fact is that she has been fighting sickness for close to a month and her immune system is pretty weak at this point.
So, taking everything into consideration, the pediatrician went ahead and prescribed antibiotics. She said she would leave it "up to me" whether we give them to her or not. Basically - a parenting test. Am I a parent who can't take it - can't take more time off work, can't take the sleepless nights, can't take listening to my baby cough and cry, so I throw medicine at her when she probably doesn't really NEED it? Or do I tough it out & hope and pray that she's strong enough to fight this and it doesn't turn into something worse?
Ugh! I can't take this! Abigail may be smiling through it all, but I am exhausted. She went to bed at 8:30 last night, but she tossed and turned, which kept waking me up (because I could over-hear on the baby monitor) and then she woke up at 1am to eat and couldn't get back to sleep due to her cough. Finally, a little past 2am I just brought her in bed with me. About 20 minutes later we finally got to sleep. And then I'm supposed to wake up at 5:30am & do it all over again? Parenting is HARD, y'all! It's so much harder than I ever imagined it could be, yet much more rewarding at the same time.

Abigail woke up this morning and gave us a huge smile. She may not be able to breathe, but she's not letting it keep her down, oh no, not the Abigail. She's such a trooper! Of course, me on the other hand, I woke up with a cough and sore throat and I feel like I'm on the verge of an emotional breakdown. I did the phlegm routine as usual this morning, it took a little longer since I ran out of saline so the snot didn't come out of Abby's nose quite as easily, then I threw my hair into the messiest bird's nest version of a bun ever, threw a sweatshirt on & hit up Starbucks for some much, much needed caffeine. How is it that my baby can handle being sick SO much better than I can? Oh, that's right- because she doesn't have to juggle it with work and caring for a baby and a husband and she can take 5 hours worth of naps during the day.
I got to work late, but not offensively late, went to grab my stuff out of my car & what did I realize? Oh that's right...I left my breastpump at home! And to top it off, I also forgot my nursing pads. Oh and what's that? What could make this day even luckier? My boss changed our 9am meeting to 11:30 - right about the time when my breasts should be ready to explode! I can't wait...meet with my boss, he'll make me laugh, I'll spring a leak and turn into a human sprinker system...can you say awkward?

So I don't know what the answer is. I'm strongly considering giving Abigail the antibiotics. I really want her to be better, I worry she won't be able to kick this on her own after her struggle over the past few weeks, and frankly I just don't think I could survive 2 more weeks of this. I just hope I'm making the right decision for what's bets for Abigail, and not what's easiest for me.

And now I will go re-create my hand-made boob pads. Thank goodness it's Friday! I don't think I've ever been so grateful for a weekend!