Every mum knows that when your baby goes into childcare they are bound to get ill. Childcare is a smorgest board of disease and illness, and on one hand you know deep down that this helps your baby's immune system to develop, but the reality of having a sick child is horrible.
And mother of the year goes to.........................
About 2 weeks into Cooper's time in childcare he got his first cold. It was a simple runny nose and cough, I borrowed a humidifier and got my hands on some baby Vicks and nursed my baby back to full health. It was probably only two weeks later when Cooper suddenly developed a bad case of diarrhoea and as a secondary symptom a terrible case of nappy rash. He wasn't eating like he normally would and had a fever. Despite people telling me to leave it 48 hours I was not convinced I should so the next morning, after a rough night we headed off to the doctors. Diagnosis, viral infection and the recommended treatment was as simple as keeping his fluids up. Later that evening, about 2 hours after I put him down for the night at 6:30pm he woke up covered in vomit and screaming, he continued to throw up and his diarrhoea was only getting worse and so we had our first trip to emergency.
His fever was at 39.9 degrees Celsius when we arrived and they checked us straight in. They dosed him straight up with Neurofen, took a urine and stool sample and monitored him until his fever came right down allowing us to head home around 2am. It took 3 or 4 days for Cooper to recover completely and a little longer to completely rid him of nappy rash (I will never forget how red his little bottom was during that week, I just felt so bad that no matter how often I changed his nappy, how much cream I used or nappy free time he had, there was nothing I could really do until the diarrhoea stopped). Those 5 days were the hardest days I had faced as a mum, the sleepless nights you suffer through in that first month or so after birth were nothing compared to this.
It couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 days later when I was asked to come and pick Cooper up from childcare again. He was unsettled, had a slight temperature and had thrown up most of his breakfast and morning tea. I didn't know what to say, the Doctors had given us the all clear on the virus and I was certain teething was the cause of the problem, but due to the outbreak of gastro the centre couldn't be too cautious and I respected that, after all I wouldn't want another child to have to endure the horrible virus Cooper had. So, yet again I apologise to my boss and pick Cooper up, and took him off to the Doctors in order to get clearance to put him back in care the next day. Well I was right on one hand, Cooper was cutting 4 new teeth, all on the top, but he was also suffering from a double inner ear infection. He was prescribed Penicillin and headed back into care the next day.
I could not believe it when the next day around 11am I received another call, in fact I was so tired and emotional from the week prior I just burst into tears when they told me they suspected Cooper had Hand Foot and Mouth disease. The poor kid could not catch a break and I was in absolute shock, at 8am when I had dropped him off he did not have a single mark on him, by the time I collected hi at around 11:30am his hands were covered in blisters and he had not eaten a single thing all morning. At this point I was embarrassed to walk into the Doctors, I felt useless and a complete failure, how could I a) not see that he had hand foot and mouth and b) let my baby get sick so many times within a month!
I knew this was not all my fault, just the result of Cooper being in day care 4 days a week, which made me feel even more guilty about not being able to have him at home more and it stirred up more of those emotions about the work life balance and how desperately I wished we could afford for me to work part time.
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