The Baby Expert: A Diarrhea-filled Christmas Story

Another Christmas has come and gone, but this was probably one of the least memorable ones. Least memorable because the wife and I didn’t get anything for Caitlyn, I didn’t get anything for the wife, and the wife didn’t get anything for me. That includes Christmas cards.

Well, actually, she did buy Christmas cards, but she’s misplaced them somewhere without writing anything in them, so that doesn’t count. And I found an old unused Christmas card, but we decided to reserve that one for my parents. Thankfully, Grandpa and Grandma and other family members were on top of their game and were able to come through with some gift giving.

So why no joyous Christmas celebration this year? The main culprit was the busyness of moving into our new place. Yes, it is finally completely renovated and it looks great, but that’ll be for another post. Our original plan was to move at a later date, but the landlord at our previous apartment said we would have to pay another month’s rent for just staying a few days past our lease. Therefore, it was quickly decided that we would move in this past Friday.

But to add on top of the moving, Caitlyn got some sort of stomach virus on Friday and started having chronic diarrhea where she would go every few hours or whenever she ate something. At first, we weren’t too concerned because she was still her usual chipper self despite all the diaper changes. But as she continued to have diarrhea, we decided it best to take her to the hospital on Saturday to get checked up.

The doctor stated that it was nothing to worry about and that it was best not to give her anything to eat for awhile. Easy for her to say because she doesn’t have to deal with a cranky, crying baby that’s hungry. But even eating something plain and simple like rice and bread still made her stomach upset.

On, Monday, I think the toll of constantly having diarrhea finally hit Caitlyn. In the morning, after she woke up, she was like a limp rag doll. We tried to feed and make her drink something, but she didn’t have the energy to open her mouth even though she wanted to. It was quite a frightening scene to see her like that, but since the wife was doing enough freaking out for the two of us, I had to be the one that was calm, cool, and collected.

We went back to the emergency room and the doctor suggested we put her on an IV drip to help get her fluid levels back. We weren’t sure about this because needles and babies just don’t mix. We were afraid Caitlyn would be thrashing around like crazy and do more harm than good to herself. I could picture her accidentally ripping the needle out or her arm and blood squirting everything.

However, after seeing how lethargic and pitiful she looked, we decided to give it a go. She only cried a bit when the nurse poked the needle into her. After that, she was content to just sit in Mommy’s arms for the duration of the time. She didn’t once pick at the needle. Talk about a major shock and surprise. First the Christmas party and now this. This new 2.5 version of Caitlyn has yet to cease to amaze me.

Only bad news is that she still has diarrhea. Because of this, I’m pretty sure the wife is going to say that she inherited the diarrhea gene from me.