This Week.

By this past Monday our house was empty. Every immediate family member had come to see Timmy, Ava's birthday party had passed, and we were on our own. I had brilliantly scheduled a doctor's appointment for Monday afternoon. It was only the second day I had been alone in the house with both kids, and I had scheduled it during naptime. Mommy fail.

I put Ava down for an early nap, which, thankfully, she took. Daniel decided to come home for lunch and escort us to our appointment. It was a little crazy, because they were examining, weighing, asking about, and vaccinating both kids at once. But because Ava had gotten a decent nap and Daniel was there, we did fine.

When Timmy woke up for his 4 a.m. feeding that night, he felt hot to me. After he ate, I took his temperature under his armpit twice--100.4 and 100.7. I went downstairs to fish around for the information they gave me when I left the hospital--"contact your child's pediatrician for any fever over 100.4." Daniel and I talked and decided that it was most likely a reaction to his shot, even though he was sleeping a little more loudly than normal (snoring, or snorting, you might say). We waited to call our pediatrician when the office opened. I gave him some Tylenol, put him in the sling, and slept on the couch until the sun came up.

I gave the pediatrician a call, and spoke to a nurse who politely informed me that they didn't worry about temperatures less than 105. Huh? I asked her several times, reminding her of my son's age, but she affirmed it was probably a local reaction to the shot. Okay, I said.

A few hours later, I got a call from one of the doctors at my pediatrician's office telling me that the nurse had been confused. They asked me to take his temperature rectally, which I did, and got 100.6. "He needs to be seen today," she told me, "but you should probably take him to the ER. They'll want to do some blood work, a urine analysis, maybe even a spinal tap. They also might admit you."

I freaked out at this point. I knew that what the first nurse said didn't sound right, but it also seemed a little alarmist to take him to the hospital. We talked to our moms, we talked to my dad, trying to gauge how necessary that was. Our neighbor is a pediatric nurse at the hospital they were sending us to, so I called her. She told me that this was protocol for a baby this young. They wanted to get him to the ER because they could get the results quickly. What she told me at least let me know that what the doctor was suggesting was out of bounds, but I still was not prepared for what came next. I kind of had the impression that they might see us, decide it was just a reaction, or a cold, and send us home to watch him closely.

We got to the ER where, as Arlo Guthrie would say, Timmy was "injected, inspected, detected, neglected, and selected." Okay, not all of those, but at least the first three. They took blood, they took a urine sample, they suctioned all the gunk out of his nose to test, they did a chest x-ray. All the immediate tests came back negative, but they would have to wait 48 hours for the results of the blood and urine cultures. They took his temperature again, only to find that it was normal--98.6. The doctor came in to tell us that they were going to send us home, but that we would have to come back if anything at all changed. Five minutes later, she said she was going to call our pediatrician and give her the option of keeping us overnight for observation. Which our pediatrician, of course, decided to do.

We pushed back, but she really insisted that it was best to keep an eye on him. Babies this young don't always show signs of infection, she told us, and things often turn for the worse very quickly. I began to mourn yet another night away from our home and my daughter, and another disruption to our family life.

Eventually, they admitted us, and we saw the pediatrician on call at the hospital. "If everything goes well and the cultures don't grow anything, I can see sending you home Thursday morning." Thursday? That's TWO nights in the hospital. He doesn't even have a fever now! After a tearful farewell, Daniel and I said goodbye so that he could go get Ava. We resolved to spend the night and see if we couldn't finagle an early release if his fever stayed down. Daniel told me he was going to call and be polite, but firm: "GIVE ME MY BABIES BACK."

But here we sit, almost 48 hours later, so you can probably guess how that went for us. We apparently caused a stir in the office with all of our calls and pleading, because the head pediatrician told me that they sat down as a staff to talk about what they could have done differently. Mostly, I'm just frustrated that we didn't know from the get go what we were getting into. It sounds like what they did really was protocol, but if it was, they should have told us from the beginning that we were going to be in the hospital for 48 hours. They acted as if they were going to check him out and try to make a judgment call on what was happening, then send us home for us to monitor if he seemed okay. Instead, we are sitting here in a hospital room waiting on lab results. It was the disappointment that got me the most. I have shed my share of tears over this.

It is really strange being here. I told my friend Megan that it was like being in a jail with a very friendly staff. They've taken good care of us, and (mercifully) let us sleep. Timmy's been monitored, but they thankfully haven't even had to give us any medication. His fever has stayed down, the cultures haven't grown. I feel silly sitting here in a hospital with my son in the crib beside me, for all intents and purposes well. Several times in the past days, I've reminded myself in disbelief, "I am actually in the hospital with my child." It's such a weird feeling. The ironic thing is, I really haven't been worried about Timmy. Maybe I should have been more so, but as all the tests came back normal, and his temp stayed down, the source of stress has been being here, away from my family.

The one blessing in all this is that Ava has been an angel. I worried the most about how she would react to us being gone again. But she has slept normally, eaten normally, and had lots of fun with whoever was watching her. She came to see me last night and fell into my arms. She was excited to see Timmy again, squealing, "Brother!" when she came into the room. She left without any (of her) tears being shed. She has been a great sport. I guess after all of the craziness of the past month, she has realized, "They leave, but they always come back." Thank God for that, and thank God that this is almost over.