The Adventures of Glorymouse

The last week has easily been the most traumatic of our little Gloria's life, all six-and-a-half weeks of it. Despite gorging ourselves on Gina Ford, all our attempts at establishing a routine failed miserably. Night after night, Glorymouse would sleep for 2 hours at a stretch - if we were lucky - and then scream and wail or feed until dawn. I was totally stumped as to what the matter was. Was she hungry? Was it colic? Was she too hot or too cold? She was overtired of course - she had to be with so little sleep. Was it my diet? Out went onions (boo!) and cabbage (whoppee!) and in came the wretched fennel tea (gaaah!) . She had a cold, we knew that, so out came the baby snotsucker. We elevated the cot. We gave her decongestant drops. No change. Nothing.

After 5 consecutive nights of this, I completely lost it. On Monday at 7am, having lain in bed holding a dummy in her mouth since exactly 4.33, I started sobbing and didn't stop all day. I was totally exhausted and convinced it was all my fault that she was like this. Thank God for my lovely friend Anna (the New Yorker) who came and took charge in the morning.

I made an appointment with the paediatrician for the afternoon. After leaving Emma napping with the neighbour - another blessing as it turned out - I stumbled down the hill with Gloria. I knew she had a cold, I knew we were doing everything we could already, I just wanted a calm, professional voice to say something reassuring and stop me going loopity loop.

We got there. I undressed her and sat weeping and mute in a chair while the dr examined her. "How long has she had this?" she said, pointing to a depression in her chest, moving up and down. I said I didn't know: I hadn't been looking. "She's hot," said the dr. I touched her skin: she was. Again, I hadn't noticed. I was so desperate for her (and me) to sleep, it hadn't occured to me she might actually be unwell.
"She might have a chest infection, I'd like her to go to the hospital straight away" said the doctor.
I blinked. "Can I go and get some things first? I only live 5 minutes up the road. And I've got to call my husband" I said.
"No, I'd rather you went immediately," she replied, trying to sound nonchalant. She was rubbish at sounding nonchalant. "You can call your husband from here."

We got to the hospital, where various doctors prodded and poked the Glorymouse, who responded by smiling at the handsome ones (not that sick, then.) Her condition wasn't as serious as we first thought. "She's very bunged up, and it could get nasty. Let's keep her in overnight and suction her, and you can probably go home tomorrow" said the handsome, young-looking doctor. (Everyone is young-looking these days, maybe because I feel so old and haggard.)

She has her own room at the hospital, and lots of nurses cooing over her. They also regularly suck out frightening amounts of mucus from my little girl, with their high-tech, electric snotsucker de luxe. No wonder she couldn't sleep.

But the best thing of all, is that last night, they suggested I go home and sleep while they look after her. I fretted for a moment; that meant giving her formula milk, right? I had a chat with a lady yesterday who warned me very strongly against it; that just one formula feed would be enough to start the breastmilk drying up. Rubbish, said the nurse. Just express tomorrow morning in case you have to stay another night.

So I went home, feeling guilty for about a nanosecond that I was leaving my baby. Then I slept FOR SEVEN HOURS. SE-VE-N. H-O-U-R-S. Do you have any idea how good that feels? They are keeping her in tonight as well, and today I've had lots of liberty to nip back home between feeds (we only live 5 minutes away) and why I am able to write a monster post. When I go to bed tonight, I won't feel guilty, just very, very grateful and very relieved that there was an identifiable cause at least to poor Gloria's misery. The only thing I do feel terrible about was losing my patience with her more than once in the night - telling her harshly to shut up, stuff like that. I said sorry to her, and she gave me a little gurgle before resuming her rather serious we-need-to-discuss-your-overdraft look. I hope that means she forgives me.

Emma, meanwhile, has been extremely cute, trying to kiss Gor-wee-ah better - then pinching her to see if that'll help. Last night she kept asking for mumm-ee which was rather gratifying, and we had a good game of hide and seek in the park this morning. Things are getting back to normal.