In a week that was supposed to yield really decent mileage, I barely have 8 miles to my name.
Why might you ask? Because motherhood slapped me in the face.
We live a very scheduled life in this house right now. Everything has been timed out to make sure that we get up, leave, nap, and eat on time which makes life run so much more smoothly. Being a type A personality, I have a schedule that starts at about 3.50 AM and ends at about 9.30 when I'm getting ready for bed. This week that schedule got pushed to the wayside.
Ali and I were supposed to run 4 miles on our daily runs. We completed Monday with no problem. Tuesday morning, she woke up ill so I happily used that as an excuse to crawl back in bed, thinking at very least I could maybe get one in that evening and if not, then this was my rest day this week and I'd just run the rest of the week.
Little did I know that Monday would be my only run for the week.
After crawling back into bed at 4, A woke up about 5 and wanted to be fed. This was a little out of her normal routine as usually she sleeps 12 hours at night, but she's an infant. Infants, if you don't know by now, have their own rules that they live by, chiefly the rule of FEEDMERIGHTNOW. Plus, we have been waking her up at 5.45 during the week to feed her, so it wasn't a huge step out of the ordinary. So, hubby got up to feed her while I went to pump and jump in the shower. She fell back asleep after that feeding which freed us up to get ourselves and R ready to go. A was a little grumpy when I woke her back up to change her and buckle her into her seat, but who likes being woken back up to be messed with?
When I dropped her off, she was pretty fussy. Normally she falls back asleep in the car and I'm able to put her into her crib at daycare where she naps until about 8. This time, however, she cried when I went to put her down and she just wouldn't settle. I hated leaving her like that, but I had to go.
The day progressed uneventfully and hubby picked up the girls after school so I could organize my milk supply in the freezer to donate another batch of milk to a local mama. Hubby got home right before the couple came to pick up the milk and said that he didn't think A was feeling so great. After the couple left, we checked her temperature and it was 101.7. For a baby under 3 months, that's ridiculously high. We gave her a dose of tylenol and then called the pediatrician's office. We had to wait for the after hours nurse to call us back (because babies never get sick when the doctor's office is open). When she did, she chastised us for giving A tylenol (We were told by the pediatrician's office to give tylenol if necessary for her most recent spate of vaccines and exactly how much which is what we used when dosing her this time.) and then in the next breath said we needed to get her to the ER and make sure that she was still breathing on the way, making it seem like because we gave her tylenol, she now would possible stop breathing.
I took A to the ER while hubby stayed home with R. We ended up staying there until midnight while they ran a myriad of tests on her. It was wretched as they gave her a catheter to do a urinalysis, a nasal wash to test for RSV and flu, and pricked her no less than 3 times to draw blood. The only positive thing was because I whipped out the boob to comfort nurse her while they checked her vitals, we were offered a private waiting room. Oh, and another positive thing was that our vitals nurse told me that giving A tylenol was exactly what she was going to do anyway and thanked us for doing that. She said that the after hours nurse was wrong and if A was even just 3 days old, she would have given her tylenol.
A didn't have any other symptoms other than the fever and her tests all came back negative. I thought she might be sick with the same cold both hubby and R had been sick with (especially since 2 year olds LOVE to share), and sure enough the only positive test was for a virus, but not RSV. Score one for Mommy's Intuition.
A continued to have a fever for the next 48 hours and hubby had to stay home with her both days (normally we'd each take a day off) because I'm out of sick leave due to maternity leave (Remind me again why we live in a country that perpetually screws over women?). Hubby took A to the doctor on Thursday since her fever still hadn't improved and she wasn't eating very much. Thankfully, they said she was well-hydrated and doing well. Aside from the fever, she was still responsive and would smile when we would talk to her.
So obviously, Wednesday morning's run was out because by the time I got back from the ER, settled A, and pumped, it was after 1 AM, resulting in about 3 hours of sleep without getting up to run. Then A couldn't settle Wednesday night because of how the fever was making her feel, so we were up until a little after 2 AM trying to make her comfortable. It wasn't until hubby went to the guest bed and positioned her with her resting half propped up by his legs that she finally fell asleep. (Score one for co-sleeping, which by the way, has been a sleep saver for us, especially in the early days of A's life.) So that meant only 2 hours of sleep without getting up to run on Thursday. I guess I could have run Friday morning, but Thursday was the first night of normalcy and I was beat. I needed as much sleep as I could get after having a combined 5 hours of sleep in 48 hours, teaching, an observation, and of course dealing with our normal family routine and a sick baby. (I don't know how single moms do it?!)
So yeah, needless to say, it was a bit rough this week. I have been amazingly ok with the lack of mileage because really I have no control over it. I love running and I have some tough goals to reach, but I can't do that without sleep, and really, my family is the most important thing to me. This week was a good reminder that if they aren't happy and healthy, then what's the point of me running?
Because really, being a mama is what comes first.
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