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I am sure you have all experienced the following - and if not, your time will come, trust me. Picture it. 3 am on a cold winter's night. Deep in cloud cuckoo-land. Asleep at last. When a soft whimpering slowly pulls you out of your slumber. You lie still for a few moments, thinking "she will find her bottle… just give her a minute…" Until you hear it. That unmistakable sound that brings forth images of yellowy stained cot, stained sheets, stained floor, stained clothes and quite possibly stained baby. You are suddenly tearing down the passage at break neck speed yelling "I'm coming Baby! Mommy's coming" while hoping hubby will maybe perhaps with a lot of luck hear the commotion and call for backup! And then you see it. Poor baby sitting in her cot, heaving, screaming, not understanding - quite possibly one of the worst feelings in the world!
Maybe I should just stop a minute and explain that I am NOT a puke person. Never have been. I could never be a contestant on Fear Factor - not because I have an inherent fear of creepy crawlies and slime (bring it on I say!), but because I just don't do sick. Not my own or anybody else's. In fact I managed to get through an entire pregnancy without puking until the very last minute before Megan was born (yes, I puked into my hair on the operating table - not my proudest moment!). I even gag when I see the dog puking - and don't even ask me to clean it up.
Well that was until I had a little person to take care of. I wasn't very worried about the inevitable upchuck that comes with feeding (that's just milk burping up), but more the unrestrained heaving that comes with a real tummy bug. I knew it was going to happen eventually. How would I cope? And then the inevitable day… well night actually, arrived. And guess what. I managed. In fact at the moment of holding my little baby over my shoulder as she vomited into my pyjamas, I would have given anything for it to be me with my head in the toilet rather than her. She had no understanding of what was happening to her, and I just wished I could take it all away. I guess it's easier when they are smaller and their diet is pretty bland - I am not sure yet how I will deal with the inevitable post gorge-fest that is likely to come my way when Megan hits the kiddie-party circuit. Spur burger, chips, cake, sweets and too much crème soda returning uninvited? No thank you. I think hubby can be on duty that night.
At the end
of the day I think having a sick child is more traumatic for the parents.
Not so long ago Megan ended up in hospital having emergency grommets to
ease a middle ear infection. Yes she screamed blue murder through most
of it, but I, the strong mommy, was balling my eyes out while I held her
as she fought the anesthetic. The doctor asked if I was going to be okay
- probably having images of another hysterical mother wrenching her child
from his grasp and running through the theatre doors yelling "You're
not taking her!" I nodded assent, wanting to shout at him "You
would be crying too if it was your child! Just leave me be! Let me have
my moment of emotion okay!" But true to his word, Megan was a new
person once the pain was gone, and when we finally got home at 7:30, thinking
she would go straight to bed (having been at the hospital since mid afternoon
and having an anesthetic to boot), well we were mistaken. Megan figured
she had missed out on an entire afternoon of playing, and decided to stay
up till 9:30 to make up for lost time. Of course we indulged her, after
all we were just relieved to be home and see her as her old self again.
But let me tell you I think we needed to be anethetised when we got the
bill - R1500 for 15 minutes (and GAS mind you, not even the intravenous
stuff) - good grief I think I'm in the wrong profession! (Oh and this
excludes the hospital, surgeon and emergency factor. Don't even ask what
the final figure was). But at the end of the day we would do anything
for our children. I know of people who have been through a lot worse than
a couple of grommets, so for now I will take the odd cold and upset tummy.
As long as I have a good stock of dettol and a couple of clothes pegs,
I should be okay. I think having been puked on, wee'd on, pooh'd on and
burped on, I can handle anything. On second thoughts, anyone got that
number for Fear Factor? I could do with an extra fifty grand. They should
get their perfect bodied contestants to be a parent for a day. They wouldn't
last a second. Bring it on.
© Sally Hetherington .
