This is Samster’s finished cupcake dress…
This is the dress she wore during her birthday party…
Yep, we spent Samantha’s 1st birthday in the ER. Before I start at the beginning let me warn you that I haven’t slept in 3 days and my not be able to form words correctly. Case in point.

Last Thursday Sam had her 1 yr vaccinations, later that night she started getting feverish but we knew that was a normal reaction to vaccines. By Friday afternoon that fever was still sticking around but the pediatrician assured me it was completely normal since she didn’t have any other symptoms. By dinner it had jumped up to 104.5 and then 105.8 and that’s when I started to freak, we took her to an after hour pediatrics and of course by then the Motrin got the fever down to 102.4 and since the dr. couldn’t find anything else wrong with her he chalked it up to being a severe reaction to the vaccines but said she should be fine by her birthday party the next day. Unfortunately that’s not what happened. My little Samster kept getting worse. She was shivering, lethargic & wouldn’t eat or drink but everyone kept telling us it was the vaccines and that we should give it time, that just didn’t seem right to P, myself or any of the 13 family members in our house who had flown/driven in for the party.

Now let me back up for a second, besides the vaccines one other thing had been funny with Sam lately, for the last 2 weeks she’s been doing this weird thing where she’ll all of a sudden look at me, frown and then burst into tears and jump into my arms. I hadn’t been able to figure it out and told the pediatrician about it at her 1 yr check up & she said it was probably tantrums starting. I told her it wasn’t behavioral, it was her pain cry and it seemed like something hurt but I didn’t know what. Without any other clues to give her though there wasn’t much else I could ask her to do…until it hit me on Saturday morning. Her fever was still around and I got to thinking…hmmm, fever, crying randomly, she’s also had an ongoing yeast infection, I wonder if it hurts her to pee and she has a urinary tract infection!? “AHA!” I called up the pediatrician and we went in for Sat morning sick hours. She agreed that could be the problem because a fever that high didn’t seem quite right from vaccines, she put a bag on Sam to catch urine that I could drop off at a lab once Sam had completed leaving her sample. She said we’d have the results back by Monday but that’d be ok. No one so far seemed too worried, but us. She did say however that if Sam’s temp got above 102 to go to the ER. Well, first off the lab closed at noon and Sam left her sample at 12:05…typical. Then Sam started getting really weird, her cheeks, arms and legs were so red and the heat off of her head was crazy, it was the saddest thing seeing her so weak and shaky, I took her temp for the umpteenth time and I could hardly believe my eyes…106.1!!! Needless to say we rushed her to the emergency room, they took her right in and I told the nurse my suspicions of a UTI, she kind of nodded me off but they did still do a catheter in addition to a teeny tiny baby IV in Sam’s hand. Which if you’ve ever had to have your baby need a catheter or IV then you know, it’s the saddest thing EVER, you have to hold her down with your face next to hers and body on top of hers while she’s screaming and trying to understand why you’re holding her and not helping her. It was heartbreaking. After the IV they put a diaper over it to keep the baby from pulling it out, we called it her “wing” because she kept flapping it around…

First we got the results back from the urine sample…guess what? UTI! I did get a pat on the back from the nurse and doctor which completely assured me to always go with my mommy instincts from now until Sam’s 30. Next they gave her a round of antibiotics through the IV which were supposed to make Sam perk up pretty quickly but she was still really lethargic, sad and very hot. Finally around 4 hours later the fever broke and the Drs changed shifts. The new Dr (without even coming in to examine Sam or to talk to us mind you) said she was fine to go home but thank goodness we had this wonderfully diligent nurse who had noticed that even though Sam’s fever had gone down her respiratory rate was still up…normally babies should be breathing around 30 times a minute…Sam was breathing around 55, 60 times each minute! The nurse told the Dr. she thought the baby should have a chest xray before we went home, he agreed and this time I made Peter go with her. (In case you didn’t read my last experience with a baby chest xray click here) He said it was the worst 2 minutes of his life having his baby girl strapped in that monster machine but you know what, thank goodness that nurse ordered it because not only did Samster have a kidney infection (that’s what UTIs are in baby girls) but she also had pneumonia in her left lung! Seriously?!(look at that chunkster thigh! Her kidneys should be able to live off of those for weeks!)

Finally after all the correct meds Sam perked up and was charming all the nurses with her usual self, they decided not to admit her after all & we came home to find a much worried family waiting for us. I had canceled all of her little friends from coming over that morning but we didn’t see any good in having family sit in their hotel rooms when they could at least all be together in our house, it was so nice to walk in and see they had gone shopping with my list, cooked all the food and decorated the house. (: It was very very sweet.

(My pretty cupcakes, and pretty sisters…bonus to less party guests? Lots of leftovers!)

So in the end there was no cupcake dress, no smashcake all over (with the antibiotics she can’t have any dairy), no ball pit or goodie bags but honestly I haven’t been sad about it at all. What matters is my baby girl’s health, when she needed us everything else melted away, all that mattered(s) was(is) getting her better.

She’s not completely there yet, we had a follow up appt with the pediatrician yesterday (who now strongly feels Sam should have been admitted for 72 hrs, go figure) Apparently only 8% of female children get UTIs and of those 30-40% are because genetic problems in the urinary tracts, they’re little ducts don’t quite work right and the urine flows back up into the kidneys causing repeated infections and possible kidney damage. If she is part of the percentage she’ll need to either be on antibiotics for 6 years to see if she outgrows it or have surgery to correct it. Neither sound very fun to me. To find out she’ll need two procedures done, an ultrasound…no biggie. And an Xray with dye where she’ll have to sedated. (makes me VERY nervous)

Pray for my little baby girl. Although she’s much more of her normal self today we’re still so worried about her, but just so you’re not too worried about her this was her at dinner last night…she’s on a restricted diet while on the meds so mommy made her special fried rice, it was a big hit to say the least.

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