Sad Baby Boy

At work one day when I was very pregnant there was a little girl, about two years old, who was super upset because her mother had run down to the cafeteria to get lunch. We had her at the nurses station trying to soothe/entertain her but nothing was working. As soon as her mother walked around the corner the little girl was as happy as could be, like nothing had happened at all. I turned to one of the older nurses and said, "I am not ready to yield that kind of power." To which she said to me, "Get ready because you are about to."

Now I'm a mother and like all other mothers I yield that frightening amount of power. In general Zane is a very happy baby. He rarely cries, and when he does it isn't for long. However, yesterday Zane got four immunizations and was very crabby all afternoon/evening. His little legs hurt and he just felt crummy. He screamed, cried, and his little hands and feet were consistently purple. I was able to cuddle, sing, hold, and comfort him through this and held him all afternoon so he could rest.

If Zane was an other wise healthy baby this day would have been sad of course, but not that big of a deal. In general I'm ok with crying babies, I make a living dealing with crying babies, so I am ok with them and pretty good at making them stop. However, with Zane's condition his crying is hard for me to handle. Every mother wants to be able to make their baby stop crying, but when Zane cries I can't help but think how it is making his little heart work harder, in turn making his condition worse. So we go get him before he cries hard at night, we stop the car and calm him down when he gets mad in his car seat, and I rush to his side when he cries at home much quicker than I would with any other child.

Yesterday, while he was screaming and obviously in pain, I couldn't stop thinking about how after his surgery the things I was doing to calm him down would probably make it worse. You can't just put a baby with a sternal incision up on your shoulder and walk around. I'm sure the nurses on the heart floor will show us some tricks on how to comfort him post-op, but the thought of this made yesterday nearly unbearable. Zach came home early so I could try to pull myself together. He did good over night and is better today, but I know it will take much longer for the pain to go away after his surgery. It breaks my heart. I would give anything to go through it for him.