When In Doubt, Check It Out

Also titled: Ali's First Illness

Also titled: Heartbreak

Also titled: I Feel Like the Worst Mom Ever

We have a video monitor. When baby girl was still itty bitty, we had it in the actual crib with her. I fell asleep every night (after 3 months, when she moved to her room) looking at her sweet sleeping form and smiling. Then she started rolling around her crib, so we hung the monitor from the side of her crib. Then she started crawling . . . and she thought the monitor was a cool toy to play with when she woke up from her nap. So we moved the monitor to a high shelf across the room. It's new location gives us a bird's eye view of her crib, but it's too far away to allow us to really see what she's doing. Especially at night. At night we can see the fuzzy white bars of her crib against the dark backdrop of the walls, but that's about it. But we knew that we'd be able to hear her if she cried for us. We (okay . . . I) tried to reconcile myself to the mostly audio function of our monitor now. I told myself I was spoiled to have had the luxury of the video function for so long, giving me an up-close-and-personal view of baby girl's slumber. I told myself if she needed me, she would cry for me.

Last night, before going to sleep, I looked in the monitor, as I do every night, as I have done every night for the last six months. I know I can't see her, but still I try, squinting my eyes against the grainy night-vision picture to see if I can catch even the hint of her tiny form. Last night, when I looked, I didn't have to squint too hard. A dark splotch obscured the white bars of the back of her crib. Her head. She was sitting up. As I watched, she laid back down again. I smiled to myself. Silly girl. It's what she's been doing for naps for the last week or so. She'll sit up when we put her down for her nap, and then move around the crib, laying herself down in whatever she deems is the most comfortable position or spot. Like a cat. I closed my eyes.

Ten minutes later, I heard her moving around again and took another look. The dark circle. Her head. Moved to the corner of her crib. Sitting up. I showed TH. He watched her. She was laying down and sitting back up again. And again. And again. I felt a twinge of uncertainty. This was certainly not something we had seen before. She is a great sleeper. Why isn't she sleeping? TH and I watched her and tried to rationalize away our concerns. If she needed us, she'd be crying. Maybe she did this all the time and we had just never seen it happening. Lots of people don't have video monitors. They would never know this was going on. They would only hear the same silence we were hearing and would believe everything to be fine. TH told me to go to sleep. He took the monitor into the living room with him.

An hour later, I heard her again. Crying weakly, tiredly. In the living room. As I was getting out of bed, TH opened the door to our room, holding her. "I need your help," he said. She had thrown up. Everywhere. All over her bed, all over herself. She had thrown up and had scooted herself into the corner of her crib so that she could sleep while sitting up, supported in the corner, leaning against the sides of the crib. So that she wouldn't have to lay in her own vomit. That was what we saw. When she was lying down and then sitting back up. She was trying to lay down, but would lay in vomit, and so she'd sit back up.

For over an hour she slept, or attempted to sleep, while sitting up in her crib. And she never cried.

There are really no words for how heartbroken I felt last night, when I realized what she had been through. I cried. I am even crying as I type this now, in the light of day. What an awful experience for her. What was it that kept her from crying out for us? Bravery? Stoicism? Exhaustion? Indifference? We've never done any sleep training. There was never been a single instance where she has cried at night and we have let her, without responding. Why didn't she cry? As I wiped the crusted, dried vomit from her hair, her cheek, as TH changed her crib sheets and mattress pad, I whispered to her through my own tears that she should always, always cry for me. If she needs me, she should call me and I will always come to her. I wish she could understand that. But she just cuddled with me, nuzzled into my neck while I wiped her sickness away. Her little body was shaking slightly, exhausted from sitting up for so long.

I held her for an hour. I nursed her. I rocked her. TH moved the video monitor to a table right next to her crib so that I could see exactly what she was doing from then on. When I put her down to go back to sleep, she protested weakly, and then sat up. As I watched in the monitor, she stayed sitting up, her eyes dropping closed again and again. She didn't want to lay down. She thought it was still dirty. Still covered in vomit. She thought she had to stay sitting up still.

I went back in to her and gently laid her down. She cried. I calmed her, patting her tummy and shushing her. I watched her hands drop gradually to rest on the mattress. I watched her small body finally, finally relax. I stood there with her for another 10 minutes. Every few minutes she would open her eyes, see me there with her, and then drop back to sleep, a bit more secure, a bit more relaxed. She slept.

I cried myself to sleep. I've never known a worse feeling than what I felt last night, what I continue to feel today. As a mother, knowing that your baby was sick, confused, exhausted, struggling to sleep while sitting up so that she wouldn't have to lay in her own vomit. I've never felt worse. Of course I am second guessing every glance in the monitor, every part of the conversation TH and I had about why she was sitting up. I should not have tried to rationalize away my concern. I should have gone in to check on her earlier. So much earlier.

I always here from other moms that your baby will let you know what they need. They'll cry if they're hungry, or tired, or if something is wrong. Blah blah blah. Ali never cried when she was hungry as an infant. We had to feed her on schedule because she would never get fussy, even if it had been hours since she'd eaten. As she's aged, I feel like I let my guard down a bit, like I've allowed myself to fall a bit into the "she'll cry if she needs something" mindset. But I should have known better. I don't have a crier. I have a soldier. I have a baby who doesn't cry when she's hungry. I have a baby who doesn't cry when she's tired. I have a baby who doesn't cry when she's thrown up in the middle of the night. In a way that makes my job so much harder. I have to listen so much more closely to my instincts. I have to make sure that she's eating enough, that she's sleeping enough, and that nothing is wrong when I notice her doing something out of the ordinary.

She awoke this morning with a fever. Her first ever. I am staying home with her. And I think I've decided that she may not leave my arms today. At all. Penance for a mom who didn't come when her daughter needed her. Therapy for that same mom's feelings of guilt.