The first time you walk back into a hospital with your baby, it feels unreal—like you’ve accidentally stepped into someone else’s story. At 9 months old, we took our daughter to the ER and ended up staying two nights in the hospital. It started as cold symptoms and an ear infection and it ended up as pneumonia and trouble breathing.
This post is a bit hard for me to write, as every time I start to type it brings me back to those days. And those two days in the hospital were two of the worst days in mine and my husband’s life.
The Beginning
Mid-Week
Around Wednesday evening we noticed some minor cold symptoms in our daughter (runny nose, cough, etc.) so we proceeded to do our normal remedies (snot sucking, humidifier, etc.). On Thursday she still had her cold symptoms, but no fever.
The fever didn’t begin until Friday morning. We didn’t notice it first thing in the morning, but there was some throw up on her sheets left over from the night before—we assume it happened when she was sleeping. We kept her home from daycare on Friday, also because she had a doctor appointment that day.
When we took her to the doctor Friday afternoon she still wasn’t feeling well, but we were thankful that her pediatrician would be able to check her out. While our daughter sounded a bit wheezy, the doctor thought it was primarily due to the virus she was battling. As such, he prescribed her an inhaler that we could use at home as needed. He also confirmed that she had a double ear infection and prescribed us amoxicillin, although most times ear infections resolve on their own.
Saturday
Our daughter seemed to be feeling worse when she woke up Saturday morning. She couldn’t keep her milk down and had spit up a couple of times. One of our biggest concerns was her breathing (as it was still flu/ RSV season); we checked her stomach/ribs to determine if she was having labored breathing (she wasn’t). She seemed a bit lethargic, but we figured that was due to the virus her little body was fighting.
I had a baby shower to attend that morning for a really good friend. I was hesitant to go, as I didn’t want to leave her when she was sick, but she was in good hands with my husband. While I was gone my husband kept me updated on how our daughter was doing. For a while he felt that she was improving as she was able to keep 6oz of milk down (spread over multiple hours), but once she finished the last sip she spit up a lot.
When I got home from the baby shower I immediately called our daughter’s healthcare provider to explain the situation. As a side note, I always create a new note in the Notes App on my phone when our daughter starts to get sick so that I can track all of her symptoms and medicine administering. This comes in handy when I need to talk to our daughter’s healthcare provider, and I can give them all of the details, especially when I struggle recalling things from the days prior.
Our daughter’s healthcare provider asked all of their standard questions, and our daughter didn’t have any alarming symptoms. As such, they told us to continue as status quo and do all of the standard remedies. They also decided to set up a phone appointment for our daughter on Sunday morning.
Sunday
By Sunday morning, our daughter was still lethargic, not keeping her milk down, and just not acting like herself. You could tell how sad she was because she wasn’t feeling well.
The phone appointment was similar to the call the night before, and our daughter still didn’t have any of the alarming symptoms they noted during their Q&A. It wasn’t until the end of the appointment when my husband asked how many breaths per minute were normal. Our daughter ended up breathing a little bit faster than recommended for babies her age. Therefore, the doctor recommended that we go to the ER.
Honestly, my first thought was that going to the ER was a sanity check, just to make sure everything was ok. But deep down, we felt like our daughter was ok, but was definitely battling a bug. We definitely didn’t expect an ER visit to turn into a hospital stay.
Emergency Room
Check In
We arrived at the ER around 10:00am on that Sunday. Unfortunately, this day happened to be her 9 month birthday as well, so it was such a sad way to spend it. We had never been to the ER before so we weren’t sure where exactly to go at first, but we parked and got checked in at the front.
The first thing the nurse did was take her pulse ox. Our daughter’s pulse ox was somewhere in the mid to high 80’s. The nurse immediately took us back to a triage room.
As some background, before this time, our daughter had not had many illnesses. Her first “cold” was a minor runny nose at 2 months old. I believe her first fever was in January (7 months old) after starting daycare, and she maybe had a second fever in February (8 months old). The fevers never lasted long, and the symptoms were typically cold symptoms (runny nose, cough, etc.). For myself, I had never even been to an ER; I knew very little about the ER process and how it works.
Admission
We were initially brought into a triage room where my husband sat with our daughter on the gurney bed. She was then swarmed by nurses and doctors who hooked her up with multiple wires for monitoring. At the same time, a different nurse came over to me and started asking me all of the questions — basically everything I told the doctor on the phone appointment that morning, and the nurse at check in.
It was one of the most overwhelming experiences my husband and I have been through. Between all of the poking and prodding and Q&A, it was a lot for us to take in. I recall the brief moment when we were finally alone in the room (for a brief period of time) and I just looked at my husband and started crying. Seeing our daughter in so much discomfort and exhaustion, it was hard to see.
As first time parents we thought we were doing everything correctly. We had seen her pediatrician and had multiple calls (including a phone appointment with a doctor) with her healthcare provider. We didn’t think anything was seriously wrong with our daughter.
It wasn’t until the nurse, who checked us into the ER, was walking us back to the triage room where she made a comment about ‘you should trust your gut’ and ‘brought her in sooner’. It felt like a slap in the face. That was part of the reason why I started crying in the triage room with my husband. In that moment, I felt like the worst mother in the world.
I know that isn’t the case, but it was so hard to hear that after finding out that our daughter wasn’t doing as well as we thought. That comment didn’t need to be made—it was an ‘after the fact’ situation and we couldn’t go back in time and bring her in sooner.
We left the triage room and got an x-ray before we moved to a more permanent ER room. When we got the the ER room the doctor tried to put an IV in. Given our daughter’s small size it was much harder for them to put in; they tried on both arms, and eventually they had to do an ultrasound to find a vein to use. Our daughter was so exhausted she ended up passing out for a few hours in the ER room. After her multiple assessments and x-ray confirmation that our daughter had pneumonia, we were requested to transfer to the hospital.
Transfer
Around 2:00pm we were finally able to transfer to a room in the hospital. She was hooked up to so many machines monitoring everything, and any time her pulse ox dropped below 90 the machine would beep. While the room had a crib in it, our daughter would only sleep in our arms. She would hang out in the crib for a little bit when she was awake, but when she was sleeping it would be in our arms as we sat in a chair.
We when we checked into the hospital room, we knew that we would be staying overnight — we didn’t know how long though. Therefore, I stayed with our daughter at the hospital as my husband went back to our house to get some overnight things for us and our daughter. He also dropped our dogs off at my parent’s house so that we could focus on our daughter.
Hospital Stay
Wires and Machines
Honestly, the hospital stay itself is such a blur. Doctors and nurses came in and out of the room over the two days. Our daughter was hooked up to multiple machines, so many wires coming off of her body. It was very difficult to move her around as there were so many wires. She was tethered to her crib area basically.
One wire was the oxygen connected to her nostrils, pumping oxygen into her body and helping her breathe. One wire was the pulse ox machine hooked up to her foot which would monitor her pulse oxidation. This wire would slide off occasionally due to her moving, resulting in the pulse ox disconnecting and having the machine annoyingly beep. Our daughter was not a fan of having the oxygen tubes on her face and in her nose. We had to prevent her (multiple times) from ripping it out.
At this time, I was still breastfeeding our daughter, so we kept this up in the hospital as best as possible. I also continued to pump, and even stored my breastmilk at the hospital (with the help of the nurses).
Sleeping
Our daughter was very exhausted the day she was admitted to the hospital and was primarily eating and sleeping for the remainder of the night and into the next day. She had sporadic moments where she would lay in her crib playing with some of her toys that we brought from home.
As I mentioned, she wouldn’t sleep in her crib, so we had to hold her in the chair while she slept on our chests. While our daughter was sleep trained at this time, she definitely did not sleep continuously through the night at the hospital, especially because nurses and doctors were coming in every few hours.
It didn’t make sense for my husband and I to both stay up the whole night while one of us had to hold our daughter to sleep (in an uncomfortable chair). As such, we alternated holding our daughter throughout the night—we switched off in increments of ~3-4 hours. For example, I tried to snag a few hours of sleep when our daughter went to sleep (around 8:00pm). Around 11:00pm/12:00am I switched with my husband and then my husband switched back with me around 5:00am so I could get a couple more hours of sleep. While this wasn’t ideal, we made this work as we wanted to keep our daughter comfortable.
It’s funny because my husband was already use to sleeping on a hospital’s couch (when our daughter was first born), but I did not realize just how uncomfortable they are. Thankfully my husband did grab our pillows from home, which made sleeping a little bit more manageable; however, still very uncomfortable.
Discharge
As time passed on, the oxygen level our daughter was receiving was able to be reduced. She needed to be at 0.25L output or less, and her pulse ox couldn’t drop below 90% for 24 hours. As such, we were locked in to stay a second night at the hospital.
I did a quick trip back to our house to pick up additional items that we needed for another night’s stay. While my husband and I were both out we grabbed some food for ourselves, and for the other times we Doordashed to the hospital. Our daughter’s healthcare provider made Doordashing very easy, which was nice.
At this time we limited visitors, as our daughter was clearly suffering from a viral illness and we wanted to limit any potential contamination from others. She completed multiple tests, from blood cell counts to respiratory virus panels, and it came back that she was positive for human metapneumovirus. We believe that she most likely picked this up from daycare, potentially from someone who had pneumonia at school.
The second night was just as rough as the first (for me and my husband), but we managed to switch off sleeping while one of us held our daughter (so she could sleep). By Tuesday morning we were well ready to be discharged and go home. We received wonderful news that morning that our daughter’s oxygen levels had not dropped below 90% and the amount of oxygen she was receiving was below the 0.25L amount.
We walked out of the hospital at 11:45am, and the sun on our faces never felt so good. We were so excited to take our daughter home. We kept her home from daycare the rest of the week so that she could continue to recover and not be exposed to anyone or anything for a little bit longer.
My sister-in-law was able to get a pulse ox machine from one of her friends, so that we could have it on stand by over the next couple of weeks as we monitored our daughter. While we didn’t need to use it, it was nice to have the pulse ox machine on standby just in case. We didn’t want to become dependent on it and over-use it, as that would cause us more stress and anxiety.
Moving Forward
When your child goes through something like this, especially the first time (and as first time parents), it can be stressful and overwhelming. The mom guilt ate at me for a long time. I kept hearing the ER admission nurse in my head telling me that I should have brought my daughter in sooner.
I thought we were doing everything right, taking her to the doctor for her 9 month appointment, calling the advice line, having a phone appointment, and then taking her to the ER. But being told that we should have come in earlier was a slap in the face. I know it wasn’t appropriate for the nurse to say something like that. My husband and I were doing the best we could with the information we had, and we were doing what we thought was best for our daughter.
We are very thankful that she is ok. It was a traumatic experience for us, and I feel like I have PTSD from this experience. Every time our daughter gets sick, I make sure her breathing is ok, and I make sure I cover all of our bases. I may overreact and overthink every time, and thankfully my husband is always there to calm me down, but it’s hard for me to not worry (I was already a worrier before this happened).
As time has gone on, I have tried to not freak out every time our daughter has a little sniffle. It has gotten better with time. I think it will only continue to get better as our daughter grows and her immunity becomes stronger, and she will eventually be able to speak to us (and tell us where her pain is/ what her symptoms are).
Not being able to take away your child’s pain and discomfort is heartbreaking. All you want to do is make things better for them. We are grateful to the nurses and doctors at the healthcare center who helped take such good care of our baby girl and provide her with the care she needed. And we are immensely grateful to all of our friends and family—the outpouring of love and support was in credit. And to my husband, thank you for being my rock—we got through this together. We have one strong daughter!