Wow. Today has been quite a day so far, and it looks like it might be a long night, too.
Today was Dorothy's 2-month check-up exam, at which she was scheduled to get 4 vaccinations. That's right -- 4 shots, 2 in each leg. We got to the office, and the nurse-practitioner examined Dorothy, adoring her along the way and proclaiming her to be looking very well. (BTW, for those of you keeping score at home, her weight was 10lbs. 15.2oz, and her height was about 21.5inches, both of which put her around in the 50th to 75th percentile range.) Then came the time for the shots, which were done by a separate nurse.
The nurse was very professional. She got everything lined up, and did the 4 shots right in a row, as quickly as possible. Dorothy first made two cries like she might normally make when really hungry or upset. Then she seemed to calm down, but it was obvious she wasn't calm. She was building steam, turning bright red from her head down, until she let out an astounding scream, the likes of which I don't think I've heard except when she was born.
As soon as the shots were done, Elizabeth started to nurse Dorothy, and within 30 seconds she seemed to have forgotten the whole ordeal. As Elizabeth said, "It must be nice to be so young that a boob in your mouth can solve all problems." Of course, many adult men might not ever lose that belief. ;-)
In any case, Dorothy seemed to recover from the shots pretty well. Until about 4 hours later, that is. Out of nowhere, she started crying inconsolably. She would even scream so hard and long that she'd run out of breath, but keep trying to scream (with no sound coming out). Eventually she'd pause, inhale, then scream again. The screaming-until-there's-no-more-air thing was a bit scary. We gave her some baby Tylenol, and eventually she calmed down. The nurse we spoke with in the afternoon said she recommends giving baby Tylenol every 4-6 hours for 24 hours after they get the big shots.
I've been doing bits and pieces of this blog entry for the last couple of hours (getting distracted frequently, oddly enough), and we just gave Dorothy a bath and her second dose of Tylenol. Elizabeth is trying to put Dorothy to sleep; we'll see how tonight goes.
Posted by Tom Nugent at April 27, 2004 09:10 PMThe night wasn't all that bad, as it turned out. It took me an hour or more to get Dorothy to go to sleep, but once she did, she slept for four hours. She didn't seem to be in any pain when she woke up, so I didn't give her any more Tylenol at the first feeding. At the second one, I had to change her and she woke all the way up, so I gave her some more, just in case (of course, she spit up half of it on me and herself, so then I had to wash the sticky stuff off her face, too).
She's pretty much back to normal today. Whew!
Posted by: Elizabeth at April 28, 2004 08:54 PM