The morning went well enough. I took Hannah for a walk to go get breakfast (mmm…McDonald’s breakfast is just so good! To all who are gasping in horror, please note, Hannah does not eat Macca’s breakfast. She gets the healthier stuff). Aaron, Hannah and I went to the beach and played in the sand. We went out to lunch. Hannah played at the park.
We packed the nappy bag and bundled Hannah into the car. We timed the trip to Byron Bay (to visit Aaron’s Mum) to coincide with Hannah’s nap. Otherwise, she’d be too bored for the ride.
Squeal, babble, bubble blowing, chattering. She was full of beans. Sleep was not yet coming.
Cough, cough. I turned around in my seat. The coughing sounded funny.
“You cheeky little monkey, you pulled your pigtails out!” Hang on, where were the pony tail holders. Oh, there was one, dripping in spit, hanging out of her mouth. I quickly grabbed it.
But where was the other one?
Funny coughing continued. Oh my goodness, was she choking on a pony tail holder???? I freaked out a little bit. Ok, a lot. Frantically, I searched her and her seat for the rogue hair tie.
Phew. I found it. Right at the bottom of her seat, between her fat little (adorable) baby thighs and the side of the seat.
“Maybe if you take your hand out of your mouth, you wouldn’t be coughing like that….” She’s cheeky. Maybe she wanted attention instead of going to sleep. Well, it was working.
BLAAAA (how do you spell the noise for vomiting??)!!! A bit of fluid came out of her mouth. She reached her chubby little baby hand into her mouth and (with an awkward look on her face) and searched for something. Her chubby little baby hand parted from her mouth, holding between her thumb and forefinger a chunk of pineapple.
She held her arm out to me, leaned forward as far as she could and gave me that “Here Mommy, I found something for you” look. Gee thanks, just what I always wanted. I took it from her. What else could I do? Ew.
She cried a bit and then went to sleep.
She wasn’t asleep for long when she woke suddenly, screaming.
The coughing started again.
Oh please don’t throw up….
BBBLLLLLAAAAATTTTT!! Oh goodness, it was everywhere. It kept coming and coming. She kept retching and retching. Where did she keep all of this vomit? I don’t see how it could possibly fit into her stomach. She was COVERED in vomit. The baby seat was covered in vomit. The floor was covered in vomit.
I freaked out a little. Okay, a lot. We all know how I feel about vomit. Okay, maybe you don’t, so I’ll tell you: Vomit freaks me out. I have a phobia of vomit. The only thing I was concerned about in regards to kids is the vomit. I had been dreading this moment from the moment Hannah was born. Even my own vomit freaks me out. Lucky for me I don’t vomit very much (just saying vomit so much is making me shudder). I hadn’t thrown up (maybe I’ll feel better if I use a different term) since 7th grade until a couple of years ago when I got food poisoning from day old Pad Thai. I haven’t mustered up the courage to eat any Pad Thai since that fateful night. I suppose throwing up so violently that noodles come out your nose has that affect. Then I got food poisoning again from Chicken Man (I hate you Chicken Man) not so long ago and had to get a shot (did I mention I ALSO hate needles?) to stop the vomiting. I HATE VOMIT. I would rather lie completely still for a whole week, nothing to look at, nothing to do, then vomit just once. Yuck.
Anyway, back to the story….
Freaking out, I told (probably yelled, I don’t know) Aaron to pull over. Sure, we were on a Freeway going 110Km an hour, but Hannah had what seemed to be 3 days worth of food pouring out of her.
I’m pretty sure she was still going when pulled over. I don’t know which one of us unbuckled the child seat. I assume I did. Maybe I blocked it out of my memory. It was COVERED in vomit. I quickly put her over my knees and patted her back. I wanted to make sure she got it all out and wasn’t choking on anything. She was screaming blue murder. I don’t know what passing cars thought as they sailed by us, Me squatting by the side of the road, small child across my knees screaming while I patted her. Maybe it didn’t look like patting. Maybe they thought we were pulled over to spank a small child. Oh goodness. I hope no one calls docs….
Great, now I was covered in vomit also. I took the vomit drenched dress of the screaming child who held out her outstretched arms in my direction, wanting me to give her a comforting cuddle in spite of the fact the beneath the dress, she also was covered in vomit. Oh dear, what do I do? I wiped her off first. Then I gave her a cuddle. I’m terrible.
The car seat was soaked, but we were on the side of the freeway in the middle of…well, I’m not sure where we were. Somewhere between Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay. We had to put her back in the seat. We exhausted our supply of wipes, trying our darndest to excavate the mountain of vomit on the baby seat. Shudder. It was still soaking wet. At least the chunks were gone.
Speaking of chunks, the incident produced some startling (and unwanted) observations:
1. Judging by the end result, Hannah doesn’t seem to chew. At all.
2. Raisins/sultanas turn back into grapes after being in the stomach for a while.
3. There are whole corn kernels in the Heinz Lamb and Vegetable 10-15 month baby food.
5. Babies stomachs seem to hold more than most adults. I wonder where they keep their other internal organs?
6. I handled the “my child is vomiting” situation much better than I ever expected.
We put Hannah back in the car seat and continued on our way, desperate to find a service (gas) station, that hopefully stocks baby wipes and some form of cloths.
Just down the road, we found one. I went in, reeking of spew, a giant, chunky wet patch on the front of my dress. Darn it, no baby wipes. At least they had wet ones. Humph, they were 6 bucks. Ripped off…. I hope I was just being paranoid and no one could actually smell me, but I honestly think HOW COULD THEY NOT???!! We cleaned up some more and continued on our way.
Cough, cough, cry. Oh goodness, here we go again. How could she possibly have ANYTHING else left in her tummy???? This time it was mostly water (I got her to drink some after losing that much fluid before), with more chunks. Never in my life have I seen so much puke. Ew.
Me in Trish's dress. Aaron thought it was hilarious
I don’t know how Hannah would possibly have any energy after all the puking, but she played rather happily (after we changed her into the only other thing we happened to have in the nappy bag, her swimmers) at YaYa’s. Aaron and I, on the other hand, set about cleaning up the festy smelling rental car and baby seat. Despite having a removable cover, then a foam layer, the actual plastic under all of that was full of vomit. Luckily Trish had a hose. And a washing machine. And a dryer. And a dress for me to borrow.
Hannah had one strawberry, and then the vomiting started. Again. All over YaYa’s (sorry, in case you’re wondering, Trish and YaYa are the same person. Trish is Aaron’s Mum, but we get Hannah to call her YaYa as she already has a Grandma that she sees every day. And Trish is half greek.) floor. And her dress. Booya for us putting her catch all bib on “just in case.”
Maybe I was being over protective, overly freaking out, overly worried, but after losing so much fluid, I was freaking out for her. We decided to take her to the hospital. A doctors office was not an option, it was 6 something PM on a Saturday night.
Zoe wasn't allowed in the hospital so she sooked outside
They took her weight, temperature, heart rate, listened to her chest, checked in her ears, etc. They gave her an electrolyte iceblock. At first she screwed up her cute little face at it’s random saltiness, but then she liked it. She ate the whole half that they gave her, plus an actual whole one. I quietly freaked out, expecting the spew to start again any second. It didn’t. Relief. They told us to come back if she developed a fever, or starting vomiting again. Fair enough, except that we were driving back to the Gold Coast straight away, then flying to Sydney the next day.
Hannah slept all the way back to the hotel in the nicely cleaned baby seat. She woke up at 2am screaming her lungs out. I gave her an entire tommy tippy straw cup of water, which she pretty much inhaled before going back to sleep. We were quite worried that Hannah and I would not be able to fly back home the next day (Aaron would have to, he would have to go back to work). What if she starts vomiting again? We can’t go on the plane if she’s vomiting….
Mommy Adventures 