What a week.

Day 1 - Sunday

Chris is elated. As the economy reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, he has been covering the impending sale of Knight Ridder, parent company of the Merc. He found out that the McClatchy newspaper chain has bought out Knight Ridder. He had worked for McClatchy at the News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. And in the context of corporate newspaper chains, it's the least of the evils.

Day 2 - Monday

McClatchy will immediately sell the Mercury News and most of the other union papers. Argh! I found out I didn't get into Stanford. Double Argh!

Day 3 - Tuesday
We had a very memorable overnight stay in Oakland's finest - an incredible view of downtown, staff that waited on us hand and foot, and best of all, it only cost $250 per night. Well, that was our co-pay.

Kalian came down with labored breathing and wheezing (or are they one in the same?) on Monday night. Well, now that we follow detachment parenting, in terms of sleep - i.e. only early morning co-sleeping - the rest of the night she's banished to her crib prison - we didn't run to her every time she cried on Monday night. And, of course, now that we know she was sick at the time, we feel that wonderful twinge of guilt. That was the first bout of that common parental feeling on this odyssey.

I knew something was wrong when she didn't sleep til her cheerful 5am, so I immediately got up when she cried at about 2 am. When I brought her into bed, she immediately vomitted. Yum. Poor thing. By the morning, the wheezing was pronounced and she had no interest in breastfeeding. Did I call the doctor right away? No, after Day #2 I offered Chris an opportunity to go to the gym because Kalian fell back asleep and Liam was still sleeping. OK, parental guilt episode #2 - I did yoga - god forbid I took care of myself. But she soon woke up and I knew something was wrong. I was going to call Kaiser right away, but I thought I'd wait til Liam's preschool ride showed up - our friend who is a family doctor, but his wife came instead (episode #3), so I finally did call the doctor.

I knew something serious was up when instead of the lengthy wait on hold, I was put in touch with an advice nurse right away because mine was a "priority call" - they scheduled an appointment for 11am. While Kalian went back to sleep I cleaned the house thinking I'd still have our friends over for dinner and even started cutting potatoes.

When I arrived at the doctor's office, I immediately noticed that the doctor I was seeing, Dr. Terrazas - not our regular pediatrician, was on a floor at Kaiser that caters to the Latino population because of the clients, the posters in Spanish and the staff. Instead of my thoughts being focused on my sick daughter, I thought, "Cool - how great to have bilingual resources and care..." But as soon as Faye, our nurse, listened to Kalian, she hooked her up to a machine that read how much Oxygen was going to her blood and it was apparently so low that they immediately put her on oxygen. Oops, this was serious stuff.

I spent the next 3 hours trying to hold an oxygen mask over my 9 month old daughter's face - sometimes with pure oxygen and sometimes with albuterol, a medicine to help her breathe. Of course, she loved it. Not. I then found out that we would be transferred to the hospital and had to watch my baby put on a stretcher by a medic on his first day on the job.

At the emergency room, I had to watch while three different nurses tried to stab her with a needle to get an IV. Finally, a true expert came and wrapped her like a burrito in a giant sheet so only her face and her wrist was exposed. She somehow managed by herself to find the vein. Relief.

At some point I got reprimanded by some medical person (?) for not holding the oxygen mask over her face in the proper position - yet another "you could have killed her" moments - I've had lots of these remarks after homebirthing my kids while still getting care at Kaiser. But when the resident said that one of the reasons they wanted to admit was because Kalian hadn't been vaccinated.I was more than happy to oblige because I understand that's part of the equation.

As they wheeled us up together on the stretcher, I was breastfeeding her and the person(?) pushing me kept trying to cover us up - God forbid people should see me feeding my baby and nurturing her in such a traumatic time.

The actual hospital stay was the easiest part of the experience. They set us up in a bed, so I could cosleep with her and the nurses were so quiet when they came in to give her the oxygen treatments, though they were frustrated when they found out I had been peeing her in the bathroom because they couldn't count how many wet diapers she had. Mainstream medicine is great when you need it and when you follow the protocol to a tee.


Day 4
Wednesday - She was much better the next day and Liam came with Chris in the morning for her release. He had a blast with all of the equipment. It's amazing what little kids love and enjoy, even in the midst of parental stress. Came home and somehow managed to teach my yoga class that night.

Day 5
Thursday - I got into Harvard!