Her first fever

Natali goes to daycare part time, 3 days a week.  So far it has worked out well for us, and it will continue to because Darren got a nice schedule in February with at least 2 weekdays off every week.  However, last week he had just completed training and didn't have an official schedule for January so they just put him in where they wanted.  That meant he worked 4 days last week.  He stayed home with her on Monday and then she went to daycare Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Friday was the problem.  Darren was scheduled to work.  We weren't sure until the night before what we needed to do.  If Darren got airport standby I would need to stay home from work, but if he was on a 2 hour call out from home he could watch Natali.  I let my supervisor know the situation.  Luckily, my work is extremely flexible and I can work different hours or days if needed.  Worst case scenario I could work a full day Saturday instead of Friday.  So, Thursday night came and Darren found out he was on a 2 hour call out starting at 4am.  I planned on going to work.  Friday morning I got up at my normal time and started to get ready for work as usual.  Of course, nothing went as usual that day.  Just as I was making my breakfast I found out Darren was getting called to go sit standby at the airport.  There went my work day.  We changed the plan.  Darren would go sit at the airport until 2pm.  I would drop her off with him on my way up to work as he started to go home.  I could get to work around 2pm and work until around 6pm and then work another half day on Saturday.  It was a good plan, but it was not meant to be.  Once Darren got to the airport he was almost immediately called out for a flight that would put him back home at 2:30.  I decided I would just go up to work at 2pm anyway and take Natali with me.  She could hang out with me at work for half an hour or so and Darren would just pick her up from me on his way home.  Of course, that plan ended up falling through too.

Natali and I had a decent morning at home.  Around 10am I decided to run out to the store for a few things.  While at the store I noticed Natali looked a bit dazed.  I thought she was just tired.  We continued shopping as normal and I figured I would just put her down for a nap as soon as we got home.  Well, once I got her out of the car seat when we got home I noticed she felt a bit warm.  I immediately took her temperature, 100.3.  It was her first fever.  Natali has been sick in the past, but she has never had a fever.  I have no clue what caused it as she had no other visible symptoms.  I was not prepared for a fever and I didn't have any medicine for her.  I figured we should get something right away, so I put her back in the car and we went down the street to the CVS for some Tylenol.  It took about 15 minutes and when we got back I did another check of her temperature.  In the span of half an hour it had climbed to 101.4.  I gave her the medicine and called my sister (the pediatric nurse).  She didn't answer the phone.  I wasn't sure how much I should worry about just a fever, but I figured I should go ahead and call the doctor just in case.  They took a message and told me a nurse would call me back.  In the meantime I called my mom.  She suggested a cool wet rag on her head might help, so I went ahead and did that too.  I then put Natali down for a nap.  An hour later the nurse at the doctor's office called back and said to just keep a watch on her and give her the medicine as needed, but not to worry unless it's been 48 hours.

There was no way I was going to take Natali to work with a fever, so I texted Darren and told him to just come home when he landed.  Natali woke up around 2pm and I took her temperature again, 98.6.  The medicine and wet rag had done the trick.  Darren got home and took over so I could head up to work.  On another day I would probably have just blown off work all together and just done a full day Saturday, but we had a deadline and I had some stuff to accomplish to send stuff out that day so I had to go.  Natali was doing ok, so I went and put in a few hours.  I got home around 6pm and immediately took her temperature again.  Unfortunately the Tylenol wore off and she was right back up to 101.5.  We gave her more Tylenol and I got out the wet rag for her head again.  Darren made fun of me for it, but it really does work.  At least he didn't fight it.  I was completely exhausted and fell asleep early.  Darren let me go to bed and he took care of Natali until she went to bed for the night.  He gave her one last dose of medicine before bedtime, but didn't take her temperature again.

Saturday morning we all woke up and Natali seemed fine.  I had work to do, so I left her and Darren and headed out for the morning.  I worked the whole morning and got back around 1pm to a very upset baby.  She was extremely fussy and could only be quieted by walking around the house.  Darren had a project to work on with his car, so I took over.  For the next hour and a half I could not sit down.  Every time I did Natali would cry uncontrollably.  We did a lot of standing in the garage watching Darren and standing in the backyard watching the dogs run around.  As long as I stood and held her she was ok.  Finally I couldn't take it anymore.  I knew she was very tired and my arms hurt.  I ended up laying her down in her bed and just letting her cry it out.  She cried pretty hard for about 10 minutes and then was out.  Of course, she didn't sleep very long before she was awake and crying again.  We had another rough 2 hours or so with a lot of crying, before she finally fell asleep again.  After this nap she woke up good as new, no more fussiness, and definitely no more fever.

I have no clue what the problem was.  We thought she might be teething, but we cannot feel any teeth, and we're told a 101.5 fever seems too high for just teething.  I guess we won't ever know what her issue was.  I'm just glad it's over now.  A sick baby is definitely not fun, and fevers are the worst!