Ella had a rough night.

First, she hardly napped on Friday with Kelly (a 45 minute nap). I guess she was caught up on sleep from the night before. So it was 11pm, and she still did not seem tired. But we needed to hook her up to the food pump and start it for the night.

We tried various techniques from 11pm – 11:45pm to get her sleepy. Nothing was working. She was just hyper and kicking. Didn’t want her binky. She simply did not want to sleep. Finally, I suggested that we just let her whine herself to sleep, as long as her pulse oximeter did not alarm.

For the next 30 minutes, it was constant. Finally at 12:15am, we thought it best if we give her some Tylenol. It doesn’t work great, but it can help to make her sleepy. When I went into her room to give it to her, she had moved around in her crib to where she was in a horizontal position at the very top of the crib and pinned against the bumper looking at the ceiling! I wish I had a picture – – it was so funny!

Once I gave the Tylenol, it was another 30 minutes of whining and crying. She finally stopped at 12:45am. I went into her room, turned down her oxygen and hoped that was the worst of the night.

At 3:30am, her pulse oximeter alarm beeped three times in a row. I ran into her room and everything looked fine. I hate that – it is like a fake fire drill. It got my adrenaline going, so then I was up and couldn’t fall back asleep.

About 4:15am, Ella woke up screaming. At first, I thought maybe it was just one of those times where I could pick her up and console her quickly. Not this time! She was crying loud and was not stopping. Josh had ear plugs in and could hear her screaming on the monitor through the ear plugs! This definitely seemed like pain…maybe tummy pain. I think all the crying and whining (almost 2 hours worth) put lots of air in her belly. After venting her g-tube and 10 minutes of joint assessing, we opted to give her the Maalox. Since it goes right into her tummy via her g-tube, the relief was almost immediate. Then, I rocked her for about 20 minutes. She slowly fell asleep. I put her back in the crib, turned down her oxygen again, and crawled into bed. Not five minutes passed and she was crying loud again! This time, I went into her room and picked her up. It seems that was all she wanted. So, I spent another 30 minutes rocking her back to sleep. An hour later, I crawled back into bed at 5:15am and hoped for the best. Ella didn’t do too bad, but I did have to get up and give a med at 7am and turn off the food pump at 8am.

All day, she was clingy and you could tell that she did not feel good. It seems like she has a cold. And then, it all started to make sense. Kelly has a cold too. We’re not sure where they both caught it since they were inside all week, but it came from somewhere! So, Kelly is trying to relax and sleep a lot this weekend too.

Ella just won’t tolerate anything she doesn’t love 100%. For example, getting twisted like a pretzel and doing yoga moves with her oxygen tubing! She loves that activity, as you can see above!

I guess you can’t blame her for being cranky – – she really doesn’t feel well. We’re not expecting tonight to go well, but we can always hope! Really, we’re just holding out for this cold to go away!