Sick Baby

As I'd feared in my last post, Teddy has come down with a big, fat cold, just like me. Only his seems to be getting worse. He was coughing so much last night it woke him up, and even after I'd been in to settle him he was breathing so hard it sounded like Darth Vader in his last stages. Even though it was 3am, I was wide awake as I kept listening to him breathing, and started to panic when I couldn't hear him - all of a sudden I remembered that SIDS is always connected to the baby having breathing difficulties, e.g. by having a cold... and yes, I know that he's old enough now really and that he would wake up if he really couldn't breathe anymore. But that still doesn't help when you worry your head off in the middle of the night.
So the next time he woke up I took him into our bed. M wasn't happy about this at all, but tough! I won't have my sick baby alone in his own bed when he's feeling so poorly. Of course, having Teddy in the bed meant that now I could physically not sleep anymore - first he shuffled into position as close to me as possible, so my head was half off the pillow and I was breathing in his hair. Then he started kicking his way around; and finally ended up snuggled up on top of the duvet, across my legs. Which meant at least I could breathe again, but I was fairly stuck and couldn't move my legs...
So it came as a bit of a surprise that we all overslept this morning! I'm currently working Friday mornings as well (just until the end of December) so today was one of those days where we really HAVE to get up at 6.30 to get ready for work and to get Teddy to nursery. Well, M woke up at 7.30 and we just rushed through the motions. I was only 10 minutes late at work, but  now I feel all sleepy-headed and not quite there - I do need my time to get ready in the mornings!
I'll take Teddy to see the Dr this afternoon, just to rule out a chest infection. Generally it's all a bit easier now when Teddy is ill, as he can communicate his needs so much better. For example, last night after his bath he pointed to the Calpol bottle (baby paracetamol) and said, "Teddy med-zen!". I wasn't going to give him any, as he seemed ok to me, but I still asked him if he needed to take his medicine. Teddy's reply was: "Yes! Teddy med-zen, good boy! Okay?" So he happily took his half spoon of Calpol without fussing (it used to cause him to vomit, which I think was always more a psychological thing than something physical).
Oh well, at least if we have it now, we'll be alright for Christmas! Let's just hope that M won't catch it off us now...

Headache

One of the negative "side-effects" of being pregnant is that, if you fall ill, you can take only so much in terms of medication. As someone who is particularly prone to throat infections and tonsilitis, this is not a good thing!
Sure enough, as soon as the weather started to turn cold, I've got myself another throat infection (after boasting the week before that I hadn't had one in months). My head is pounding, my whole body is aching, I can barely swallow and all I'm allowed to take are a few lousy paracetamol a day. Oh well. Things you do for baby, eh?
I'm a bit worried Teddy might be coming down with something too, as he's been very whiney all of yesterday and today and doesn't seem to be his usual bouncy self. But then you never know if it's teeth (16 down, 4 more to go) or something else.
In other news, I've got my 16 week midwife appointment next week - time really seems to fly now after creeping at snail's pace in the 1T!. And after that, only 4 weeks to go until our big scan...
I'm so excited about that. So far, I haven't bought anything for baby yet (because, let's face it, we don't really NEED to buy anything) but I can't wait to buy a tiny outfit once we know what it is. Even if it is another boy, he'll get one little outfit of his own :-)
I don't have a "feeling" at all. I know that plenty of women get these really strong feelings and just "know" if they're having a girl or a boy (or in Adrienne's case, they know even before they conceive!). I feel completely blank in that respect. I had that one blip - it was at our NT scan, and baby was wriggling wildly - and I wanted to say to M, "See how she's waving her hands?". But I don't know if that was because M is so set that this baby will be a girl?

Bad News

Remember when I talked about how bad things come in threes, and I didn't want to know what the next thing was going to be?
My dad fell ill. Like, really ill. He was taken to hospital with what everyone thought was a bad stomach bug, and it turned out to be pancreatitis - something I didn't even know could be lethal. Unfortunately it is. Basically it means the pancreas is starting to digest itself and it can also attack other organs. As the cause is unknown (sometimes it can be caused by gall stones, where they can then just remove the gall bladder) there is nothing the doctors can do for my dad apart from keeping him hydrated, giving him antibiotics to prevent other infections, giving him plenty of painkillers (he's now got an epidural) and keeping him monitored. They have talked about putting him in an artificial coma, which scares the hell out of me. He has already got difficulties breathing but doesn't like to wear the oxygen mask.
What scares me even more is that he is already planning his funeral and trying to sort out what to do with his belongings.
It all happened so quickly that I feel it hasn't really registered with me yet. I don't WANT to think about my dad dying. It just can't be. Hearing my stoical, unemotional brother cry on the phone because he thinks my dad's not going to make it just seems unreal.
So now I'm trying to sort out my flights to come up and see him. Part of me doesn't want to. Part of me keeps thinking of stupid excuses why this really is the most inconvenient time to fly up. I think I don't want to see him because then it becomes real. At the moment I can still think of it as this abstract weird thing that happened; but then it will be my dad dying in front of my eyes, plugged into all sorts of machines, barely able to breathe or talk. And I just don't want to face it.
Of course I will do it though and I will get my flights booked tonight. I'm going to have to take Teddy with me as M has got to work - he's just had that week in Paris and even though he worked then, his regular customers will probably need him now after a week of absence here. Teddy's not been on a plane before and it probably won't be much fun for him; all he wants to do is run around and it will be hard to restrain him on the plane and at the airport. But thankfully it's only a short flight. I don't even know if he will be allowed to see my dad - do they allow children in the intensive care unit? I hope that Teddy can see him at least briefly.

This is a nightmare. I have never lost anyone before; not anyone close anyway. I really don't know how to handle this. While I still hope that things might turn around and he'll pull though (he has a fifty-fifty chance) I can't stop thinking that my Daddy might die.