The Creep, I Mean Croup

OK, so last night was the hardest and scariest night as a mom yet. People always tell you about 'Mom Instinct' and during a lot of my pregnancy I worried I wouldn't have it, or wouldn't be maternal or know what to do with my new baby. Yes, I worried about everything and it may be silly, but it's what I did. I'm so glad that I do in fact have this mom instinct because it was on high alert last night. After hours of her wheezing and coughing and crying and snot flying, I finally realized things weren't normal. I of course sent out my 911 texts to fellow moms and scoured the Internet. I attempted to check her temperature because I knew she felt way too hot.  The forehead one we just paid extra money for was NOT working. (See here:Exergen-Temporal-Thermometer I did the armpit one as well and that one still didn't seem to be right. I gave her Tylenol anyways at her dosage (I can never remember it so I found this site to help me gage it... (Acetaminophen Dosage Chart) and that seemed to calm her enough that we both got some sleep. At 2:30 am she woke again and really seemed to be struggling to breathe. Each time she tried to cry, she made a choking sound like there was something stuck in her throat. I found this great video that helped me identify if I was exaggerating over this breathing and coughing thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbn1Zw5CTbA. Gracie looked and sounded just like this! Here is also a great website of info I was reading earlier in the night:Decoding Baby's Cough. This was a great resource on all things cough related to your baby; difficult-noisy-or-labored-breathing. So glad I finally decided to go to the ER. They got us checked in, gave her a nebulizer to help her to have immediate relief of her swollen throat. They also gave her Tylenol for her temperature (102) and a steroid shot for long term relief. They gave us great recommendations for getting a cool mist humidifier, which we planned on getting anyways. We got this one like this at Costco and it's the bomb: warm-mist-vs-cool-mist-humidifiers. So, the best part of the who croup/ creep story is that I got home this morning after the ER, went to the bathroom and looked at the non-working thermometer and realized both my husband and I didn't take the plastic cap off the end... OMG. No wonder it was only reading 95 degrees on my baby. Yikes. Gracie, I promise to be better at this in the future!