Halloween.
Thanksgiving.
Christmas.
Candy and sweets and treats and bundled up for cold weather and fun and parties and gatherings and family reunions and germs.
Wait, what?
One of those things is not like the other.
Germs.
Before I was a mother, I thought that I had a fantastic immune system. I thought that I did a pretty good job keeping myself healthy. And then I had children. Three of them. And I realized that my health is only relative to keeping myself away from bodily fluids that contain germs. And as a mother, I pretty much deal with germ-containing bodily fluids all day, every day. I worry all the time about my children and if they are coming down with some type of scary illness. Even though I’ve become more laid back as a mother over the years, I still struggle with controlling any suspected exposure to germs.
And last year… my baby did get incredibly sick. He was just five weeks old and we had had a wonderful Christmas with family. We had a family reunion with my husband’s family and although some cousins had the sniffles, we just did our best to keep the baby away from the cousins. The family reunion finished and we headed back home to Ohio. Our two bigger kids began coughing and having a runny nose, but I figured a mild cold was par for the course and the baby would be ok. Baby Ezra started coughing and having a runny nose just one day later. His cough turned into wheezing and his skin started to retract under his lungs. We could audibly hear crackling and his lips began to turn blue.
If my husband wasn’t an EMT, we would have called an ambulance, but as it was, my husband felt that he could get to Children’s faster than waiting on an ambulance.
So, off my baby went to Children’s. The diagnosis? RSV. As I held my incredibly sick baby in that ER room, I wasn’t sure if he was actually going to live – he was SO SICK. I learned a lot about RSV – the fact that it appears as a mild cold in adults and most children but can be deadly in newborns and the elderly. Our Ezra was admitted for five nights, and thanks to the amazing care of the nurses on the PICU floor of Dayton Children’s, Ezra made a full recovery.
I’ve learned a lot through that experience. At first, I jokingly told my husband that I would NEVER attend another family reunion. But as time has passed, I realized that keeping my children completely locked away in my house forever is not going to be the long-term solution. I used to roll my eyes at those signs that you can hang on the car seat that say “please don’t touch the baby.” Now, I get it. But even with this experience, I don’t plan to hang one of those signs on my kids.
Instead, I think that we as Moms need to practice wisdom this season. Do I wish that my baby hadn’t gotten sick and been hospitalized? Yes. But am I also thankful for the relationships that my children have built with their cousins, even if it means sometimes being exposed to germs.
So this holiday season, I want to encourage you to think about the choices that you are making. Evaluate if you are operating out of fear and keeping your kids away, or if you are operating out of excess freedom and forgetting that sometimes your kids could do with a little rest day at home (and keeping those germs at home, too).
Some of us need to say no to a family reunion with a five-week-old.
Some of us need to say yes to a family reunion with our kids, even though we could use the excuse of germs to get out of it.
Some of us need to stop letting all the old ladies at church kiss the baby.
And some of us need to actually let someone else hold the baby for a few minutes while we go to the bathroom.
Some of us need to keep our older kids home so that they aren’t spreading unnecessary germs to other families.
And some of us need to let our kids go out, even if they may be exposed to some germs.
I get it because I’ve lived through the hospitalization of my newborn for preventable reasons. But I also want to encourage you as a mother to not live out of fear this season. Be wise. Stay home if necessary. But don’t lock yourself away from the world. You’ve got this.
