The one with the belly button

Last weekend, I became my mother. I spent Saturday cleaning, doing laundry, slathering sunscreen on a tiny, wiggly human and declaring that the honeydew that I was hand feeding Milo was "sweet as sugar." I have been momming it up left and right for almost a year now.

In 2 more weeks, Milo will be 1. Not a baby, not really yet a toddler.

My hormones have been completely out of whack since I got knocked up, so with Milo's birthday fast approaching, it has been a special kind of crazy up in here. I am feeling sad, happy, proud, excited and reflective. Brian doesn't know if he should hug me or pour me some wine - maybe both?

This truly has been the longest, shortest year of my entire life. (Caitlin, don't think you're not getting credit for that statement HERE IS YOUR CREDIT 👏)

When I think back to the moments this year that have defined me as a Mom and Brian as a Dad, I immediately think of the moment where our Mama and Papa Bear instincts perked up and reared their heads for the first real time. 

The belly button incident. 

Milo was 8 days old and since leaving the hospital on day 3, his belly button looked ... well, totally gross. Looking back on it, it was probably fine, but to first time parents, it looked gnarly. I asked our pediatrician at his first visit if it looked normal and he assured me that it did and to leave it alone. He promised me that it would heal into the perfect pupik that it is today. 

A few days later Brian and I took Milo out for a walk to the farmer's market in town and when we got home, I fed and changed him and then majorly freaked out. Milo's belly button was red and gooey and swollen about an inch out from his tummy. It looked very bad. 

Brian and I live five minutes away from Mountainside Hospital in Glen Ridge, so thinking that it was bad enough to go to the ER since it was Saturday and our pediatrician wasn't available, we got Milo into his car seat and headed over. 

(I'm going to pause here and reiterate that I was 8 days postpartum at this point. A fragile, weeping, still healing from childbirth, mess. )

When we got to the hospital there was some hustle and bustle, which I guess occurs when you bring a newborn into the ER. We were seen quickly by first a nurse and then a doctor. For the record, the nurse who took our vitals (they took mine also since I was basically hyperventilating) was a doll. She was calm and sweet and made me feel like we came to the right place and that everything would be OK. 

Here is where I am going to talk some sh*t on Mountainside Hospital. The doctor who we saw was a complete and utter moron. Obviously he is smart, he is a doctor, BUT he took one look at Milo's belly button and told us that he had Omphalitis. 

Omphalitis is an infection that typically presents as a superficial cellulitis that can spread to involve the entire abdominal wall and may process to necrotizing fasciitis, myonecrosis, or systemic disease. 

It is scary and life threatening and oh yea, mainly found in babies who live in third world countries with horrible sanitation and no access to healthcare. 

This doctor told me that we needed to start Milo on strong IV antibiotic drugs ASAP and that he would need to stay in the NICU for 5-7 days and that I wouldn't be able to stay with him because the hospital doesn't have beds for parents ... but not to worry because I could totally visit. 

I was inconsolable. Brian stepped up in a way that defined him as a Dad and was calm and firm and told me that I had to pull myself together because this was about Milo, not me. I had to advocate for my son and needed to be clear and rational. I was someone's mother and needed to act more adult and responsible then I ever had before. 

Immediately, I knew that it was wrong to start Milo on IV drugs without doing anything more than glance at his belly button ... which now that I was looking at it ... didn't actually look as bad as it did when we arrived. The doctor suggested that we start the drugs ASAP while they waited for blood work to even be taken. He said the situation was that dire and the infection would spread quickly. 

I spoke up and demanded that we be transferred to a different hospital, St. Barnabas where Milo was born and where his pediatrician has privileges. The doctor immediately agreed, mentioning that they weren't really equipped to deal with such an emergency in a newborn (good to know) and after what felt like hours, an ambulance arrived to take us to St. Barnabas. The ambulance ride was surreal and horrifying, as the EMT's strapped my tiny newborns' car seat onto a stretcher and he screamed and screamed. 

I felt that this was all my fault. How could I let my baby's belly button get infected? And why didn't we just go to St. Barnabas in the first place?! 

When we arrived at St. Barnabas we were rushed into the pediatric ICU (PICU) and were given a room where I could stay with Milo for as long as we needed to be there, days or weeks. Minutes after we arrived, the attending pediatrician came rushing in with a heard of medical students. She took one look at Milo and said, "I am so sorry for all of your stress and heartache today ... THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR SONS BELLY BUTTON." 

Milo had an umbilical hernia, which is extremely common in boys and goes away as quickly as it appears. His belly button was "gooey" because it was still healing. They admitted us for the night as they were required to monitor him since he was transferred from another hospital, but they checked us out promptly the next morning. 

After a check in with his pediatrician the next day, Milo's belly button was looking completely normal. No IV drugs, no week-long stay, no separation between me and my baby. 

In between panic and tears, somewhere inside of me, the Mom in me appeared. A different mom than had been there before, a more intuitive mom, one who knew that I had to make a call and that it had to be the right one. And thank god I did. 

There have been so many moments this year that have made me feel like I am doing exactly what I am meant to be doing with my life at this very moment. None as terrifying as the belly button incident, but all with meaning. 

Below is a picture from that night. Me and my guy tucked into bed in the PICU. I didn't sleep a wink. Thankful for a healthy baby and for being his mommy.