Gwen's First Stomach Bug

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, Gwen got her first stomach bug this week. It started Wednesday morning when she woke up at 6:00 because she had vomited all over her crib. I took her into our bed and tried to snuggle her back to sleep. Then she vomited all over our bed and me. That's when I realized that this was going to be a long day.

It was.

While I cleaned up the beds and myself, Jonathan cleaned up the baby and left her in only her diaper because, I mean really, what's the point of clothes when you'd be changing them every five minutes? Jonathan was still really tired - he's been having a tough time sleeping lately and was up until 2:00 am. I let him go back to sleep and took Gwen downstairs. She was acting fine at this point and would crawl a little and play for about five minutes before starting to dry-heave. Poor little thing would cry and whimper and look at me like "make it stop, Mommy." I've never felt so helpless. With all my medical training I still couldn't do anything to make it stop. I knew that it had to run it's course and that it would just take time, but how do you convey that to an eight-month-old? I just held her and rocked her and told her it'd be okay. She snuggled into my arms and fell asleep. The rest of the morning we all snuggled in bed (now covered in towels with plenty of burp rags handy)as Gwen slept for about 15 minutes at a time between episodes. It was really wearing her out and I was really hoping that it would end soon.

Jonathan had called my dad earlier in the morning to see if he could come over and give her a blessing but he was at work. I asked Jonathan to give her a Father's Blessing instead since he had to leave for school and I couldn't think of any other Elders nearby. Jonathan gave her a sweet, comforting blessing and it was amazing; immediately there was a change in Gwen. She wanted to wiggle out of my arms and go play. It makes me cry thinking about it. The rest of the day she was so much better. I really have a testimony of the power of the priesthood and I am so thankful that I have it in my home. I am so grateful that I have a husband who holds the priesthood. At a time where I felt so helpless and all my worldly knowledge and experience couldn't help my baby, my husband and our combined faith could.