Day 4

This was the day of the epidural coming out, a day the doctors warned me might be rocky. I was scared into very earnest prayer.

We woke up to the challenge of our day, taking her first liquid oral medication to ease her off the epidural. The girl hates to infinity the taste of oral medicine. Her brain is fixed against it. And, of course, she wants me to give it to her - not the nurse, not herself, not some other unlucky passer-by, nope, it has to be me. They don't tell you this stuff about motherhood. So holding the syringe pointed upward not far but not too close to her mouth, I started trying to calmly talk her through taking the medicine in a very reasonable and firm way. And I got a red-faced, panicked looking girl, crying and saying, "I can't do it Mom. I can't do it! It's too yucky. I can't do it." Which, trust me, makes a mother want to huck the medicine across the room and out the window and down into a bottomless hole. But since that wasn't an option, I talked some more with the nurse watching and Hannah still beside herself with fear. And then the four interns and fellows and such came in on their morning rounds as I talked and she continued her fearful frenzy. They tried to make chit-chat about her new stuffed cow. She sobbingly told them it's name was Lilly. After three or four awkward minutes they left and the nurse left shortly after with me promising to tell her when Hannah took the medicine. Oh how a mom needs some breathing room. We went on along on the same trajectory for a bit - about how we would take juice with the medicine, about how it was a step toward getting out of the hospital, etc., etc.

And she said still, "I can't do it Mom. I just can't do it."

And I said, "You can do it Hannah. I know you can."

And she said with eyes just begging, "Do you really think I can?" And I can't pick her up and hug her or cuddle her on my lap. It's all so ridiculous.

And I said, "Yes, Hannah. I know you can." I totally thought we were there and the hurdle had been jumped.

But then she said, "Oh, I just don't know."

So I said with that stern Mom voice that comes from the depths of desperation, "Hannah, if you don't take this medicine right now, those nurses are going to come back and hold down your arms and force you to take it." I called up the Boogyman.

It worked. The medicine ended up not being too bad.

From 8:45am on, we had a really good day.

I said my prayers of thanks.