RSV and its repercussions

I remember exactly where I was when I reluctantly decided to call the pediatrician.

It was a Wednesday morning and my fourth daughter’s baby-naming was scheduled for the next Sunday. I was sitting in our living room, the sunshine pouring in as I nursed the baby and played with her toddler sister. At this point in life, I was living in Washington, D.C., solo during the week. My husband had just started a new job in New York City and was bunking with my brother in the East Village. The girls and I were riding out the rest of the school year, selling our condo and arranging to move over the summer.

It wasn’t the easiest time in my motherhood journey, but you do what you gotta do.

That morning, I was chatting with my good friend and nursing buddy Meri, telling her we might have to cancel our standing Thursday play date for our toddlers, who were best friends, despite the fact that my daughter could not remember her BFF’s name, and always called her “my friend who has a baby and a cat who we make the chocolate chip cookies with every week.”

(That child’s challenges remembering small details led to her first-grade teacher recommending educational testing, since the poor kid could never remember her spelling words from week to week. When her IQ measured at 148, the call for intervention was dropped, even though she never really did learn to spell her home address and still can’t remember details like her mother’s birthday. But I digress.)

The main reason I thought to cancel our much-loved mommy-daughters playtime was because I had yet to make any arrangements for the upcoming baby-naming party, other than inviting 100 of our closest family and friends. It seemed that I should at least call a caterer by Thursday. And anyway, I mentioned offhandedly, the baby has a little cold and I wouldn’t want her to give it to your kids.

“A cold??!” asked Meri, sounding alarmed. When not baking cookies, Meri spends her spare time as a family practice physician, so her alarm was concerning. “You have to take her to the doctor immediately.”

“Are you kidding?” I responded. “It’s just a sniffle. And anyway, I’m not schlepping four kids to wait around the pediatrician’s office for a runny nose.” If they weren’t sick already, they would surely catch something there. What was the big deal about a little cold?

Meri, however, was insistent. “Any illness in a newborn must be checked out. You must go.” Groaning, I promised I would call as soon as we hung up. So I did, and off we went, loaded with my Baby Bjorn and megastroller, walking the kids over to the pediatrician’s office, which fortunately was only a few blocks away. As usual, the waiting room was crowded, and the wait seemed interminable. Finally, my baby girl was examined.

An initial swab confirmed Meri’s fear — the dreaded RSV. A second swab was taken for the overnight test to fully confirm.

(RSV — to be formal, respiratory syncytial virus — is a flu-like illness that’s just a drippy nuisance to most people but can be dangerous to newborns, among other groups.)

At this point, I still did not understand why this particular type of runny nose was so serious, and recall being really annoyed that the doctor wanted me to cancel the upcoming party. “Are you sure she won’t be better by then?” “You absolutely must cancel.” Turned out we didn’t need the caterer after all.

Little did I know that that was just the tip of the RSV iceberg. The doctor wanted to send the baby to the hospital, which was considered the standard of care for RSV. This would have meant I too had to go to the hospital in order to nurse her. Leaving my 6-, 4-, and 3-year-olds to their own devices seemed like a bad plan. Knowing my general capacity to follow doctor’s instructions, the pediatrician agreed to allow me a day or two to try taking care of the baby at home.

I still had no idea what I was getting into. RSV had to be treated with medication every few hours, delivered through a nebulizer, a device that turns the medication into droplets that the baby must breathe in through a mask. You can imagine how much the baby loves this treatment and how much fun it was to administer it every three hours around the clock. Then there was the fun of feeding a baby who couldn’t breathe through her nose. Inevitably, she would gag and choke, and quite often shower me with the meal. My unmistakable scent of sour milk must have been really appealing to the cats in the neighborhood. This did not help our laundry situation. Or my sanity.

The friends and family who came to town for the now-canceled baby-naming rescued us with invaluable support, helping with the older kids and cradling the baby around the clock, as she needed to be constantly watched lest she suffocate from inhaling her own boogers.

Those helpers eventually returned home, but around-the-clock care continued for at least a month, and the nebulizer, on a lesser schedule, for at least two more. RSV is no joke.

Lest you think we recall this episode with resentment or acrimony, think again. Although I can still conjure anxiety and relive the scent of sour milk in my memory, my main recollections of this time are nothing but gratitude. Gratitude of course for the ultimate outcome, a healthy child whose only enduring health issue seemed to be an above-average tendency to barf. Gratitude for friends like Meri, who tell it to you straight even when you’re acting like a fool. Gratitude for trusting relationships with doctors, willing to adjust their judgment and take a risk based on the situation. Gratitude for family and friends who come to your rescue when you need it most.

And gratitude for unexpected outcomes.

Because the greatest blessing of this turned out to be the baby herself. Every child has their own nature, and this particular child’s nature has always been especially generous and affectionate. She was the toddler who didn’t need to be taught to share, getting far more joy from giving away her candy or toys to make others happy. As she grew, she was the kid who would volunteer to do chores, let others go first in line, or show extra care to friends in need. She had — still has — a knack for defusing touchy situations. She was so inappropriately nice that we used to think there was something wrong with her.

Who really knows why people become who they are, but we like to think that all of that extra love and care during her illness, the days and nights spent in the arms of loving family and friends, staring into their eyes, the weeks when she was never put down, must have poured extra love into her that has slowly come back out over the years. You don’t always get back what you put into your children, but in this instance, it feels like the intense loving attention received when she was ill created an unusually good-natured child who moves through the world with eternal good will and optimism.

If I knew this would be the payoff, I’d gladly wear Eau de Barf forever.

Laura (Lori) Fein of Teaneck is a litigator at Eckert Seamans LLC. She is the daughter of the greatest mom ever, who she hopes is reading this, and the mom to five daughters who probably never will. Her podcast, “Mommash: The Oy and Joy of Family,” is available on all platforms, and she can be reached at mommash.podcast@gmail.com.