Hospital visit and house bound caring. The job fits in where?

This week we returned to the hospital where N was born just seven months ago, this time to deal with a bronchial infection.  He had to be put on an oxygen machine and given Ventolin intermittently.  Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. In fact the worst part (for me – me, me, me, me, me) was the having to stay in hospital to help care for him.  I discovered a whole new level of boredom, with no internet (I know, I know, yes, I’m ok, still kind of recovering, there’s a twitch in my eye but I think it will go away within a few days) and really bad Spanish daytime TV.

I was also sleep deprived.  The Ventolin turned N into a CRAZY CHILD and he barely slept.  For the first 48 hours the Ventolin was given every 4 hours (each time followed by at least 2 hours of extreme wakefulness), after that (and still now, as I write) we only have to give it to him every 6 hours.  This still means a 12am and 6am session with very little sleep in between.  It’s like having a newborn again which is particular unfair as he had JUST started sleeping through – we had three blissful nights of it before he fell ill.

I couldn’t even roam the corridors at the hospital given N was attached to the oxygen outlet.  After three days I was almost rocking back and forth, convinced, due to my extended incarceration and the other usual suspect, sleep deprivation, that my life was a sad and sorry shambles.  Attempting to read or knuckle down to my Spanish homework to try and while away the hours were activities initiated at least one hundred times and ended every time in me having to put books out of reach of grasping hands (there is some kind of heightened paper fetish going on with this kid) returning to the only thing I could actually do, which was to stare lovingly at my child for very, very, very, very long periods of time.  He’s very cute, and I would love to bottle every moment, to revisit occasionally over the rest of my life, but you can’t, and, unfortunately, staring for uninterrupted hours right now is no substitute.

Occasionally the boredom was broken by the spectacle of my 7 month old child as high as a kite (due to the aforementioned Ventalin). Then I would vacillate between entertainment and concern as I watched him go through highs, come downs and, quite possibly, hallucinations (if that wild eyed middle distance focus is anything to go by).

We’re home now and housebound. No day care for at least 2 weeks apparently (grudgingly granted after they recommended he not return for at least a month).  True to Murphy’s Law, the television has broken. Awesome. Expect me to litter upcoming posts with high brow literary references from books I have been meaning to read for at least a decade.

Three full days in hospital and 2 weeks ahead of me of no-daycare has forced me to think, ‘what the HELL do working mothers do at times like this?’ I´m currently between jobs so I haven’t been forced to find a solution. Well I am supposed to be trying to find freelance work but there is no chance of preparing proposals right now.  What’s more I have ONE small infant.  What happens when I return to work and I have this happening with more than one child?  Or win freelance work, with no one to cover me?

I’m not completely stupid, I did realize this was an issue for mothers and child carers, but I naively had always thought of it in the context of woman trying to maintain a high flying, high pressure career in combination with child rearing.  I’ve read “I don’t know how she does it”.  I thought I had a grasp on the challenges.  But now I realize that having a child, or small children, makes it hard to have ANY job.  Certainly anyone in any kind of account management role can’t be popping off for 2 weeks at a time every few months (or more).  In fact there are not really many roles in which you could frequently take time off without a lot of anxiety regarding your performance and the effect on the rest of your team.

If you don’t live in the same city or even the same country as at least one set of parents, you’re unlikely to have the luxury of leaving your infant with family.  If you did, in most cases, asking them to care for your child for more than a few days is pushing it.

What do you do if you’re not one of the privileged few to be able to afford an at-home carer (aka nanny) when the children can’t go to daycare?  Assuming you can actually afford daycare.  I realize there are many who cannot.  Your options are pretty limited.  What are the options, actually? What do you guys do in these situations?

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