The searing headache was first to arrive. Don't panic, I told myself. It's just a headache. Lots of things can cause a headache - stress, fatigue, even the weather. Cursing the child safety cap, I hacked grimly at a bottle of aspirin with a steak knife. Can't be sick, can't afford to be sick, not sick, not sick, not sick, I chanted. Six hours later, the sore throat showed up. By evening, a fever had settled in, along with a runny nose and a hacking cough. I was sick. And when 'm sick, I'm extravagantly, dramatically, pull-out-all-the-stops and call the medics STAT sick. I specialize in high fevers and high drama. The common cold is too common for me: I get bacterial pneumonia. Why have just the flu when you can complicate it with a little sinusitis? Toss in bronchitis, laryngitis, and any other -itis that involves expensive antibiotics and you've got my typical winter. So fragile is my immune system that I knock old ladies out of the way to get a flu vaccine, wash my hands till they crack, and refuse to touch a doorknob, a public phone, or a child till spring. Yet I still get horribly, miserably sick.

Back in the pre-baby days, getting sick meant having a mini vacation. Dosed to the gills on Nyquil or Theraflu, I'd lie on the couch in a stupor, dozing through whole afternoons of cooking shows on television. Occasionally I'd rouse myself to page through a magazine. I'd schlep pitifully about in red plaid flannel pajamas, to match my red nose and eyes. My husband would dutifully go out for juice or cough drops or soup, and bring me back news of the outside world, along with the National Enquirer and a pack of Twizzlers. During one particularly awful bout of flu when my fever was so high that I couldn't stop shivering, he even raced to Wal-Mart to fetch me a hot water bottle. I always made the best of being ill, and tried to catch up on my pampering.

Being sick with a baby in the house is a whole different experience. For starters, the word "mom" must roughly translate to she who has no needs of her own". After announcing to my husband that I was suffering - maybe even dying, perhaps of anthrax - he nodded thoughtfully and suggested that Olivia might need a clean diaper. With that he went back to strumming his guitar. Faced with the always-difficult choice of martyr or drama queen, I opted to blend the two. Coughing spasmodically and staggering a bit, I wrestled the baby into dry pants. Crawling into bed, I propped the baby up with some pillows and gave her a couple of toys. I closed my eyes. She babbled happily and drooled on the box of Kleenex. After a while, she tipped over backward and began to wail. I propped her back up. I closed my eyes again. Grabbing my hand, she chomped hard on my finger. I studied her with bleary eyes. She just wasn't ready for bed. At this moment, my husband materialized in the doorway. Snatching Olivia up he cooed, "Oh is Mommy too sick to take care of you?" The two of them danced happily out of the room leaving me to fend for myself like some ailing beast in the wild.

An hour later, blowing my nose for what had to be the hundredth time, I looked up to see Mark dangling Olivia in front of me. "She wants Mommy", he declared. I tucked her in beside me. With one small, soft hand she patted my cheek and tugged on my sore nose. She was warm - too warm. Still, she looked fine. Stop with the excessive worrying, I told myself. She's just tired. I pulled her close and eventually, we both fell into a deep sleep.

She awoke three hours later, whimpering, with a stuffy nose and roaring fever. Her breathing was labored and chuffy. We attacked her with the nose syringe. We gave her baby Tylenol. We cuddled and stroked and soothed her all throughout the long, long night. I tried, by sheer will, to draw the illness out of her little form. And I discovered that no sickness of my body could begin to match the sickness in my heart as I watched her suffer. It's a dizzying and serious thing, loving someone so much, but even that can't prevent things from going wrong. Thankfully, she's fine now. It was just a bad cold. Bouncing right back into action, she demonstrated how much more resilient babies are than their mommies. With all of our worries and fears and wild imaginings, we're the fragile ones. Too bad there's not a shot for that.