Parenting right of passage

I've tried really hard to not be the stereotypical first time mom who worries about every little sneeze or sniffle. I think that this has served me well because I'm quite calm about most things related to Lily. Fast forward to Monday night, one week ago, and I became quite the little worrier. Lily woke up crying and coughing at about 11pm. I didn't think too much of it and in fact, I ignored her crying for awhile in the hopes that she would go back to sleep. Both the crying and the coughing intensified and I went to check on her. I picked her up out of the crib and she promptly threw up all over me! Not a little bit of milk spit-up but big messy throw-up...all the stuff that she had eaten that day (am always surprised at how long it takes for food to digest!). It wasn't pretty and she wasn't happy. She continued to puke for another couple of hours, was listless and tired but most concerning of all, wouldn't nurse. I called Health Link and they told me to take her to the hospital if she started vomiting bile but otherwise suggested that she would be fine. We did manage to get her to sleep for a couple of hours in our bed but she woke up at 5am and started vomiting bile. I figured that she did just have the stomach flu but it was quite scary to see her be so out of sorts. I knew that I wouldn't feel ok until we had her checked out so off to the Children's Hospital we went. We were in and out within an hour with a diagnosis of probable stomach flu. We were to return the next day if she got worse but luckily, she improved remarkably over the next 12 hours. In the end, I'm glad that we did go to the hospital for two reasons. One, I felt reassured that my little love was going to be ok. And two, it was good to get the first trip to the hospital over with. I knew that it would happen sometime and it might as well have been on a night when we were seen quickly and when little Lily wasn't really too sick at all.