Infants | Goddess in Progress

Archive for Infants – Page 2

Ellie, seven months

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (21)· September 28th, 2011

Ellie has spent the last few weeks working on a new trick.

One of the main characteristics that her providers have mentioned from the very first day she was born was “low tone.” For her age, she is noticeably weak and floppy. We had to support her head when holding her for much longer than you normally would, and tummy time was a complete non-starter. While her squishiness does make her extra cuddly, we’ve obviously been working on trying to help her get stronger. She gets physical therapy once or twice a week, and obviously we practice on our own. Thankfully, we have noticed steady improvement since starting PT back in May.

Since last month, tummy time has gotten much much MUCH better. She’s lifting her head way up high without any help, is starting to push up and support weight on her arms, and is generally a whole lot more tolerant of actually being on her belly in the first place.

It’s still hard work, though.

Even more noticeable is that, when she’s sitting on my lap, she no longer wants to lean back against me. She is constantly pulling herself forward, doing a little crunch with those core muscles to get into a more upright sitting position. The first time she did it, I was so surprised I almost let her fall off my lap. In PT, we started working on a little tripod/supported sitting. She’d manage it for a second or two, but she still keeps her hands in fists a lot of the time and doesn’t have a lot of arm strength, so there’s a lot of collapsing and folding in half. We keep pillows nearby.

Still, we’re working on it. Sometimes you can position her just right, help her lock those elbows and bend her legs for a nice supportive base, and she can almost get the hang of it.

And then, every now and then, you’re supporting her and you can feel those muscles engage in just the right way. And you have five or ten seconds to back up with the camera, and catch this:

With all those weeks in the hospital, talking about “abnormal MRI” this, and “hypotonia” that, and vague references to potentially severe cognitive, language, gross motor delays… I never imagined she’d be this close to independent sitting at a scant seven months. She’s still not what you would call “developmentally appropriate.” There’s still tons of work to do. But man. This is freaking awesome.

Almost as awesome as consonants. Did I mention she is babbling with consonants? Two of ‘em at the moment, “m” and “b.” (And I may have heard “p” this morning.) Again, much closer to the range of normal development than I could have dreamed five or six months ago.

I love this stuff. LOVE IT. Oh, and this sweet, delicious little girl. She is just too much.

Comments (21)

Categories : Child Development, Infants

Tags : developmental delays, Gross motor, language development, sitting

Apple Picking, Instagram-Style

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (5)· September 25th, 2011

Every year, M’s company hosts an apple-picking day at a nearby(ish) apple orchard. Perfect fall outing with the apples already paid for? Count me in.

Of course, I packed up our giant bag full of “necessities,” and then had to leave them all in the car. Though she’s come a long way, Ellie is still not a reliable fan of the stroller, so this was an all-Ergo outing. While I technically had my hands free, I wasn’t going to use them to lug my DSLR around the orchard. Phone photos it is.

But, of course, I am a huge Instagram addict. If you’re not using it yet, I highly recommend downloading it. It’s free, the social aspect is fun but low-key and not really mandatory, and the photo effects (which you can preview before applying) are great. I personally love that you can use a photo you’ve already taken on your phone, in addition to using the in-app camera, so that you can just snap away and edit later.

Anyways, here’s our version of Apple Picking 2011, Instagram-Style.

For starters, it was upwards of 75 degrees with at least 85% humidity. While I’m glad it didn’t rain, as originally forecast, it wasn’t exactly your typical crisp Autumn day. It was hot and sweaty, and I’m already a hot and sweaty person to begin with, not to mention when carrying a hot and sweaty 7-month-old on my chest. Ew.

Undeterred, the kids immediately latched on to all of the “extra” things you could do at the farm. In previous years, we’d managed to dodge paying extra for the hay maze, the bounce house, and the pony rides with a bit of distraction. Not this time. Daniel fixed his attention on the lame yellow bounce castle, and was not going to miss it. He dug the hay maze, too.

Rebecca’s laser-focus, on the other hand, was straight for the ponies. M chuckled to himself as he stood in line for well over half an hour with a dozen other dads and little girls, wondering where on earth the pony fascination comes from. I have no idea, but there it is.

Finally, we met up with M’s work-husband and his family, including their six-year-old girl who is much beloved by both of my kids. Though she and Becca may be a bit too similar… both very nice kids, but a little bossy and competitive. Still, it was mostly running and shrieking and laughing.

And this little friend of mine, so cranky on the drive that we stopped at Walgreens for some infant ibuprofen. Calmer, less tooth pain, happier in the Ergo, where she napped a while and then took it all in. Talking in her sweet voice, “bah bah buh bah,” with the occasional growl, because that’s how she rolls. Sweet, sweet girl.

A few hours later, we were back at home. Fifteen pounds of apples, yay, but even better was all three happy kids. All of whom slept for more than two and a half hours at the same time. It was the holy grail of parenting young children.

Comments (5)

Categories : Infants, Out and about, Preschoolers

(Second) First Day of School

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (6)· September 9th, 2011

And, with that, school is back in session.

No, really. They were totally psyched about going to school yesterday. It was standing in the pouring rain so I could take a picture that they were not as fond of. But back we went, and it was blessedly as though we had never left. Same building, same drop-off line, same classrooms, same teachers. Picked them up, and it was the same delightful chatter in the back about which kids were and were not there, and what new works they did.

And let me tell you, it was not a moment too soon. This summer, in a word, sucked.

I’m not trying to tempt fate, certainly it could have been worse. But 2011 is highly unlikely to go down as “best summer ever” here at Casa in Progress. Back in the winter, sitting under four feet of snow and forty pounds of pregnancy, I was really looking forward to summer. The relative freedom and flexibility of four-year-olds who don’t necessarily need a nap. The relative freedom and flexibility of a newborn before an actual nap schedule is necessary and she can just sleep on the go and eat wherever.

Well, not so much.

For one, it was a miscalculation on my part. By the time summer arrived, Ellie was nearly four months old and past those delightfully portable early weeks (which she spent, as we know, in the hospital, decidedly UN-portable). She was not so keen to sleep anywhere and everywhere, nor was she a fan of her carseat or the stroller. And then, there were the doctor’s appointments. OH, the appointments. In the 12 weeks since school let out for the summer, Ellie has had upwards of 25 appointments with a wide variety of service providers. Generally at least two a week, sometimes as many as four or five. And big brother and sister came to nearly every one of them.

And the thing is, they were awesome. Generally well-behaved (I did usually let them play a game on my phone or something), and I am telling you, not a single complaint about it all summer long. All of those boring waiting rooms and offices, and they were great. And yes, they did have their gymnastics and dance classes. We went to Wisconsin, we spent some time with friends. And we had a good number of picnic lunches at the playground when I could manage it. But the fact remains that we did not get out and take advantage of summer in the way that I had hoped we would.

Most of the summer felt, to me, like dragging. Dragging the big kids to Ellie’s doctor’s appointments. Dragging Ellie to the big kids’ activities. Dragging an enormous bag full of all our crap, everywhere we went. Some of that is par for the course with older kids and a new baby, I suppose. Some of it is exacerbated by Ellie’s extra needs. And I am certain that I noticed it more than any of my kids. They are all fine, I know this. They are happy, they had fun times. I’m the one bumming out about it.

At any rate, going back to school is a good thing for all of us. Good for Daniel & Rebecca, being back in a routine, back to an environment they love, getting a little mental exercise, and having some space away from each other. Good for Ellie, who finally has some chance of establishing a morning nap while her brother and sister are at school, and getting more attention from me when she’s awake. And good for me, for sure, to take a breather from the constant questions and demands of four-year-olds, a relative break in the juggling of vastly different needs, and a few hours to enjoy a quiet house and the ease of a single baby.

I’m welcoming Fall. I’m looking forward to apple picking and crisp mornings and Halloween and Thanksgiving. I will regroup, we will retool our routine, and I will find new ways to have fun with all three kids.

And next summer? I’m coming for you. We’re gonna do it up right.

Comments (6)

Categories : Infants, Preschoolers, School

Tags : summer

Ellie, Six Months

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (7)· August 25th, 2011

Half a year? Honestly? Six months, already?

Well, in truth, February 25 feels like it was about three lifetimes ago. And of that six months, she’s only been at home for three and a half, so I suppose it’s understandable that I feel a little confused as to how we got here.

But here, indeed, we are. Six months old, my sweet Ellie Bear.

She is really a very happy baby, very much of the time. Her smiles have gone from few and fleeting to freely shared with all. So sweet, watching her face light up when she sees me or M or Daniel or Becca. Even better, she’s really starting to laugh. Again, like smiling, I first thought I heard her chuckle about six weeks ago. But it was so brief (just a single “heh”) and so infrequent, I wasn’t even completely sure that’s what it was. But now, with a little hard work and some silly faces, you can actually draw out some real giggles. She’s also pretty talkative, sometimes a sweet “aaahhh,” sometimes a gutteral growl. But you can always tell if it’s a happy sound or a grumpy one.

With the help of twice-weekly physical therapy (one through the hospital and one at home through Early Intervention), she’s making really nice strides in strength and motor skills. She’s reaching and grabbing more (especially her lovey or anything fabric), holding her head much more steady, and I’ve noticed a lot more strength in her core and legs. I feel like, now, I can look at her and say “yes, she’s going to sit on her own at some point.” It won’t be next week, but she’ll get there. For that, I am very glad.

She has been, all told, a very good sleeper. She’s been consistently sleeping through the night since about four months. Well, sometimes I think she’s awake, but she’s quiet and/or happy and doesn’t require anything from us to go back to sleep. So, close enough. I’ve been playing pretty fast and loose with her daytime sleep, often getting just catnaps in the morning and then a good long nap in the afternoon. It had been working well until a few days ago, and now I think I’m starting to pay the price for the lack of morning sleep. She’s having a harder time settling for that long afternoon nap, and then totally falls apart by bedtime. Bedtime itself is, usually, pretty good. We got into the habit of doing a bath every other night instead of every night, mostly because she screamed bloody murder every time. But now that we’ve got her nasty recurring diaper rash under control, she’s much happier in the tub. Go figure.

She has teeth. OH MY GOD does she have teeth. Four so far, with at least two more clearly visible that will probably be through in the next week or two. For the record, Daniel got his first tooth on his six-month birthday, and Rebecca didn’t get one for another two months after that. RI-GOD-DAMN-DICULOUS, especially for a baby who doesn’t eat.

Oh, right. The eating/feeding thing. It blows. The “practice” with the bottle is going absolutely nowhere. She used to sometimes try to chew on it, but now she just screws up her face and turns away. I’ll talk to our speech pathologist soon (she’s the one guiding our feeding therapy stuff) and we will probably just go for purees on a spoon in the near future, but no idea how that’ll go. In the meantime, the g-tube feeding stuff is going fine and is relatively easy and portable. But, yeah. No noticeable progress there, and the gag reflex is as bad as it ever was.

That said, she’s growing just fine. Well, sorta. She’s packing on the pounds like nobody’s business (15lb7oz/44th percentile at her checkup this morning), but is still pretty short (24″, which was probably generous, around the 5th percentile). We’re working with a nutritionist to gradually tweak her formula intake to try to even those two things out.

She has been really great this summer, tolerating a lot of being dragged around with relative ease. The time has clearly come for me to get serious about planning and respecting her naps, but all in all she has done amazingly well between the endless doctor’s appointments and following along with the big kids and their activities. While she might not be THE most easygoing baby in the world (see: stroller and carseat aversion that, while improved, is not gone), she really has been great. One of the things I’m looking forward to about the big kids going back to school is the chance to actually focus on her a little more, instead of just dragging her to gymnastics.

There you have it, snapshot of my little girl at half a year old. Time has alternately flown and dragged, but mostly flown. I know I’m going to blink and she’ll be a year old, and two, and four, and eighteen. Unbelievable.

Comments (7)

Categories : Birthdays, Child Development, Infants, Sleep

Tags : feeding therapy, g-tube, Gross motor, low tone

Three minus two

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (11)· August 15th, 2011

To be perfectly honest, having three kids means most days are barely-controlled chaos. I’m sure the nature of that chaos will shift as they all get older. But for now, a lot of the insanity comes from wildly different ages with wildly different needs. I’m in a constant state of compromising one for the other.

This weekend, though, Ellie got a brief taste of being an only child. The big kids went to New Hampshire with my in-laws, and we had a full 72 hours of only one non-mobile (no climbing on things she isn’t supposed to), non-verbal (no whining or backtalk), multi-nap-per-day child.

Holy crap was that easy.

If Ellie really was my only child, I wouldn’t think it was easy at all. I’d bemoan how much your life changes when you have a baby, how you can’t just go out any time you feel like it, how I always have to balance when she needs to be fed and when she needs to sleep. Blah blah blah.

But I have the perspective of having three kids, including two who are nearly done napping and almost never stop talking. So I can enjoy the quiet in my house when the baby takes 2-3 naps during the day, and is out for the night at 6:30PM. I can revel in actually letting the poor kid take a real nap, instead of hoping she’ll sleep in the car as I drag her to preschool gymnastics class. I can laugh about how simple it was to head out for an early dinner, with two adults and one infant. I can finally have an answer to the question I used to ask (mostly in my head) when my twins were infants: “what do parents of one child DO with all that free time?” The answer? Get SO MUCH DONE. We purged the dining room, I nearly finished one quilt and started another. We watched movies and got errands done in what felt like record-setting time.

And when she wasn’t sleeping? I actually COULD spend time just hanging out with her. Lying on my bed while she grabbed the pillows, her lovey, my nose. Talking to her about our plans for the day. Narrating my sewing while she hung out in the bouncy seat. The kind of calm interaction and enjoying of her that I didn’t get to do as much when there were two her size.

Oh, sure, I missed my big kids, and I was glad to have them back at the end of the long weekend. I missed their storytelling and their funny logic and their hugs and kisses (not so much with the whining and backtalk). Truth be told, I’m not a “baby person.” I adore my sweet girl and her smile and her delicious chubby cheeks. But babies aren’t really that much… fun. As crazy as the four-year-olds can make me, I really do love each age more than the last.

But oh, it was a sweet, peaceful weekend. We’ll have to do it again next summer.

Comments (11)

Categories : Family, Infants, Preschoolers

The Stroller is Your Friend

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (8)· August 10th, 2011

From the day we brought her home, Ellie has hated her carseat. She screamed from when we closed the car door until we got on the highway and she fell asleep (at which point we were then terrified that she had stopped breathing – you know how that goes).

For three months, she has hated it. Not necessarily the moment you strap her in. But if she has to be there longer than, say, 20 minutes or so? HELLZ NO. You will feel her wrath. The half-day drive we took to Long Island, including three ferry boats, was rather unpleasant.

I’m especially sorry to say that her dislike extended to the stroller. Whether or not she was in the carseat, clipped into the stroller, or sitting in the stroller itself, she still hated it. BOB or City Mini, upright or reclined, it was NO GOOD.

This puts a serious cramp in my style. Not only can I no longer trust that a trip to the Starbucks drive-thru will be relatively quiet and peaceful, but it severely limits most of our activities if I know she’s likely to lose her ever loving mind within 20-30 minutes. She does a little bit better, for a little while, in the Moby Wrap or the Ergo, but not much. I couldn’t even make it around the block to walk the dog with her. Seriously, I’ve got two four-year-olds. We’ve got places to go and things to do, and Ellie has to come along for 95% of it. Avoiding the carseat and the stroller is simply not an option.

And then, last week, she managed to sit happily in her carseat for an entire outing. Just hanging out, awake, smiling. And then she did it again. I almost didn’t want to say anything.

Today, I went for broke. A walk around the pond with the big kids, with Ellie in the stroller. I didn’t even take the Moby with me.

Oh, sure. She started crying on the way back to the car and I had to carry her for the last 1/8 mile or so. But she was happily in the stroller for a solid hour before she got cranky. And even then, it mostly had to do with the fact that she was getting tired. Halle-freaking-lujah.

Please, oh please, let this be a permanent turning point. How I would love to actually be able to go for regular walks (for the poor dog’s sake, if no one else). Fresh air, sunshine. Maybe even a run with the jogging stroller, or one of those Stroller Strides classes. Oh, Ellie. You in the stroller and the world is our oyster.

Comments (8)

Categories : Infants

Lake Living

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (8)· July 30th, 2011

We’re back from our annual trip to the Great Midwest, and instead of a tremendously boring play-by-play, I’ll just give you the Good, Bad, and Ugly of 10 days in Northern Wisconsin with my family.

THE GOOD:

The kids were super travelers. Even Ellie, on her first flights, who was cutting her second tooth the entire time. And while I was adamant that I could have taken all three kids by myself (M couldn’t take that much time off from work and didn’t arrive until much later), I’m very glad my mom was there. Solo-ing it would have been foolish.

10 days of extra people to constantly entertain my kids was awesome. My mom got up with them and made breakfast. My stepdad was so excited to have them there, I lost count of how many fun things he had set up for them to do. My teenage cousins showed up and Daniel & Becca completely forgot anyone else was there. And my aunts practically lined up for turns holding Ellie.

The indulgences never ended. Delicious dinners every night. Late bedtimes. Lollipops a-plenty. Bonfires and roasted marshmallows. Always someone willing to go fishing or swimming or do a puzzle.

The kids were really good about water safety. We had a clear rule that they could only go on the dock (much less in a boat or in the water) with a lifejacket on, and there was zero pushback. Only once or twice did they forget and put so much as a foot on the dock without one.

Despite the first few days being a relative heatwave, the weather was largely beautiful, the lake wasn’t too cold, and we spent the majority of every day outside.

THE BAD:

By the end, the late bedtimes and hit-or-miss naps got a little out of hand and the big kids got kind of cranky. (Ellie, bless her, took some SERIOUS naps and was always down for the night between 6 and 7.)

We had to get up at 3:45AM for our return trip. It beat the alternative of starting the travel at 5PM and not getting home until midnight, but still. That was ugly.

The lake had a nasty bout of Swimmer’s Itch, a yucky little parasite that sometimes lives in the shallow water and can get under your skin if you’re not careful. This year, it was in much deeper water than normal. And despite taking what we thought were appropriate precautions, Daniel and I got it, bad. The itching was so awful, I literally felt sick to my stomach that first day. Daniel tried to hide under couch cushions and said it made him “crazy and mad.” Thankfully, a bit of benadryl took the edge off, and the itching was mostly gone the next day. The welts however, are only just now fading from my arms, almost two weeks later. We found a zinc-based sunscreen ointment that seemed to provide a barrier, so thankfully we didn’t have to completely abandon the water.

THE UGLY:

My mom’s dog, a 100+ pound Golden/Newfoundland mix, bit Rebecca. On the face. AGAIN. This would be the third time in two years, and yes, I’m livid. While a mostly friendly dog, he’s unpredictable. We were keeping them separated for much of the trip, and keeping a close eye when they were in the room together. Rebecca’s offense? She’s a completely undeterred dog lover, all shapes and sizes. She went to give him a pat on the head and maybe a little kiss, and he bit her.

I am done with this animal. Believe me, I am a dog lover, too. But since I can’t trust this one, even with reasonable amounts of supervision, I’m done. Some shit is going to hit the fan when I have to tell my mom that we won’t stay at her house for Christmas with the dog there, but I’m not quite ready to have that discussion yet.

It happened on the last day of our trip, which was a miserable way to end it. My mom was very upset and constantly apologetic. M (who had arrived a few days earlier) showed considerable restraint in that he neither yelled at my mom nor kicked (or worse) the dog.

Canine drama aside, it really was a good trip, and I’m glad we went. The kids had a blast, I found it relatively relaxing, and I was glad that plenty of my extended family members got to meet Ellie. And, as with any vacation, I’m glad to be back home.

Comments (8)

Categories : Family, Infants, Preschoolers, Travel

Feeding minus hunger

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (7)· July 15th, 2011

One of the strangest part about having a kid who is fed exclusively by g-tube is how removed hunger is from the entire equation. I don’t time her feeds based on when she seems hungry, I do it by the clock. I don’t increase the amount she gets because she’s finishing her bottles faster, I do it because a doctor and a mathematical formula tell me to. Honestly? I have no idea if she ever feels hungry.

When I stop to think about it, it kind of blows my mind.

With my older kids, I have really wanted to make a point of letting them listen to their own bodies to know if they’re hungry or full. I have my own life-long issues with food, and I’m hoping their relationship with it can be a little better than mine. I didn’t go to great lengths to get them to finish their bottles as infants, but when I saw they polished off a quantity with ease, I might start pouring larger amounts. I don’t insist that they clear their plates at dinner. If they tell me they feel full, they are welcome to be excused from the table. If they’re still hungry, they can have more.

Ellie is a different thing, entirely. She was sent home on one quantity, which we stuck with too long and her growth slowed down. So we upped it, somewhat dramatically. Her weight gain took off. Everyone was happy, they love to see a baby gain weight. Hooray, weight! Except… she’s quite small, length-wise. She comes in under the first percentile for length, yet she’s close to the 50th percentile for weight. I know everyone loves a chubby baby, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’re basically (gently, and with all good intentions) force-feeding her. Way more than her body might actually want. While she doesn’t protest her feedings in any way, I will also point out that I have (twice, oops) forgotten a feeding and done it more than an hour and a half late. She didn’t make the slightest fuss, could have cared less. Weird, right?

To add to the confusion, we see so many darn doctors, no one quite wanted to take the lead on telling us how much to feed her. Finally, this week, we had our first appointment with the Pediatric GI doctor. Finally, someone who was willing to make the call on weaning off of the high-calorie formula. And while Ellie technically gained the exact amount of weight “they” like to see for a baby her age (30 grams per day for the last month), the fact that she isn’t getting taller at a comparable rate would seem to suggest that maybe her body just doesn’t want to grow that fast. So, we’re backing off a little (don’t want to overreact, obviously), and will check in again in a month.

We also finally had an appointment with someone from the Feeding Team, a Speech-Language Pathologist who has seen Ellie since her first swallow study. Unfortunately, once it was decided that we were taking the surgery route, the behavioral side of the feeding equation was all but dropped. We were more than two months post-op before actually seeing the SLP, who was clearly disappointed that we’ve made no attempts at oral feeds in all that time. Not critical of me, exactly, more frustrated that the ball had been dropped in all of the medical hoopla.

Believe me, I am frustrated, too. The thing about having a baby in the hospital, especially for an extended period of time and one who comes home with unusual needs, is that it’s easy to find yourself in a very passive position as a parent. You’ve gotten so used to the doctors being in charge, you just assume they’re going to continue to tell you what you need to do, when you need to do it. The truth is, doctors and hospitals have lots of patients, and are not going to have the urgency about your own kid that you wish they would. That’s not really meant as a knock on our many wonderful doctors. It’s just the simple truth that you need to be a squeaky wheel if you want anything done in a reasonable amount of time.

All of that is to say that I went to Target and bought a few bottles today. Starting this weekend, we will be (re-)introducing Ellie to bottles. Every day, I’ll put a couple of ounces of thickened formula in a bottle and give Ellie 10 minutes or so to do with it what she likes. At this point, she has pretty much lost what was once an unconscious reflex to suck and swallow. She has to learn it all over again. So when I give her this bottle, I have zero expectations. She can chew on it, she can push it out of her mouth, she can chew on it some more. The first goal is to simply get her used to this strange thing being in her mouth, to try to make it a familiar and comfortable feeling. She’s got a rather sensitive gag reflex, so it’s all about going slow and keeping it positive.

It’s going to be a long, slow, probably immensely frustrating road as we work towards “normal” eating. I don’t know whether we’ll ever get there, or if we do, how long it will take. But it at least feels good to take some first steps.

Comments (7)

Categories : Feeding, Infants

Tags : baby, feeding team, fundoplication, g-tube, newborn, oral motor

Four Months

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (15)· June 25th, 2011

Ellie is now four months old. A few more weeks and she will have been home longer than she was in the hospital. Even though it was only a month and a half ago, I still look back and can’t believe we actually were there that long. Oh well, may it drift farther and farther away in my memory…

She is up to 13 pounds, 38th percentile for her age. Length, however, is 22.5″, which is only the 4th percentile. She’s a short little thing.

While I’d hesitate to call it a schedule, we seem to have a somewhat predictable sleep routine. Since we are generally out-and-about in the morning, she’ll take catnaps here or there. She’ll doze off in her bouncy seat or on the playmat, or sleep for a little bit while we’re in the car. After we get home for lunch, however, she’ll usually go to bed in her own room a little before her big brother and sister, and will sleep away the entire afternoon. Along the lines of 1-5PM. It’s unbelievable. And even after that marathon nap, she’s very much ready to go to bed for the night by 7. And then, believe it or not, she is pretty much sleeping 11-12 hours straight. Not every single night, and sometimes she’s awake but quiet (whatever, if it doesn’t require action from me, it totally counts as sleeping through). But she literally went from one night being awake every hour or so, to the next night sleeping 12 hours. Unswaddled, for sure.

Ellie is NOT a fan of her carseat. She doesn’t necessarily protest from the first moment you put her in it, and she will often fall asleep once the car starts moving. But if I dare stop to pick up my latte at the Starbucks drive-thru, I will hear her thoughts on the matter. NOT PLEASED. My new method for running errands or hanging out at the park is to put her in the Ergo instead of bothering with the carseat and stroller. Despite the fact that it’s summer and she is a very warm, sweaty baby to begin with, the Ergo seems to be much more acceptable than the carseat.

She is getting a little steadier with head control, and is starting to grab and hold onto things, though not reaching for them. She’s very responsive to people, and the smiles are a little easier to come by, but no laughing yet. We’re working on a regular bedtime routine, and she’s much happier in the bath now that I’ve gotten the temperature right (and am no longer attempting to poach her). She likes her bouncy seat, especially with the buzzing vibration turned on, but would rather not be left anywhere for too long. She is most likely to make happy sounds with her voice when first waking up from a nice long nap, or when you set her down. Once you’ve picked her up, she has less to say. She needs her space, apparently.

She is adored by both of her siblings. Rebecca always wants to help take care of her, and keeps asking when Ellie will be old enough to share a room with her. Daniel’s level of affection never ceases to astound me. While he’s still a typical, wild four-year-old boy who needs to be a little more careful around the baby, he truly cannot get enough of her. It’s a constant stream of hugs, kisses, and a ridiculous-sounding echo of baby talk. I could not have asked for a better reaction/transition from my big kids.

Comments (15)

Categories : Birthdays, Child Development, Infants, Sleep

The Green-Eyed Monster

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (24)· June 13th, 2011

The first week or two that Ellie was home, I felt like I was sinking.

A big part of it was anxiety over bringing home a baby with special medical needs. She was still recovering from surgery, little wounds healing, and this new piece of hardware on her belly that I was, to be honest, afraid of. What if it gets infected? What if it gets clogged? What if it falls out? If she cries too hard, will that hurt the internal stitches? What if she has to go back to the hospital? It was awful. I am not a generally anxious person, or parent, by nature. I’m not used to coping with this kind of stress on a daily basis.

But we had checkups with the pediatrician, and twice-weekly Visiting Nurse care. I started to understand what was normal and what were red flags. Ellie gained weight, I got used to the equipment, and I stopped getting the heebie-jeebies every time I looked at her belly.

Still, I got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach on a fairly regular basis.

It should come as no surprise that I have found it difficult to be around other babies. I had no shortage of pregnancy buddies – it seemed like half of my friends and cousins were pregnant at the same time as me, and new ones keep announcing. It’s incredibly hard to watch each of them in turn bring home their healthy babies at two or three days old. To see them breastfeeding with relative ease. To watch their babies hold their heads up straight and put weight on their legs and take a bottle.

What I found more surprising, though, is my visceral reaction to seeing pregnant women, whether friends or strangers. Each time it’s like a PTSD flashback. The emotional trauma of Ellie’s unexpected NICU stay and medical issues has applied itself, somewhat retroactively, to my pregnancy. The anxiety that I felt at the end of my pregnancy, between the polyhydramnios and the low-side-of-normal fetal movement, is now the only thing I can remember. Like a big flashing WARNING SIGN that I didn’t realize at the time. And I see other pregnant women and I remember that I didn’t know, then, what was coming. I couldn’t have, really. I had a few odd symptoms, took tests, and everything seemed OK. Or, at least, unexplained. Just one of those things. Now, to be overly dramatic, all I see is the truck that I didn’t realize was about to run me over.

I am, to put it bluntly, jealous. Achingly jealous of all those healthy pregnancies and “normal” babies. How many babies get discharged from the hospital with their mothers? 95%? 98%? Why never mine? Was it really that much to ask? I have days when all I want to do is shake my fist at the sky, curse God or Fate or Luck or Statistics, and throw myself a pity party. I am so mad, so jealous, so upset to know that I’ll never have that experience. I want to hide from my friends and my family and their “normal” single babies.

But it doesn’t last long, and that’s how I know we’re going to be OK.

Yes. This sucks. It sucks a lot. It sucks that Ellie had to have a G-tube, sucks that we might be looking at some moderate-to-significant developmental delays. It’s an uphill climb, for sure. But to paraphrase my friend Amy, spending time at the Big Hospital gives you a certain amount of perspective. You look at the kid to your right and think, “what are you even doing here? What do you have, a sniffle? I have it SO MUCH WORSE than you do.” And you look at the kid to your left and your heart sinks and you think, “thank God I don’t have to worry about that.”

Some parts of this suck, but it could be a whole lot worse in a lot of ways. As the weeks go by, as I get used to Ellie and her needs on her own terms, the intensity of how hard it is to see other newborns or other pregnant women is tapering off. It’s still there, and it might always be there. But it fades a little. I don’t actually want to withdraw from my friends. It sucks to have a big part of my day-to-day vocabulary be foreign to almost everyone, but instead of pushing them away, I will try to draw people in. I don’t want to hide myself or my daughter or what she needs. And I don’t want this to come across as being about Ellie, herself. She’s a sweet, wonderful baby. She didn’t choose for any of these things to happen. She doesn’t know any other reality. She needs what she needs, regardless of how it might be similar to or different from any other baby.

So I hold my head up and I go about my day. I get used to my new normal. I work on accepting it for what it is and try to just shrug and move on when I start to think about what I had hoped it would be. It’s not that different from the early days of twin infants, when people would stop me in the grocery store and, wide-eyed, ask me how do you do it? Is there really a choice in the matter? We take care of our kids. This is our life. We love them and we do what needs to be done, whether that means juggling two newborns at a time or learning how to work a feeding pump. We just do it. End of story.

But I will always be a little jealous, a little wistful for the majority experience that I’ll never have.

Comments (24)

Categories : Hospital, Infants, Newborns

Tags : developmental delays, g-tube, NICU