abc family

Quick Update

So, day three in the hospital.

We've gotten good news today:

1) The 48-hour cultures on all Blaise's tests came back negative, so we are just dealing with the virus; not nearly as serious or scary as a bacterial infection.

2) Blaise's bilirubin, which was borderline when we got here Thursday, started dropping after a day on the light blanket and has continued to drop at a very satisfactory rate.

3) Besides the cultures and the bilirubin levels, the only other requirement for us to go home is that Blaise be able to keep his oxygen levels up without assistance. We seem to be on the way there: he was needing 1.5 liters of oxygen this time yesterday, but is currently using only .5 liters, and was actually down to only .25 liters for most of the day today. I am cautiously optimistic that another couple nights will do it and we'll be going home by Monday or Tuesday.

All of you who have been thinking of and praying for us, thank you! I am sure it is making a difference. Not only is Blaise improving as quickly as could possibly be expected, but I am feeling better as well. Yesterday I could hardly get through an hour without bursting into tears; today I am coping [mostly] without crying at all.

I am still hating many moments of this - especially seeing my sweet tiny baby with tubes and wires - and I have not yet reached the point where I am able to understand or wring the blessing from this experience. I imagine that might not come for a while. But in the meantime God continues to sustain me minute by minute, and infant illnesses and postpartum hormones are nothing in the light of His abundant grace. Thanks be for that!

Please continue to pray and I will try to keep updating regularly.

Pray please!

So we are definitely getting a trial by fire at being parents of two kids: first a newborn plus a sick toddler, and now a toddler plus a sick newborn.

I'm writing this from a room at the Children's Hospital, where we are staying with Blaise who has developed RSV. Hopefully that's the only thing he has; they did the full battery of tests (including a spinal tap, yikes) and the 24-hr cultures came back negative, so assuming the 48-hr ones do as well, it's just the virus he's got. He spiked a slight fever yesterday morning (prompting our ER trip) but has been fever-free since then. That means that assuming RSV is his sole issue, we'll be out of here when he can keep his oxygen levels up satisfactorily without assistance.

The good news is that it doesn't look as if our little guy is in any real danger. The bad news is that while the virus runs it's course, we could be here for days.

If you have prayers to spare, please concentrate them on these intentions:

1) That Blaise will recover as quickly as possible. A miraculous rate of recovery would be wonderful, and we are meant to be bold in our prayers, right?

2) For extra grace and strength for our whole family: for Camilla as she deals with the change in routine; for Bryan as he juggles caring for Camilla's needs, Blaise's, and mine; and for me as I stay at the hospital with the baby. Dealing with this while awash in 11-days-postpartum hormones is no picnic; there are many moments when I feel I am just barely keeping my head above water.

Thank you so much! It helps to know that there are people out there who care, and every prayer counts.

7 Baby Takes Friday

I've thought for a while now of participating in Jen's 7 Quick Takes Friday, and this seems like the perfect time to do it!  In honor of the special circumstances at our house this week, here are 7 Baby Takes.

-1-

When I was writing my birth story last time (here are parts 1, 2, and 3 in case you missed it) I remember thinking that writing it all out was something I'd probably have the inclination to do only with my first child.  Wouldn't birth feel pretty commonplace the second time around anyway?  But truly, I have even more motivation to write about Blaise's birth than I did to write about Camilla's.  With Camilla's birth I felt lucky to have salvaged a birth I could live with from circumstances that could have been disastrous.  But Blaise's birth was the birth I wanted, exactly what I would have asked for in a birth if I could have ordered one.  I can't wait to share the details.

-2-

Post-partum in the hospital, on the other hand, was rougher this time.  This was due to the fact that I spent the nights on my own with the baby, which I really did not enjoy.  I think we made the right decision to have Bryan sleep at home with Camilla - she was stressed enough after the night she spent away from us while Blaise was being born - and I feel it was worth the sacrifice, but it was indeed a sacrifice on my part.  On the plus side, Bryan was considerably more rested after spending two nights in his own bed than he was after sleeping two nights in a chair when we were bringing Billa home from the hospital.  Which was good because...

-3-

We're not just dealing with a newborn and a toddler; we are dealing with a newborn and a sick toddler.  I don't know whether Camilla is sick with a new virus or if her symptoms have just relapsed due to several days of stress and truncated sleep, but she's got a nighttime fever and a vicious cough, and is just all-around miserable and irritable.  This means that the nights have Bryan dealing with Camilla and me dealing with Blaise and none of us getting as much sleep as we'd like.  The bright side is that once Billa is actually feeling better and sleeping again, this newborn thing is going to seem like a cakewalk!

-4-

And really the sleep thing is not such a big deal, especially since last night was a better night (I spent ten hours in the bed and slept for at least seven of them, which I think is pretty good for four days post-partum).  As you can imagine, the thing that is stressing me about the whole sickie deal is the possibility that Blaise is going to come down with it.  My sister's kids are also sick and her little guy Matthew is currently hospitalized with RSV.  (Thank goodness, he is not in a serious condition and should be coming home pretty soon.)

Blaise hasn't been exposed to Daniel and Matthew but I'm suspicious that Camilla's illness has also been caused by RSV (which I am determinedly NOT Googling) and I really, really don't want Blaise to get it.  I'm hoping that Billa might already be past the point where she is contagious.  I'm taking every precaution I can to protect Blaise from exposure, plus I am squirting antibodies down his throat (literally) as quickly as I can make them, and other than that I am just praying really hard.  (Why do I have the feeling after writing that sentence that "praying really hard" should be the main clause instead of the afterthought?)

At any rate, as Bryan reminded me when I was having a little bit of a freak-out last night, being terrified that Blaise is going to get sick is not going to change the eventual outcome and will only serve to make my life miserable in the meantime.  So I am praying for peace and taking each day as it comes.

Oh, and being very, very glad that we named him Blaise.  The intercession of his patron has got to count for something, right?

-5-

Nursing is going extremely well.  We had a good experience last time around but this time is even easier.  I'm sure part of that is due to my having a much better idea what I'm doing.  Blaise has a stronger latch, though, than Camilla did, and is just all-around a better eater.  I remember that during Camilla's first week or two of life it felt like a chore every time I had to feed her; this time it is no big deal at all.  The little guy just clamps on and we go.  I've even been able to nurse him lying down throughout the night, which helps me get more rest.  Honestly, I am so grateful for such a great nursing experience.

-6-

And hey, continuing along the puppies-and-rainbows line, the most annoying part of nursing Camilla last time around was dealing with my oversupply, which was intense.  For weeks I was sleeping with bath towels in the bed and changing my shirt constantly throughout the day.  This time, my milk (which was fully in by 48 hours after Blaise was born) is still there in abundance, but not quite so much abundance as last time.  It's less painful and less messy, and although I still think I could easily feed two or three babies with the amount I've got, I'm just glad not to be constantly soaked.

-7-

Blaise is the sweetest little man in the whole wide world.  I am really, really happy we have him.

Long Night, Happy Morning

We made it!

Blaise Alexander was born at 5:26am.  7lbs, 11oz and 20.5 inches long, and he let out a beautiful loud cry right away.

He and I are both doing well... and I'm hoping to catch some sleep today to make up for having missed an entire night!  In the meantime, we are all happy and healthy.

And one of us, of course, is completely adorable.
 

On the Way

So, it seems like our children are starting a trend of showing up before we expect them...

By my midwives' records I'll be 38 weeks tomorrow; by my own estimate I'll be 37 weeks on Tuesday. But regardless of this baby's gestational age he's definitely gooing to be making his appearance in the next day or so.

Been having very sporadic contractions all day, but along with certain signs that my cervix is progressing, the contractions have sped up to every 6-ish minutes, 45 seconds long. Billa is at my sister's house for the night and we are hanging at home waiting for things to pick up (we live just three minutes from the hospital).

Will Tweet (see link in left sidebar) or update blog as soon as there is anything to report, assuming we can get the wireless at the hospital to work.

Please pray, of course, for a speedy and easy delivery and for the safety of the baby throughout. And have a peaceful night!

Recovering to What?

She's better! 

Camilla hasn't had a hint of a fever in three days, and by Thursday she got progressively more spunky as the day went on, until evening when she was bopping around like her usual self again.

 

Like I mentioned, I am determined to appreciate my daughter's good health and in a way I'm grateful for the experience of earlier this week, because it's helping me to summon patience and deal with back-to-normal Age Two more graciously than I normally would.

This is fortunate because, as I Twittered the other day, Age Two seems... stronger somehow since Camilla has recovered.  The other evening, for instance, she made a small mess and when I informed her that she would required to clean it up, she looked me straight in the eye, yelled, "NO!" and smacked her hand on the floor.

I know that for a lot of kids her age this would not qualify as noticeably defiant behavior but for our daughter it really is.  I haven't talked about it much here - for the same reason I don't talk about how I don't seem to swell at all when I'm pregnant, kind of a why brag about things you don't control? principle - but Camilla is a remarkably tractable child.  She responds well to rules and boundaries (you should hear her discourse on how *only grown-ups* can touch knives and raw sausage) and if we say to her, "Camilla, if you don't stop doing A then B will happen," nineteen times out of twenty she will stop doing A.

I give us a small amount of credit for being consistent with firm, gentle discipline but really it is mostly her personality.  When we hang out with my sister and Daniel it actually makes me feel guilty because we hold our kids to the same standards but Camilla is just naturally more compliant, which means my poor sister has to work about three times as hard as I do.

So anyway, I'm thinking maybe the fact that for three days we were feeling sorry for our poor pathetic child and basically gave her anything she asked for in her little hoarse voice gave her the idea that she is Queen of the World and all those silly rules we used to have no longer apply to her.  In which case she is in for a rude awakening.  And if this new stage is simply Age Two setting in for real and was on its way anyway... well, we'll deal with that.

For now I'm just glad she's better.

Sick Baby

Camilla is sick.

We took her to the emergency room in the wee hours of yesterday morning because she was breathing croupily enough to freak us out.  Reassuringly, her temperature was 98.6 and her oxygen saturation level (is that the right way to put that? any medically-experienced people reading?) was 97 when we got there, 99 by the time the dose of steroids they gave her had kicked in.  Yesterday she continued to get better throughout the day; she had no fever and most of her usual joie de vivre, and last night she slept badly but not because she was breathing badly, only because she had developed the expected hacking cough.

However.  After a decent morning today, she woke up from her noon-ish nap (The only, and I do mean ONLY, silver lining of this whole sickness business is the return to two naps.  I miss the days of two naps.) listless and feverish.  Although she perked up a few times throughout the afternoon and evening, Camilla has not been her usual spunky self all day.

She's clearly exhausted, not having had a decent night's sleep since Saturday, and she's clearly fighting a nasty bug.  I would be listless too under those circumstances. 

But still.  It breaks my heart to watch my little girl lean against her daddy's chest with no inclination at all to hop up and play (when normally we can hardly coax her to stop what she's doing and bestow a hug or kiss) and to hear her tiny hoarse voice say that she doesn't want anything (when normally there is always *something* she wants). 

I promised myself several times today that I will try in the future not to take the non-ill Camilla for granted.  I didn't realize how much I'd been failing to appreciate her natural toddler enthusiasm.  I can't wait to see her dance happily around the room and hear her little voice narrating at full strength again.

Oh, man, I hope she is better tomorrow.

Mere Weeks to Go

So this is my first attempt at writing a blog post from my new iPod - we'll see how it goes. The little touch keyboard is surprisingly easy to use on this thing but still, typing one-fingered is a pain.

Hey, this is how my poor father-in-law must feel all the time! No wonder the guy hates to use the computer.

There also doesn't appear to be a "save draft" feature on the Typepad application, which: yikes! I know I'd be super mad at myself if I lost a post which I had labored over one-fingeredly, so I'll just have to be extra careful.

I had a midwife appointment this morning -technically my 36-week one although by my own calculations I'll be 35 weeks tomorrow. (For Tracy and anyone else who's been wondering - my official fuzzy-12-wk ultrasound-based due date is February 2nd; my own opinion is that it's actually more like the 10th.)

I know I have mentioned this already, but man I am appreciating my prenatal care this time compared to my pregnancy with Camilla. I never realized what a negative factor my last OB was until I started experiencing something different.

I don't think it's necessarily the difference between midwives and OBs that is the key (although with my personal ideas and preferences about birth I do think midwives are a better fit for me); I think it was just my particular OB who was the problem.

For instance, did I mention at the time that throughout my pregnancy he both:
A) Did regular ultrasounds to ensure that the baby was growing properly and was not super-small because chronic hypertension like mine (he never believed my hypertension was white-coat despite the home BP-monitoring he made me do) can cause problems with the cord so the baby doesn't get enough nutrients; AND
B) Intimated on multiple occasions that the baby might be freakishly large enough to warrant induction on or before my due date.

Why did I never realize at the time that worrying your patient about the possibilities that her baby might be both too small AND too big is a little, um, not cool?

I'd like to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he really was just blundering along. But I can't help feeling that the whole thing was his head-trippy way of trying to get me and my bother of a pregnancy dealt with as quickly as possible... i.e. If I can't get away with inducing you for non-existent pre-eclampsia then maybe I can convince you to let me induce you for non-existent cephalo-pelvic disproportion!

Fortunately Camilla obligingly turned up 10 days early and I never had to have that battle, and came out of the ordeal only 2 unnecessary but harmless NSTs the worse. I was lucky.

And now I have my midwives, who not only believe me about my normal home blood- pressure readings but in whose office I feel comfortable enough that this morning my BP was a textbook 120/80 - the lowest reading I've ever gotten in a doctor's office.

Plus, today they gave me the sheet to fill out with my birth preferences, and it made me smile because it includes, among other things:
A) the information that they prefer to default to intermittent fetal monitoring during labor unless there is some reason constant monitoring proves necessary (oh how I hated those straps on my belly last time); and
B) a question about which position I think I might like to give birth in. Like, I actually get a choice! No mandatory default to on my back on the table!

For people who are used to midwife care this might not seem like a big deal, but for me, after last time, it totally is. Of course I am not looking *forward* to giving birth again, but in a way I kind of am. There have been few moments in my life more euphoric than 1:07pm on October 14, 2006. And I'm exhilarated at the thought of climbing that mountain again.