baby news

My arms are killing me

June 27, 2008

My little snugglebug here has entered a phase where he must be cuddled at all times. If he is awake, I’m holding him. We have all the latest in infant motion technology including a vibrating bouncy seat, a vibrating pack and play, and a super deluxe swing that is so advanced it has an ipod docking station. But none of them will keep him content unless he is asleep.

A friend told me that she figured old ladies get such saggy arms because we build our muscles up like crazy when we have babies, and once we stop using those massive mommy muscles, all that beefcake turns to sag. I can now see there might be some truth to this. Oh gosh, they’re killing me.

We had another visit from the home health OT, and my premature little guy is not only right on track with his development, but he’s actually catching up to his chronological age. He’s such a strong little kid. He already stands up on my lap whenever I sit down. I have to fight him to still behave like a baby.

Of course he has also gotten hungrier by the day while still only being able to eat 2 oz before barfing everything back up, which means that he wants to eat every hour and a half. So for the past week I’ve pretty much done nothing but feed this kid. As a result, I’m slowly starting to let go of my daily goals. I naively start each day with plans of what I’d like to do, and every day I end up doing nothing more but maybe unloading the dishwasher. It’s so frustrating, but I don’t really want to put him down, either. I just need about four more arms.

He’s the cutest little guy. I know every mother is partial, but he is seriously the cutest little baby ever. I keep trying to take pictures of him, but he’s still too little to sit up, and I haven’t exactly mastered the art of holding him in one hand and a camera in the other. I spent hours today setting up an elaborate photo shoot – ironing a sheet, moving furniture, arranging pillows. I’d taken a couple shots and decided that his diaper was ruining my shots (since it still manages to come halfway up his chest). No sooner had I taken off the diaper and turned around to grab the camera, then he peed all over my perfectly ironed sheet.

I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it. He’s growing, he’s doing great, and he’s the cutest most perfect baby ever.

Filed Under: baby news, mama musings

So this may be a bad pic….

June 13, 2008

But I just can’t resist his little face.

What a difference a few weeks makes, huh? He’s now 8 1/2 pounds and 21″ long. He looks like a real baby.

Filed Under: baby news

What is this strange sensation?

June 10, 2008

Why, I believe it is time, and I seem to have some on my hands!

We just got back from the doctors office and our little guy now weighs 8 1/2 lbs and is 21″ long. I can’t believe how huge he is now, but we still get stopped whenever we go out in public with comments about how little he is. While we were there the Rookie got his 4 month immunizations. His scream just cut me right to the heart, but after a snuggle and his pacifier, he’s been out like a light. Which is awesome because he didn’t sleep at all last night and I am worked.

While my list of things to do is never what you might call short, I currently don’t have anything to do that MUST get done by a certain date. I have to finish a baby present for one of my dearest friends whose baby is turning one year old any day now, and I have about three dozen birthdays I’ve missed that I must catch up on, and there’s always my never ending house project, but since I’ve already missed all those deadlines, I think I’m safe if I go run and take a nap.

A nap. Ha! I get a nap. Somebody pinch me.

Bear’s back in town and has already started his new job, which is going well so far. The residents are already asking when I’m going to bring the baby around to visit, and the ladies knitting group is awaiting me.

The blessing was wonderful and the party went pretty smoothly. It was so wonderful seeing so much of our family. At the actual service I just bawled. It all just seemed to hit me at once; all we’d waited for, all we’d fought for, everything we white knuckled our way through, it was all worth it. The day I’d been imagining for eight years. The day I’d been afraid would never come. He’s healthy, I’m healthy, Bear has a great job….I have everything I ever wanted. Including a nap.

Filed Under: baby news, The Good Life

He DID IT!

May 23, 2008

It’s official. My baby has gone wireless. I have been holding him and pacing circles around the house just because I can. It’s so wonderful to be able to pick up the phone without dragging luggage behind, or just get up to get myself a drink without buckling him in to something. I even went to the mall yesterday, just the two of us, and it was actually fun. I just had him in his sling and then carried the diaper bag and I felt so free and easy. We went to the doctor again today to get him checked out and see if he could maintain doing it all on his own, and she took one look at him and decided to not even bother with the equipment because he looked so good.

I pick Bear up from the airport in a couple of hours and it really couldn’t come too soon. In the past two weeks I’ve really only had about two hours where I wasn’t on baby duty. It’s wonderful and so deeply draining. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m so exhausted that I’m ridiculously moody about everything. Our computer was in the shop a couple weeks ago and it’s already acting back up, so of course I threw a weepy fit. Then I tried to spend a little time working on my satin quilt, and the sewing machine wasn’t cooperating, so I again started whimpering and had to go lay down for awhile. The silliest things just seem so insurmountable right now. Bear will be home for the long weekend, and I might actually get to sleep through the night a couple of times. I’m sure that will help restore me to sanity.

Overall, the first half of my experiment with single motherhood has been so much easier than I thought. He’s such a sweet little cooperative baby. His time in the NICU definitely set him up for success at home, and every day he manages to sleep when he’s supposed to I want to call those nurses and sing their praises again.

Atticus and I already have a special relationship that is making this time together so sweet. When we first met each other we’d both gone through a harrowing experience we barely made it out of, we were both on heavy medication and fighting for our lives, and I remember visiting him in the NICU. He wrapped his teeny little hand around my pinkie finger and I was so shocked at the strength he had when he appeared so frail. We were in it together then, fighting to recover for each other.

It still feels that way. Our days are full of little miracles that make me wonder just what his little spirit is aware of. I’ll be at the end of my resources after a long day, my dinner will be getting cold in the microwave and he’ll be fighting off sleep, and I’ll say to him, “Baby, close your eyes. I need you to sleep now.” And then he will. Or I’ll set him in his swing and tell him that I need just fifteen minutes of internet time to interact with the outside world, and it’s like he has an internal timer. He’ll stare around the room for almost exactly 15 minutes and then start fussing wildly, ready for another snuggle session. And when I’m consumed with my frustration and worry, he’ll do something that seems so miraculous it renews me whole. He’s already figuring out how to hold the pacifier in his mouth using his hands, he’s starting to grip the bottle when I feed him, and he’s already rolled from his front to his back a few times.

Then, this morning I got up while he was still sleeping and took advantage of the opportunity to go to the bathroom without rushing. When I got back I popped my head over the side of the cosleeper to check on him, and just then he opened his eyes, looked right at me, and shot me the cutest little grin. Suddenly it doesn’t matter if I haven’t made it out of my spit-up stained pj’s in a week. It doesn’t matter if I don’t get to eat anything until 4, or that I spent the whole day cleaning up the poop of one little guy and three fuzzy beasts. I’m stuttering along as best I can and my baby is happy. That’s good enough.

Filed Under: baby news, mama musings

Just like a real baby

May 19, 2008

There really aren’t words to express how relieved I’ll be when this dang oxygen is gone. It makes every tiny thing so ridiculously complicated. Along with my detailed birth plan that got thrown out the window, my pretty little idea of attachment parenting got killed by the harsh fact of what my baby takes to survive. I can’t exactly wear him in a sling all day when I also have to be harnessed up to a tank. I do it, but it’s impossible to get anything done that way.

Mama as pack mule, trying to go grocery shopping

I can get by when I need to, but try changing the laundry over in that rig. Or putting it away for that matter. Or bending over for any reason at all without toppling right over to your death. I have this enormous staircase to clomp up and down 88 times a day and each time I have to choose – baby and his whole entourage, or anything else.

For the last couple of weeks Atticus and I have been waging a full on occasionally bloody battle to try to keep that oxygen tube taped to his face. It should come as no surprise to me that a preemie capable of yanking a tube out of his throat (5 TIMES!) should be able to figure out how to wrap his chubby little fingers around a tube that’s merely taped to his face and pull. He hates that thing with all his little might, and on the rare occasions that I take it off completely to clean the baby boogers out of it, his eyes get all big and he gets this look on his face like a whole new world had been opened to him. A world where he isn’t covered in tubes and wires and tape that distorts his little face into some weird halloween mask, but a world where he gets to be free of all that and just do it all on his own.

And then I have to put the tube back on and he screams for hours and breaks my heart.

We went to a new doctor on Friday at the insistence of our wonderful home health nurse. We told her how the last appointment went and she called the doctor all kinds of salty names and then made us promise to get in with someone on a list of great doctors she made for us. Once again, I’m telling you. There are some pretty great silver linings in being a NICU mom.

So we went to the new doctor, and her plan was to turn down the oxygen immediately, and then an hour or so before the nurse comes again to take him off of it completely. Then when the nurse measures his oxygen levels, if it’s high enough, we can just leave him off of it, and we’ll go back again on Friday to double check he’s doing well. This was so thrilling. Especially since our first doctor basically just said, “Yeah, whatever. See you in a month.”

Tomorrow’s the big day. The nurse will come tomorrow morning and then we’ll see how he’s doing. Considering that last night he managed to rip his tube completely off his face in the middle of the night and slept through just fine. I think tomorrow will be a good day.

Filed Under: baby news

My other Baby Boy

May 16, 2008

Would you look at the size of this tank? Who would’ve thought such a little cross-eyed dummy would turn into this cross-eyed monster?

I’m one of those crazy cat ladies that really believes that our cats are part of our family. Going beyond that, I believe they were sent to us when we needed them. We got our two girls for free back when we were living in New Hampshire and I was completely housebound with endometriosis. They were my little companions and kept me sane when I would go for weeks without speaking to a person in the flesh.

When we first got our new little kitty Lobo, I was actually a little annoyed. These cats are expensive and we could have used that money a million other places. Plus there was the minor issue of expecting a baby. Not exactly the best timing.

It’s turned out that adding this dumb little Lobo to our family couldn’t have been timed better. Every day I’d come back from the NICU aching to hold my baby, so I’d pick up my other fuzzy little guy and he’d let me snuggle him for hours at a time. I’d cradle him like a baby, or lay him on my chest just so I wouldn’t feel quite so wrong all by myself all of a sudden.

Now that Atticus is home, the kitties are all a little displaced, but they’re adjusting.

Filed Under: baby news, crazy cat lady

Year of Pleasures #9

May 15, 2008

We’ve created a snuggle monster. Maybe a few months from now when he won’t be content with anyone but me, I’ll regret this. But right now, I’m treasuring it.

Being a NICU mom makes you so grateful for the stupidest things. The first time I got to change his diaper I bawled. And then I preceded to push the nurses out of the way every time to do it myself.

Here’s another milestone:

Isn’t it wonderful? I’m like a real mom now!

Filed Under: baby news, The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

May 15, 2008

Yesterday I had a blog post planned where I bragged all about my perfect child and how I managed to go out to lunch, shop at Target where I tried on actual clothes, pop over to Babies R Us, ran on the treadmill, and worked outside in the yard for a while.

And then today the Rookie fussed so much I didn’t get lunch until 4:30, I spent the whole day begging him to tell me what he needed, and then got him settled just in time to watch him throw up spectacularly all over me, himself, and the couch.

Three days down. 23 to go.

https://staging.tresaedmunds.com/2008/05/205/

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, baby news

Single Parenthood Starts Today

May 12, 2008

At 5:30 this morning I drove Bear off to the airport. And he won’t be back for a month. He’ll actually be home for Memorial Day weekend, but I’m pretty much on my own until June 6th. I’m scared stupid.

So far I’m doing good. We made the hour long drive home just fine, he took his morning bottle and we cuddled up together for a little nap, he chilled out contentedly in his swing while I rushed around washing a clean bottle (because of course we only bought four. He’s going to be breastfed! What do we need tons of bottles for? Pbbt.) and measuring all his morning medications, and now he’s sleeping again back in the superfancy swing we bought him.

So now I should have just enough time to shove some food in my face and toss in a load of laundry.

We have a gardener coming later this afternoon because in the entire year we’ve lived here, we’ve never once pruned our jungle of a backyard and it has now overgrown into an epic forest primeval. I’m thinking that he is just going to have to handle seeing me in my spitup stained pajamas. Let’s be realistic here. I’m doing well, but there’s no way I’m getting a shower today.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, baby news

We’re HOME!!!

May 3, 2008

My teeny little superguy finally busted out of the NICU and is now safely home with us. We are just crazy with happiness.

He’s actually been home for a week as of today, but we’ve been trying to get the routine down and escape the craziness our lives became over the past three months. Luckily Bear’s been home with me, which has just been invaluable as we’ve been creating a whole new family life.

We had to start with a hot scrub of our house from top to bottom. In the year that we’ve lived here, cleanliness was not a top priority. When we weren’t engaged in major home renovations, I was terribly sick, or recovering from surgery, or some combination of the three. This place needed a boiling before we brought home a baby. I hadn’t spent much time in my studio over the past three months, and once I got in there I discovered that my poor displaced kitties had been expressing their displeasure all over the place.

He’s such an incredibly good baby. He only cries when he wants food or needs a change. He’ll occasionally fuss a little when he wants a snuggle, but afterwards we’ll pop him in his super deluxe swing and he’ll snooze for four hours. He’s still running on his schedule from the hospital, which works out great for us. When he cries we change his pants, snuggle him while tucking a bottle in his mouth, and then he sends himself right off to sleep. I tell you, if it wasn’t so terribly traumatic to be separated, I’d recommend a NICU stay for every baby. It’s like Baby Boot Camp in there.

In still more positive news, Bear has a job. I think it’s actually going to work out better for us in the long run. Instead of just running a skilled nursing facility for the elderly, the new job is an entire campus with independent living, assisted living, as well as the skilled nursing. We’ll get a little more money, a lot more stability, and should a freak thing happen again where we find ourselves out of work, he’ll have a whole new career pool available to him.

But this is us we’re talking about here. Two people who don’t get showered with blessings, but pounded by them. All of our blessings seem to come wrapped in a dookie coating. This time Bear has a big fancy great job, but he has to leave here on the 12th to go to Alabama for a month (A MONTH!!) for training. Leaving me and the Rookie to figure things out on our own. I’ve been having at least one panic attack a day since we got the news.

Also, our little guy is home, but he’s still on oxygen and refuses to breast feed. At all. Spits it out screaming like it’s on fire. After pumping a total of 4+ hours a day, I still couldn’t produce enough milk for him, and the milk I did produce, after taking all kinds of herbs and prescriptions to get any at all, was thinner than skim milk. I think it’s safe to say that breastfeeding isn’t going to work for us. Which breaks my heart like I can’t even say. I’m a total earth mother wannabe. If I had my way I’d nurse this kid until he was old enough to say no thank you. But between his medications and hauling around an oxygen tank on wheels like he’s an old man with emphysema and having to become a single parent for a month and bottle feed this little guy, I really can’t find the 4+ hours to pump every day. I’m trying to make light and look on the bright side, but I’m actually pretty horribly depressed about this.

It’s a very good thing that he is such a sweet little calm baby because not only am I going to have to do this on my own for awhile, but he requires a whole lot of care. We just had our first doctors appointment where everything except his growth looked good, and even that was at least headed in the right direction. The Home Health Nurse comes on Tuesdays, the Occupational Therapist comes on Mondays, then we have to see the Ophthalmologist, and we’ll follow up with the NICU’s High Risk Infant Followup Clinic. He’s on all kinds of prescriptions that have to be precisely measured at certain times of day, and he has to take special high calorie formula to try to get his weight up. The OCD in me wants to start making all kinds of spreadsheets and graphs to track his progress, but I’m trying to sit on that part of myself and just enjoy my little guy for the special little spirit that he is.