Waaaaa!

So yet again our solution to Isaiah's discomfort was short lived. I finally headed in to see our pediatrician yesterday, and it was perfect timing. He hadn't pooped in over a day and was super cranky...she was going to get to see him in all his fussy glory.

It started with a fart-filled car ride (you would be too if you needed to poop your body weight). I felt a oneness with our dog Stella as I hung my head out the driver's-side window while I zoomed down our country roads. It was amazing that we arrived on time, a first since Isaiah's birth. Due to an excessive number of stairs at our peds office (I'm still trying to figure that out, what with all the strollers and trantrum throwing toddlers), I was in a full sweat by the time we got to the waiting room. Don't get me wrong, I can still climb stairs like a normal person, but this time I was lugging my increasingly hefty son in his car carrier. I think a photo is the only way to truly see how ridiculous I look carrying this thing as its about half my size.

There wasn't a soul at the doctor's office so we got right in. Before I could even get my coat off the nurse was in the room asking me to strip him down. I was lifting Isaiah from his car set, one hand firmly under his bum, when he let loose with the poopy he had been storing up for over a day. I was suddenly grateful for the trusty diaper bag. Of course, just as I was about to change him, the docotor walks right in. When does a doctor come in the minute you arrive? So, I was trying talk with her about what was going on while dealing with a poo extravaganza on the table...and then I realized...where are all the wet wipes? There's only one?! (I later learned Mark had been using the wipes out of the diaper bag because it was more convenient in the evening).

Part of me went on autopilot to answer the doctor's questions while my main focus was the poopy diaper. I mentally searched the diaper bag for other options. Several alternatives came to mind. Had the doctor not been in the room I may have selected the emergency onesie or opted to stick him under the sink for a quick rinse, but this was not an option. I studied the diaper and discovered one clean corner. "Could I...?" Realizing the doctor was starting to look at me like I was a moron, I knew I had to act quickly if I were to recover from this situation without convincing the doctor she would need to speak to me in short-syllabled sentences. Suddenly the Yoda withing pushed me forward, "do or do not, there is no try." I yanked up Isaiah's rear with one hand while folding the loaded diaper with oragami skill. Voila! A complete success. I am a mommy afterall! If it weren't completely inappropriate I would have taken a bow.

Isaiah's situation is still up in the air. We now think he has some pretty bad reflux in addition to being a guzzler. We've switched bottles to try to reduce the amount of air he swallows and he takes Prevacid in the morning. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Let Me Try This...Yet Again

Today's mission: complete blog post. Attempt number: 312

Since those quiet preemie days where Isaiah sleeps 20 hours a day are long gone, I have little if any time to sit down and write...I'm sure you all understand.

Belated congratulations to Jamie (my cousin) and Richard. They had their son Benjamin Michael 5 weeks early! He was 5 lbs, 5.3 oz and 19 inches long...almost the same measurements as Isaiah. Unfortunately little Benny had to stay behind in the hospital for a few days, but it sounds like he is doing great and will be going home soon. Go Benny! Can't wait to meet him.

Amidst all the excitment of yet another new baby in the family, my sister arrived from Africa in mid-Sept. It has been so awesome having my sister here, and she arrived just in time. Isaiah was starting to get more demanding and I was starting to feel much, much better around the time Jen arrived. So, while my inner Virgo screamed, "you can finally clean the house, organize the nursery, and change that damn light bulb!", my son often had other plans. We initially thought he had a terrible cold as he was getting stuffy noses, crying a lot more, and not sleeping at night. Naturally we stormed the pharmacy and hooked ourselves up with the vaporizers, and booger snatchers, and nasal drops. Isaiah grew even crankier following a good booger cleaning. Can't say I blame the guy. He quickly returned to normal...for a few days.

We discovered he was having problems with his tummy. We switched to supplementing with a hypoallergenic formula, but after 2 weeks he was continuing to get worse. I was no longer able to keep up with him using breastmilk so he was getting more and more bottles. Oddly my body did not get the supply and demand thing...I continued to produce a very limited amount of breastmilk while he was increasing his need for more. It became evident that the trauma my body went through was just too much for me to successfully tackle nursing full-time. Finally, we cut out the breastmilk entirely on the hunch that mixing breastmilk and formula was a problem...we also started using Mylicon drops. As you can tell by my post, he is sleeping like a baby once again...Thank God! Screaming baby = sad mommy. I was pretty upset that I wouldn't be able to nurse, but it is what it is...and I am happy that he is feeling much better.

Fortuntately, Aunt Jen jumped right in when she arrived. She took Stella for a long needed grooming (sorry 'tellers we missed the photo op), cooked us up some tasty African food, cuddled with her new nephew, and fed plenty of bottles. Without this help I don't think I could have even kept up with the daily activities so we owe her a huge THANK YOU!

Aunt Jen cuddled with the snicker...


and gave mommy a much needed break...


and played pregnant lady with mommy's belly cast...

Woo HOOO!!!

Just quickly wanted to say that I am soooo happy! My sister is coming back from Africa for over a month and she arrives next week! She already had this trip back to the states planned, but when Isaiah came early she moved things around and was able to come home a little earlier. I cannot express how happy this makes me.

While I have recently learned that my husband is in fact Superman...he does have to leave for 10 1/2 hours every day for work. I have been blessed with visits from friends a few nights a week while Mark is at work. They bring food and clean and entertain the baby...and keep me from losing my mind. Without my peeps, I would likely be a complete wreck. That being said, having my sister here will also be a HUGE help.

Can't wait to see you aunt jen!

Poop and Stuff

First let me say that I feel blessed to have so many wonderful mommies in my life. You have all been so great at assuring me that my moments of panic with phone in hand to call the pediatrician for every little friggin' thing is normal (is that a new bump on his head? why is it there? is that spit up a funny color? does that mean he has an intestinal blockage? why hasn't he pooped yet? oh my...it must be intestinal blockage! is he eating too much? is he eating too little? is he still breathing? etc, etc, etc). Thank you for reassuring me that I'm not a complete lunatic, just an irrational, temporarily insane new mother.

While the anxiety from my first two weeks of motherhood is slowly easing its grip, I am finally excited to share my first diaper stories. Mark and I were laughing histerically this weekend when we started swapping "guess what Isaiah did?" stories over the weekend. I must share...I'm burned out on drama...bring on the comedy PLEASE!

So obviously Isaiah is a little boy...and little boys have penises that are highly senstive to breezes...if this is news to anyone, you shouldn't be reading my blog. :) We learned very early, that our son has squirming abilities that will dislodge even the most well-placed diaper or wipe, which quickly eliminates all protection from a good hosing. A few days ago, he did just that...he kicked his little legs and wiggled his bottom until the shielding wipe fell to the side. Generally he aims over his left shoulder, hitting whatever lies behind him (in this case our bed) as well as his clothing (usually a fresh out of the dryer onesie...typical). However on this day, he didn't quit free the wipe completely so his aim was slightly altered. Before I could replace it, the sprinklers went on and the poor little man peed into his own eye! He reacted with a full face squint and startle...something you might associate with eating lemons. To make matters worse, I was laughing so hard, it took me minute to gather myself before I could calm him down and get him cleaned up. Lord have mercy, I'm still laughing my ass off.

Weew! Breathe...so now I move on to Mark's story. The other evening while I was getting my beauty sleep, Mark was up with Isaiah. As usual, our son saved the poopiest of dialy diapers for his daddy. It all started when Mark decided to check whether or not the diaper was dirty with a quick finger check...something I've already learned to avoid. Turns out, the diaper was VERY dirty. Being overly tired, Mark didn't head to the bathroom to wash his hands before changing the diaper. Nope! Insted he chose to try to hold out said finger (something like a tea pinky) while completing the diaper change. So Mark was going through his routine, finger in the air...but shortly into the changing, he realized he was taking on a bigger project than he was used to. He lost concentration on the poopy finger and focused on cleaning up the boy without getting poop all over the bed. Once Isaiah was rebundled and dry, Mark placed him back in his bassinet, got rid of the diaper, and washed his hands. He couldn't help but think he was tasting poop. His initial thought being, "man that was once fierce diaper, I swear I can taste it!" A few minutes later, after checking the bed, his clothing, and Isaiah, he returned to the bathroom to wash his hands again because he could not get rid of that poopy smell. This time, he look up into the mirror as he was washing...there was the culprit. Somehow, in full diaper changing concentration, Mark must have wiped his face and left a nice streak of shit across his cheek! ahahaahahahaha. Oh lord, I cannot stop laughing when I think of this story. I am so, so, so sad that I wasn't there to witness this first hand.

We have been welcomed to parenthood! ha!

Two Weeks!

We have had a number of big firsts around here lately, I'm sure you can imagine. Isaiah will be 2 weeks old tomorrow! It has been a blur. He is officially nursing (almost) full-time. We still supplement with bottles at night when Mark takes over so I can get some sleep. I'm still not completely capable of keeping up with his appetite, keeping my fingers crossed that day will come soon.

Fortunately, his HUGE appetite gave us several "he's amazing!" comments from our pediatrician this morning. He has already gained back his weight and then some, weighing in at 5 lbs 6 oz today. He is alert for longer periods now, makes eye contact, kicks about his little arms and legs, recognizes our voices and can hold his head up briefly when on his tummy. I only list these items because they are each big steps for a newborn, especially a preemie. Our doctor says if she didn't know otherwise, she would never guess he was born 6 weeks early...he acts just like a full-term baby. Music to our ears.

Now that we've got nursing down and are getting used to the new routine that comes with having a baby to worry about 24/7, our new challenge is focusing on longer sleep at night and shorter naps during the day. I'm sure Mark will totally appreciate this since he lets me sleep from 1:30am-6:30am most mornings while he takes care of the baby.

I am feeling much better and am healing much faster than expected. I've been driving for several days now and can help out around the house again...though not exclusively. I'm sure all of the sleep has been a huge help. I have been told it may take 6-10 week for me to be 100%, I'm thinking I'll be good to go in 4, we'll see. I haven't taken any pain medications for almost a week now and all has been well. My BP is slowly returning to normal as well (woo hoo!) and after losing 20 pounds in 3 days (ahhh!) it looks like I'm steadying out. I'm expected to lose about 1 pound a week in water weight for the next 4 weeks and I'm hoping some baby fat will go with it. Oh do I look forward to the day that I get to see my face without the fatty turtle neck that preeclampsia blessed me with. :)

Thanks to all of you who brought us tasty food. A special shout out to Auntie Nicole who came over after work last week to cook us dinner and clean the house...I think she washed a weeks worth of dishes! We love you!

Isaiah's Birth Story

It's the moment I'm sure you all have been waiting for (hahaha, ok so only a few of you are actually curious)...Isaiah's birth story. By the pictures I'm sure you've been able to tell that he is super healthy...what a relief.

So the story begins on Monday, August 25th. I went to my twice weekly doctors visit where they monitored Isaiah's heart rate, my contractions, my BP, weight, etc, etc. I was feeling great that day, especially since I had such a wonderful Sunday (one of my best friends threw me a baby shower on Sunday! photos of that to come). It had only been 4 days since my previous visit and everything was still going fairly well so I had no big concerns...then I stepped on the scale...I had gained 12 pounds in 1 week! uh oh. I was having contraction (?really? I didn't feel them). My BP was still in a safe zone for a preeclamptic patient (140's/ 80's) so they sent me home with another jug to collect my pee. Yes, I said it...I had to collect my pee for 24 hours. This would be the 2nd, but not last, time I would get to enjoy this experience. Thankfully, Mark was the one who had to go back to the hospital and sit with a big stinky jug of my pee in the waiting room to get it to the lab...hahaha. Poor guy.

We got the results Tuesday afternoon that my proteinuria had jumped from 210 to 470 in 4 days...another uh oh. I was told to stay in bed and come in on Thursday for more non-stress testing. However, I was also starting to see spots to which the nurse I was speaking with responded, "oh, that's probably your eyes adjusting to the light, if it happens again call us." HUH?! My super fabuluous husband freaked out and called the high-risk doctor in Rockford who returned our call within the hour and within 2 minutes had my regular doctor on the phone to insist I be sent to the hospital immediately.

So I'm in the hospital, hooked up to all sorts of stuff. They decide to take my BP every hour, put me on nonstop fetal monitoring, collect ANOTHER 24 hr urine...etc, etc. They were essentially stalling. The on-call doctor finally made it in to see me late that evening. He was clearly very nervous and admitted that he was on pins and needles with a patient like me in his hospital on his watch. He said if were up to him he would deliver me immediately, but he could not overrule my primary care doctor without seeing me hit clinical markers for severe preeclampsia. After talking with us for about an hour, he called Rockford Memorial to get a go ahead to deliver me. The high-risk doc gave the ok, then the on-call doc decided to back pedal and decided he'd like to wait until the morning and have a discussion with other doctors before moving forward with anything. He was interested in putting a needle in my belly to test for lung maturation, but also needed an ok from my PCP. In the meantime, if I showed any more neurological symptoms he SAID he wouldn't hesistate to deliver the baby.

Clearly the doctors were concerned: 1) that Isaiah would have significant respiratory and/or neurological problems if born this early, despite the steroid injections and 2) that the preeclampsia would cause me to have seizures or would worsen the abruption causing me to bleed out rather quickly. For obvious reasons, Mark was terrified. It didn't really make things any better when they came in to pad up my bed in case I started seizing.

The following morning I was seeing spots again (signs that neurological complications may be impending) and my BP became labile (which means it was changing dramatically from 100/60 to high 150's/90's). We were told the night before that if my BP started doing this my risk of seizure skyrocketed and I would need to be treated immediately. At this point I freaked, especially because we thought we would be getting to speak with a doctor immediately, but we waited, and waited, and waited. Mark finally flipped out on the nurse while I cried like a little girl. In retrospect I'm sort of chuckling at how dramatic we were in that moment, but if there was ever a time to be over-the-top, that was it.

Thankfully our OB nurse got my primary care doctor on the phone immediately. Evidently our primary care doctor was OFFENDED that we had contacted the high-risk specialist in Rockford! What?! We clarified that her nurse was taking the liberty to give me piss poor medical advice of her own without consulting a physician and had not passed on info about my symptoms to the physicians... I don't think nurse "Jen" has a job anymore. :)! Strangely, things moved much quicker once this got cleared up.

Up to this point, Mark and I were irrate for several reasons: 1) our primary care doc missed not 1, but 2 very critical diagnoses, 2) although my symptoms worsened our doctor continued to neglect the situation, 3) once the high-risk doctors got involved it was clear no doctor that had seen me at Kishwaukee hospital was willing to make the call on what to do with me out of fear, 4)we had previously been told that the baby had received the proper protection with the steroids and would be born healthy any time after 33 weeks, once I was in the hospital at 34 weeks pending delivery, this information was clearly not true, and 5) I waited in a hospital bed without food for nearly 48 hours waiting for someone to step up and help us.

Mark made a list of all of the reasons he felt the baby should be delivered immediately, presented it to one of the doctors and flat out told them, "if you guys are too afraid to make a decision, I'll be more than happy to make the decision for you!"

Enter Dr. Sui....my new favorite person. In addition to everything mentioned above, the baby had stopped growing. He went from well above average size at 24 weeks to the lower 20th percentile at 34 weeks. Dr. Sui said for that reason alone, we should deliver the baby as my condition was clearly inhibiting the baby from further growth and the only reason for keeping him inside is for him to grow! Not shit? Really? This was a point Mark had brought up with the first doctor we had seen upon being admitted nearly 48 hrs earlier.

I was put on magnesium sulfate to prevent seizures (horrendous by the way, it makes you feel like you are on fire from the inside out..not just hot...ON FIRE!). It was decided to deliver the baby by C-section at 5:30 that evening. Yes, we were given the option to try to induce labor with a few caveats: 1) I would be given medications to induce labor, but my body would have to complete what is normally a 3 week preperation for birth in under 24 hours...with severe preeclampsia they would not let me labor for more than 24 hours due to the risks, 2) even if I only tried the induction for a few hours, there was a greater risk of hemmorage and seizure than if I would have a c-section, and 3) if I tried induction my chances were greater than 50% that I would end up with a c-section anyway.

We went with the safest approach and had a c-section...which was not the most pleasant experience, but did result in the quick delivery of my beautiful son! The numerous medications I was on to control everything from vomiting to pain made me unbelievably ill. Thankfully, Mark was with me and after only a few minutes of whining to him about how horrible I felt, I heard Isaiah cry...AND LOUDLY!

It was music to our ears. He passed all of the major markers (crying, cleared lungs, good apgar score, maintained core body temp, pooped, peed on the nurse....hahaha) all within a very short period of time. So he never had to be admitted to the NICU or even have oxygen. Mark went with him to the nursery where they bathed, weighed and measured while my surgery was finished and I went to recovery.

In the end, would I recommend a C-section...HELL NO! The drugs made me so sick I was vomiting all night long. Every time I sat up to hold Isaiah to feed him I had to vomit first, get IV anti-nausea meds to get me to stop, then feed the baby. It was EXHAUSTING and oddly wonderful at the same time (I'm sure other mommies can relate).

It was all worth it, of course. Isaiah is the most perfect thing ever. I've never been happier. I can spend an entire day sitting in bed staring at him and never get bored. I, of course, think he's the cutest child ever created...but I might be a little biased. He adores his daddy who went without sleep for days in the hospital to take care of him 24/7 while I recovered. Thanks to Mark, I got plenty of rest and upon returning home have felt fabulous. I think I'm healing pretty quickly and so far haven't experienced the exhaustion so many parents talk about once they arrive home. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that Mark helps out tremendously. He returned to work yesterday when Isaiah was only 5 days old and still manages to put in several hours at night changing diapers and feeding while I get my rest. Isaiah is also a huge help...he's a preemie so he pretty much sleeps all the time anyway and is a big eater (he's eating over 200-300 mL of high cal formula and 2 oz of breast milk a day), which can tide him over for up to 4 hours.

Today we had the biggest event yet. I have been trying to breastfeed, but my body was put through the ringer so I've been told that it could take me several weeks to produce enough milk to keep him healthy. In the meantime we are supplmenting with a high calorie formula so he can gain as much weight as possible. His tiny size prevents him from being able to maintain a body temp above 97 degrees. The faster he puts on weight, the easier it will be for him to regulate his body temp. So far he is eating tremendously, but we have had a few low temperature scares. Today was one of those days. I spent and 1 1/2 hours skin to skin with him under a heavy fleece blanket to warm him up. I know that this isn't a huge deal and that all will be well once I get his temp up, but it still makes me nervous. After getting warm, he continued to be fussy, which isn't like him...he's pretty content all the time. He didn't want a bottle, his diaper was clean...I was confused. I decided to give breastfeeding a try, although he pretty much latches, lays there, falls asleep and nothing happens, which has had me concerned when it comes to trying to get him off the formula and back to au naturale feeding. Today he latched and went to town...I'm sure this isn't exciting to anyone but me. I must confess, it made me so happy I had to call Mark at work to tell him.

And now I think...OH MY GOD...I'm going to be that lady! I'm the breastfeeding mommy in the park who uses words like "engorged" and "letting down" and can talk about nothing but infant development. So my dear friends, if you are still with me, please continue to test my knowledge of current events, past events, or anything non-baby. I can happily announce that shortly after Isaiah was born, I was able to put together complete sentences and even use three-syllable words once again. A moment my husband declared a miracle, while he hugged and kissed me...he feared I was gone forever. :) Now all I need to do is diversify my topic of interest. So again, I beg you, please...please...please, save a friend from being THAT MOMMY and force a girl to have a normal conversation again.

That's all for now.

Pictures of Isaiah's First 4 days