I’m late, I know!

June 12, 2013

By Lisa

I hope this was worth the wait:

Silly girl!

Baby is at 4 lbs 11 oz this morning – about the same as yesterday. She’s gained 5 grams since her last weigh-in. Leah’s breathing rate has been measuring pretty high, so they took her in for a chest x-ray yesterday as well as some labs. Things seem to look okay right now, although her heart looks a little big. They are going to do another echocardiogram next week; the last one was taken soon after her birth. The doctor wants to put her on Lasix, though – we’re going to talk to her soon and hopefully I’ll have more of an update. Keep sending those positive thoughts and prayers, please – hopefully Leah does not have to deal with major heart issues on top of her digestive tract malformations.

Long day!

June 10, 2013

By Lisa

We had a long day in the NICU today! Mama Mandy and Gran stayed with LeahBug this AM while Mama Lisa went to the ER again (come on now – this is getting ridiculous). Later in the day, Aunti Staci came to visit, and then this evening, BabyBug got to meet her cousin Zach! Didn’t take too many pictures today but this is my favorite – Zach was asking about the glowy band wrapped around Leah’s foot and the nurse explained that it measures her oxygen saturation level. I noted that for grown-ups this would usually be attached to our finger, and then commented that our fingers probably aren’t that much smaller than Leah’s foot. And then this picture happened. Itty bitty baby feets!

A month and a day

June 9, 2013

By Lisa

Slow day on the picture-taking front, largely because Mama Shutterbug was feeling L-for-Lousy. Leah is still hovering around 4 lbs, 9.5 oz, but we think they’re probably going to increase her calories-per-feeding tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll see some more weight gain. BabyBug had a nice long visit from her Uncle Ralph today, but otherwise mostly just kicked back, relaxed, and pooped. ‘Cause she’s a baby and that’s what she does.

Whoever invented the Boppy is brilliant. Makes snuggling with SwaddledBug so much easier!

Wee baby fingers saying hello to Mama Mandy

Because I know you have all been very anxious to see BabyBug meeting her great-grandparents. So anxious that several of you have demanded the photograph by email. Hehe.

Happy one-month birthday, BabyBug

June 9, 2013

By Lisa

Today (technically yesterday, June 8) was Leah’s one-month birthday! It’s so strange that a whole month has passed, and yet it’s so strange that only a month has passed.

Baby Leah met her other great-grandparents today (again, technically yesterday). We had a great visit and I’m awaiting permission to post a picture. 🙂 Leah also gained back the weight she lost the day before yesterday. She’s 4 lbs and a little over 9 oz.

GoofyBug! She looks so funny in hats that are too big for her. She will grow into them!

Promised photos, delivered in full!

June 7, 2013

By Lisa

WHAT A DAY! Little bug lost 0.3 oz last night, but we’re hoping she’ll have gained some back tonight. I don’t know though – she had a rough day. Early on the day wasn’t so bad – she had a nice visit with friends Cathy and Gene, and was held (in full swaddle) by both mamas. But her afternoon was pretty hard. They’ve started putting gauze over her g-tube to cover it up while we do kangaroo time. I think today was the third day they did it, and the nurse used a particularly huge piece of gauze this time. Well, while I was holding Leah she was really squirmy and fussy even after she was fed, so we put her back down to see what was wrong. As it turned out, the big piece of gauze was stuck to the g-tube and had edged it out of her tummy about half an inch. No wonder she was squirmy! Resolving the issue was even more uncomfortable for her, especially since they had to take the tape off and reposition the tube. It broke our hearts to see her crying so hard. Thankfully once it was back in place she seemed to calm down a bit, and was thoroughly tuckered out after that ordeal. I’m sure she got a great nap after that.

Thank you to everybody who has wished me well before and after my procedure this past Wednesday. I’m pretty much recovered from the procedure itself, but it may take a few days (up to a week) before I’ll know whether it actually worked. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Not much else to say today. We’re still stunned over the mass shooting in Santa Monica today. This one really hits close to home, literally but also figuratively. I hope you’re all safe tonight, dear LA friends and family! I hope the worst thing that happened to you today was that you got stuck in traffic because of the President’s motorcade.

Now for the pictures I promised!

This is how my little bug looked when I saw her for the first time in over 24 hours.

That really is a normal-sized finger. She’s just an itty bitty finger-thief.

Baby kangaroo

The almost-thumb-suck. She’s kind of gnawing on the knuckle. Really she’s just doing her impression of her Uncle Ralph posing for a picture.

Blankie of the day

Requisite scrunchy face

Dreaming of dancing pacifiers

This is the “I know you’re there and I want to open my eyes but it’s too much work” face.

Content little bug

Wide awake!

BabyBug is starting to sprout real non-invisible eyelashes! Any day now her eyebrows will grow in too…

Visit from Pammi

“People, I had a hard day. You don’t even know.”

There’s a baby in there somewhere…

Another quick update

June 6, 2013

By Lisa

Leah is 4 lbs 8.8 oz today. It’ll be another short entry because I didn’t see my tiny bug until late this afternoon as I was still in bed sleeping off the anesthesia from yesterday. Mandy was there all day yesterday and today but you just try to get her to blog! Hehe. (I’m working on it…) Anyway, as sooooon as I got to the hospital, they had to do a bedside surgery on another baby in the room, so we couldn’t go in there for another couple of hours. I missed my little LeahBug! When I finally did get to see her we had kangaroo time for over an hour, and for the first 15 minutes her eyes were wide awake and she was looking around the room going, “Hmmm. This is a new angle.” But she finally went to sleep as I sang “Soft Kitty” and the Meow Mix jingle to her and told her all about her big brothers Lobo and Jeepers and how they can’t wait to meet her.

It’s funny how Leah looks so much bigger than she did when she was born, and yet she’s still smaller than you realize until you see her in front of you. We got her some more preemie shirts this weekend and they still look huge on her. The preemie diapers are pretty freakin’ huge on her too. She’s just a bitty bitty baby.

Pictures tomorrow, I promise. I forgot my camera today in my rush to get to the hospital after not seeing my baby girl in over 24 hours!!

Mostly pictures today

June 5, 2013

By Lisa

Not much to report today, largely because I didn’t get to go to the hospital at all today. 🙁 I had my procedure this morning and then came back to RM House to recuperate / sleep off the anesthesia. I’m still a little groggy, but otherwise okay.

Mandy spent the day in the NICU with Leah, and reports that she is just over 4 lbs 7 oz today. She is now getting all of her food via “bolus feeding,” which means that she feeds every three hours and when she feeds she gets all of the food at once instead of having it spread out over a period of time (yesterday she was getting her food over half an hour).

Still a little loopy so I’ll get right to the pictures!

Sleepy precious bug

Sweet babydoll

Angry baby!

Magically calm baby! And look how cute our shirt is!

Baby resists sleep

Adorrrrbs

Toesies

New shirt

Cross-eyed baby

“But I don’t wanna go to sleep!”

Brief update

June 4, 2013

By Lisa

We had our family conference today with the surgeons, Leah’s NICU doctor and the social worker. Aunti Staci came too so she could ask fancy medical questions. I think in terms of Leah’s progress over the next few months we didn’t hear anything really new new – this was mostly explaining in more technical and concrete terms what we already sort of knew vaguely – that we’re waiting to see how long the gap is between Leah’s esophagus and her stomach, what the surgical options are depending on what the gap looks like, and what potential post-surgery outcomes we can expect. The first time we met the surgeons they reviewed this information briefly, but once we heard “five months” come out of their mouths everything pretty much sounded like Charlie Brown grown-ups (“Wa wahh, wah wah wah wahhhh”). It was nice to be able to meet with them again after having had some time to process what we’re going to be facing these next few months.

So here’s the substantive update for now: Later this month they will take the g-tube out and put a “Mic-Key” button, which will allow BabyBug to only be hooked up to the feeding tube during the times when she’s actually feeding. The rest of the time the “button” will be closed. For right now this probably doesn’t mean much to her, although her mamas are SUPER excited about getting to put her in all the adorable onesies we have waiting for her at home. But if she still has to feed by tube when she’s a little older, then it’ll make a bigger difference to her as it allows for more freedom of movement; kids can run around wearing these things. When they do the procedure to put in the Mic-Key button, that’s when they will do the contrast study to visualize the gap and also check on some other issues that could potentially arise with her condition. So hopefully by the end of this month we’ll have a better idea of what the next steps look like. Either way, they’re still planning to wait for surgery until she reaches about 9-10 lbs, for a variety of reasons both general and particular.

Other than that, not too much news to report today. BabyBug went through epic numbers of diapers, and things got really messy a couple of times. She thinks it’s adorable to wait until the diaper’s off and in the process of being changed before she really gets going. And we’re getting to see the fussy side of Sweet Calm BabyBug as she’s finally starting to experience hunger. She was on continuous feeds but slowly they have been shifting her to interval feeding. At this point her feeds are about 40mL over the course of half an hour, with 2.5 hours in between each feed. By the end of that 2.5 hour stretch, BabyGirl is HUNGRY and FUSSY and REALLY PISSED OFF. Then about 20 seconds after they start the milk, she calms down. It’s magic!

In other news… this afternoon I went downstairs to the cafeteria today to heat up Mama Mandy’s lunch for her. When I came back up I sat in the waiting room for a few minutes and then looked around and noticed it was awfully crowded today and some people had rearranged the chairs in the middle. And they had installed new vending machines. A few minutes later I looked up and saw somebody being wheeled out of the double-doors next to the waiting room. I thought to myself, “Why are they wheeling a man out of post-partum???” Then I realized it was the cardiac wing. Wrong floor. Whoops. Baby brain!

Can a baby have a bad hair day?

June 3, 2013

By Lisa

BabyGirl is 4 lbs 6 oz today! Go Leah!

“Hurrah! Go me!”

Not too much else to update. We had a nice quiet day in the NICU today, just Mama Lisa, Mama Mandy and a tiny, tiny BabyBug.

Now for some more pics!

Toeses

Babygirl was having a rough hair day. So emo.

BabyBug and her awesome hair post-costume-change.

Sweet peaceful bug. I tried to comb out her hair and this is as good as I could get it. It must have dried sticking straight up after her last bath. This, I can forgive… but I’m going to be very suspicious if we walk in there tomorrow and find her with a faux-hawk. Aunti Staci, are you sneaking in at midnight to do Baby’s hair?