Abby Update: 6 Months Old

Posted on March 20, 2014 by justeeni

Weight: 11 pounds, 14 ounces

Yesterday Abby had her 6 month check up and she’s doing great. Her iron, which has been very low ever since she was born, and especially since the UofM incident, is finally up above the normal threshold. Her weight is increasing at a happy rate and she’s closing in on first percentile (which, for us, is a big deal). Her left foot, which has been turned in since before she was born, most likely due to her breech position is improving, but still turned in enough for us to be doing some work on it at home. She may or may not need to see orthopedics in a few months.

This month Abby started out waking up during some nights, but now is consistently sleeping about 7-9 hours a night. Even during our trip up north, she kept sleeping through. On the other hand, we haven’t been able to get her on any sort of predictable eating/sleeping routine or schedule. Until a couple of days ago, that is, when she suddenly started eating and napping about every three hours with one extra snack in the morning. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Abby rolled over this month, from her tummy to her back. She smiles a lot, and loves to be talked to (probably due to a lack of attention which is definitely due to a needy older sister who shall remain nameless). She started laughing recently which is so much fun.

One of Abby’s favorite things is what we call the baby blimp. Even when she’ll in an all-out crying fit, we can usually get a smile out of her using this little technique. Lydia calls it the baby balloon.

This month Abby starred in our Church’s talent show: Fur Rondezvous, in “The Story of Abigail“.

Abby still loves to bounce. She loves her bouncy seat and is in the process of learning to fall asleep without Mom or Dad bouncing her into sleep. She’s getting close to being able to hold onto things, which will be especially fun as Lydia always wants to give her toys to hold. She’s looking more like her older sister. Every day we love her more and couldn’t imagine life without our Abigail.

…To Grandmother’s House We Go!

Posted on March 18, 2014 by justeeni

Thursday morning we all got up early, packed our bags, and headed North. I wasn’t very faithful in my picture taking throughout the trip (completely missed Aunt Christina and the cousins, Uncle Nate and Aunt Steph, and Lydia’s great grandparents on my mom’s side), but here’s a glimpse into the good time we had.

A long drive, a fussy baby, some delicious burritos, a visit with Aunt Christina and her boys, and more driving brought us FINALLY to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Lydia loved a special toy from Grandma: an old purse stuffed with sunglasses and a broken cell phone.

There was a lot of reading.

And it should be noted that a significant portion of this trip was spent trying to keep Abby from staring at bright lights. You’ll notice in the picture above that she was succeeding.

Lydia gorged herself on homemade guacamole.

During the Carlson Christmas celebration, Uncle Tim serenaded Abigail with his guitar.

Lydia got a piano and played us some tunes. The poor piano didn’t fit in our car so we’re waiting for the next visit to bring it home.

Then Lydia tried her hand at Uncle Tim’s guitar.

Nana and Papa got in some seriously needed snuggle time with Abby.

And Nana read more Lydia more books.

Lydia gorged herself on blueberries too.

And the great grandparents finally got to meet Abigail.

It was so good to finally, finally make it up to see everybody and let them see (and read to, play with, and snuggle) the girls. Now we’re all home again, safe and sound. There was a lot of laundry to catch up on and we all needed some good long naps. Traveling with kiddos is no easy task, but the memories will last a lifetime.

Here it is!

Posted on February 25, 2014 by justeeni

Abby Update: 5 Months Old

Posted on February 10, 2014 by justeeni

Weight: 10 pounds, 2 ounces

Eat, sleep, and smile have been Abby’s main activities this month. She often sleeps eight hours at night, but she makes up for that by eating every one and a half to two hours during the day. One night in January Abby suddenly stopped having her evening fussy time (from 7ish to 10 every night) and she hasn’t gone back. She also outgrew her newborn hold-me-all-the-time desires and sometimes she’ll even squirm and cry until you put her down.

Abby spends a lot of time in her bouncy seat. She hates being on her tummy. Recently, while laying in her jungle, she learned that she can make the hanging toys rattle by swinging her arms at them, so that’s been an exciting development for her. She also loves bath time. Her whale-of-a-tale bathtub came with a goldfish “strainer” toy that we use to drizzle water on her and that always gets her to smile. Lately Abby has been trying to fit her whole fist into her mouth. She hasn’t been able to succeed, so she usually gets pretty frustrated.

More than anything, Abby loves to bounce. When she’s tired and won’t fall asleep, she needs to be bounced lightly. Whether it’s in her bouncy seat, or in Mommy or Daddy’s arms, Abby just loves bouncing. We’ve dubbed this BBS for bouncing baby syndrome, because it always gets her to fall into a contented sleep.

Abby’s nicknames continue to be numerous, but the most commonly used ones are: Abby, Abs, and Abster. We don’t really think about it when we use them, but then it’s adorable to hear Lydia tell Abby goodnight, “I love you Abs!”.

NICU Survival Guide

Posted on January 13, 2014 by justeeni

Now that we’ve had two babies spend time in the NICU (124 days between the two of them), I wanted to take some time to write a little guide for ourselves and anyone else who may find themselves spending any extended amount of time with a baby in the NICU.

Preparations

If you have a clue ahead of time that baby might come early, my best advice is to plan ahead as much as possible. Cook and freeze meals, the more, the better. Make sure you have everything prepared for when Baby comes home. Errands are no fun once Baby is born. Figure out a workable routine, find out if you (or your spouse ) can work from home, and set up any extra help or baby sitters.

When Baby Comes

When Baby is born, the first thing to do is take a deep breath and process a little. A new baby changes everything, but a new baby in the NICU really changes everything. Once you’ve had a chance to take a deep breath (and decide on a name!), it’s time to make some phone calls. Announcing the birth of you child is exciting and when Baby comes early it’s even more of a surprise to those on the other end of the line. When I called my mom to tell her that Lydia was born (nine weeks early), she answered the phone by saying, “What do you know about puppies?”. My sister’s new puppy had just hurt her foot and my mom was trying to decide if she needed to take her to the vet. It was pretty comical (later).

If your baby is healthy and doing well, considering the circumstances (just trust what the doctors tell you) make sure you start off every announcement with that information. And halfway through, you should say it again. And then, before you hang up or say goodbye, say it again. Most people don’t know much about premature babies. I certainly didn’t. And they don’t know how critical of a condition your baby is actually in.

Believe the Doctors

The first question everyone has about a preemie is, “How long will we have to stay in the NICU?”. Doctors don’t like to give out false hope or unrealistic expectations, and their estimates are usually pretty good. For Lydia, they guessed 6-8 weeks, and she came home in 6. For Abby, they guessed 8-12 weeks, and she came home in 11 1/2.

However, both our girls started out fantastically. Every day we came in to hear praise about how well they were doing. We let it get to our heads and figured, surely, they would be home sooner than the original estimate. But the NICU is a roller coaster with unexpected turns, and both times the doctors were ultimately right. When I asked Dan what his best NICU advice was, it was to listen to the doctors estimate and don’t doubt it even if your baby seems to be doing amazing.

The First Week

The first week always feels like a whirlwind to us. First Baby comes, then there are announcements and visitors. You get to watch everyone’s reaction to your news and share your story. But after a couple of days, and you head home from the hospital, you have to get a plan together for how you’re going to handle your NICU stay. When Abby was born, both my parents and Dan’s parents came down at different times to watch Lydia and help around the house while I recovered. We would have completely fallen apart without that help.

During that week I sat down on Excel and figured out a tentative schedule that allowed us to visit Abby twice a day. We had to see if Dan could get in eight hours of work each day. It turns out he could, but only by working six days a week, getting up early, and going to bed late. If you do this, don’t forget to account for drive time. It was not uncommon for either Dan or I to spend over two hours in the car every day between driving to work, the hospital, home, and Lydia’s Babysitter’s.

Also during the first week, my parents took me grocery shopping. We stocked up on food for the next four weeks. I also got to ride around Meijer in one of their little electric scooters.

It’s OK to Cry

When I have babies in the NICU, I cry. I cry when they are admitted. I cry when they are not doing well. And I cry, even when they are. It’s sad. It’s hard. Your baby is supposed to be at home or in your belly. Not in an isolette. So it’s ok to cry.

I talked to a NICU mom once who had been in the NICU for two months already. They had a long road ahead and I empathized with her. She smiled and light-heartedly told me it was “sort of fun” to have a baby in the NICU. I hid my shock, but in my mid-NICU-super-emotional state, I felt like she had no heart.

I saw another Mom standing at her baby’s isolette, just watching her baby sleep. She was crying. I always liked that Mom after that, because it was so obvious how much she loved her baby boy.

Now, I’m all for having a good attitude and looking on the bright side. But you don’t have to pretend everything is perfect. It’s ok to cry.

Feeding Your Baby

Feeding times are the times you really want to be in the NICU. This is when you get to change your baby’s diaper, take your baby’s temperature, and, once your baby is stable enough, hold him or her. Once babies are over a week old, they usually have their feeding time every three hours.

Mothers of preemies aren’t able to nurse their babies so they have to express milk with a pump to be fed to their baby through a feeding tube. Lactations consultants recommend pumping every three hours, around the clock. I found that it works best to pump one hour after Baby’s feeding time, so that you can be involved with the hands-on part and not skip a pumping time. I also found that, once the milk supply is established and if it’s plentiful enough, it worked well to pump an hour early before bed and and hour late afterward so that you could have a couple of four hour stretches during the night.

Dan and I like to be at the hospital at least twice a day. This way we could each get a turn holding the Baby, and we could often be there for rounds. We got a morning update on how the night went and an evening update on how the day went.

What about Meals?

I’m sure a lot of NICU parents just eat out for every meal during their NICU stay. Dan and I avoided this for two reasons. One: it’s more expensive. Two: It’s much less healthy. And during the chaos of a NICU stay, eating junk won’t make things any better but it can make things a lot worse.

To handle this issue I made a meal plan of fast, easy-to-put-together meals for one week. We ate things like spaghetti, rice and beans, curry with frozen veggies and a store-bought sauce, veggies and hummus, and chili (which was the most time consuming meal and I wouldn’t choose that one again). And we repeated it every week until Abby came home. We would go grocery shopping once a month or so to buy the non-perishables. For the fresh produce, we asked a family from church to buy our groceries once a week and deliver them to us at church. They graciously continued to do this for the entire time Abby was in the NICU.

We also had one night a week when we ate Qdoba using gift cards given to us by loving friends from church. Those nights were my favorite. No preparation and no clean up.

Babysitters

With Abby we had another challenge of taking a care of a toddler while visiting the NICU. It worked best for us to bring Lydia once a day and leave her with a sitter during our second visit. Our favorite way to do this was to take her in the morning. In the evening we would eat dinner together and tuck her into bed. Then the baby sitters would come and stay while Lydia slept and we went to the hospital. We had such loving sitters who also tidied our messy living room, cleaned our dishes, and did our laundry. Those nights were also my favorites.

We found that it was very important to spend one-on-one time with Lydia. Snuggling, reading, tickling, talking, and playing were very important because she was getting much less Mommy and Daddy time than before. Sometimes she would scream from her bed at night, but we realized it wasn’t because she was being “bad”, it was because she was having trouble coping with our being away so much. So on those nights I would snuggle her extra until she was ready to sleep.

Get to Know Parents and Nurses

One of the most therapeutic things Dan and I chose to do was to make friends in the NICU. Time in the NICU passes slowly, but having another baby to cheer on helps a lot. Talking to other parents is encouraging, distracting, and helps pass the days. We had a lot of fun celebrating when our friends would move to an open crib or take their first bottle.

It also helps to make friends with the nurses. They are the people you’ll see the most and they are the ones caring for your (very) little bundle. It’s a lot better to have friends watch your baby than strangers. We also discovered that nurses which we didn’t care for at first, grew on us as we got to know them.

Once we transferred to Mott’s, we had trouble getting to know our nurses. It was just a less-friendly atmosphere. So we made an extra effort and brought them chocolate. That helped a lot. We also befriended Russell, the parking lot attendant.

Take Naps

The house is trashed. The sink is full of dishes. The laundry isn’t folded. Take a nap.

Someone just called your phone. A delivery man knocked on the door. You didn’t get to shower today. Take a nap anyway.

Some things just have to wait. Sleep isn’t one of them. Life in the NICU is hard enough without being exhausted. And, even with naps you’re still not going to get enough sleep, so take them!

Turn to Jesus

Even if you follow all of my NICU advice and think of fifteen other helpful things, having a baby in the NICU is still rough. Our greatest source of strength and hope rested in Jesus Christ. God is, after all, the Great Physician, and even if doctors fail, He never will. He knit together that Baby in Mom’s womb, and He can keep knitting that Baby together out of it.

Many times, I felt like everything was falling apart, and I didn’t even know what to pray. But I remember riding in the car, looking up at the night sky and silently crying out, “Help me! Help us! We need Your help!” Sometimes the change wasn’t instant, but He always came. He always helped.

Times when I felt so down I knew no one could offer me any comfort and He would. Through a song in the car, through a sermon at church, or through some unexpected blessing, He would carry us along.

The Roller Coaster Must End Sometime

There were times when I seriously thought Abby would never come home from the hospital. I thought she would just stay there forever, not finishing her bottles, not gaining weight, not keeping her temperature up. It’s silly, I know. But that’s how it felt.

Life in the NICU is a roller coaster ride. There are unexpected turns, and many ups and downs. But, the roller coaster will end. There will be a time when you will stop taking those car rides to the hospital every day. There will be a day when you have time to wash your own dishes and do your own grocery shopping. It’s true, what they say, that there are no kindergarteners in the NICU.

I hope this post will be useful for some. Or perhaps it can give others a glimpse into NICU life. And if not, thanks for bearing with me. If Dan and I have another baby I know that we will, at least, find this to be a great help.

Abby Update: 4 Months

Posted on January 10, 2014 by justeeni

Weight: 8 pounds, 9 ounces

Tomorrow Abby will be four months old. In the 82 days she spent in the NICU, she gained a total of 2 pounds, 13 ounces. In the 41 days she has spent at home she has gained 2 pounds, 13 ounces, exactly the same amount of weight in half the time. I thought that was pretty cool.

Abby is doing great. She eats about every three hours, but recently started sleeping about 5-6 hours at night. In the mornings she likes to sit with Dan as he works for an hour or two from home before going in to work (to avoid traffic).

During the day Abby mostly just sleeps. She started smiling a couple of weeks ago and is her smiliest early in the morning. During the evening she has another “awake time” but that one is usually not a very smiley time for her. She loves to be held as much as possible and worn in a wrap with Mommy during the day.

We have come up with a lot of nicknames for Abby. Aborigine, Aboriginal, Abbs, Munchkin 2, and the most recent: Abigus. Abigus originated when Dan put her swaddle on like toga one morning. Super cute.

See? Abby’s favorite way to play is when we poke her in the nose. Dan figured that one out, but I’m not sure how. If Abby’s in a decent mood, that’s the best way to get a smile out of her.

When Life Gives Us Lemons

Posted on December 16, 2013 by justeeni

Last week Lydia was eating sunflower seeds out of a cup. I noticed her sneeze as she reclined in Abby’s Boppy and then saw something come out of her nose. Surprised, I called her over to discover that it was a sunflower seed she had stuck up her nose. I quickly informed her that she should never again put anything up her nose, especially a sunflower seed and then told her to throw it in the trash can.

She shoved it up her nose again.

I quickly grabbed her and looked up her nose, but there was no seed in sight. I told her to blow her nose, but she sucked air in instead. Thinking to myself, “I have to get her to sneeze”, I put some pepper in my hand and told her to smell it. No sneeze. I called Dan while Lydia kept pouring out pepper and sniffing it, something she now thinks is hilarious.

Dan searched online and found some instructions on performing a “Mother’s Kiss”. I plugged Lydia’s other nostril (the one without the seed in it), covered her mouth with mine, and gently blew. The seed didn’t come out, but Lydia thought this was hilarious too. I finally gave up, but a few moments later Lydia walked over to me with the seed in her hand. It worked.

The next day we had a container of cherry tomatoes sitting on the table, leftover from a meal provided by a family from our church the night before. As I was taking care of Abigail, Lydia wandered over to the table, crawled up a chair, and started eating the tomatoes. “Well, tomatoes are good for her”, I thought to myself and didn’t pay much attention. A few minutes later Lydia started screaming, “Salsa! Salsa! Pants!”. I didn’t know what she was talking about and told her everything was just fine.

When she didn’t calm down I came to her to find out what the problem was. She had overeaten on tomatoes and thrown up all over her pants. I cleaned her up and chuckled about the situation and then got on the computer to do some work. Lydia asked to sit in my lap and a few moments later threw up again, all over my pants this time.

As you can see, things are sometimes crazy around this home now that we have two little ones. While we are happy to have Abby home, I would be lying if I pretended everything was going perfectly. But, at least the exciting happenings are something we can laugh about…later. Along with Lydia’s shenanigans, Abby is contributing to the madness and Dan and I haven’t been getting much sleep.

Now, Dan manages ok without sleep, but I tend to get a little, well…moody. One minute I’m snuggling my girls, the next I’m angry, the next I’m crying, than we’re all hugging again. Sometimes the only good thing to do is laugh.

Last week Abby decided she only wanted to sleep while being held on the couch…all night long. Around the same time I followed some internet instructions on washing a pillow that Lydia had thrown up on. The pillow came out of the wash not only torn open, but completely deformed. And so, between my nights on the couch and in bed on a lumply pillow, I have developed a terribly stiff neck.

Now Abby likes to sleep on her Boppy during the day, so one day I was inspired to follow her example and I took a nap on the floor lying with my head on the Boppy. It turns out the Boppy is pretty comfortable! Well Dan blessed me with an early Christmas present this weekend: a new pillow. But we still took the time last night to marvel and the comfort of a Boppy and thought how strange it would look if we just replaced our pillows on the bed with Boppys for one and all.

Last night I was having some of my sleep-deprived mood swings. I had been happily snuggling with Dan on the floor next to the couch as we played with Abby. Then we got dinner ready (well, a family from church had given us dinner and we heated it all up). Somewhere in there I got mad and by the time we were eating I was crying. Once that was over there was a moment of silence. Dan looked at some cut up lemons that had been given to us by the family from church. He said, “Want to see who can eat a quarter of a lemon faster?”

Of course, that was the best thing to do at the time, so to break all of the tension we had a brief lemon-eating competition. Even though he hates anything sour, Dan finished his in about one tenth the time that I did, but cheered me on for finishing anyway.

All that to say, things are pretty crazy around here, but we’re trying to stay good humored. And while we may not be laughing at it all just yet, we have at least learned how to cope. When life gives you lemons, have a lemon-eating competition.

This is Love

Posted on December 9, 2013 by justeeni

A few nights ago I was up at three in the morning with Abby. Dan had taken a few days off of work when Abby came home but he went back on Thursday and Friday, and he had asked me to start taking over all of the night time feedings, which was what both of us had planned on happening all along.

But I was so tired. As I sat in the glider with Abby my mind drifted off to all of the couples I have seen lately who have recently become engaged, or married, or celebrated their first wedding anniversaries. According to their Facebook pages their days and nights have been quite full with a lot of dates, love letters, flowers, and special time together.

My mind drifted through Dan and my own early days of marriage, then fast-forwarded to the past few months. We spent almost three long months with Abby in the hospital. At times, it felt like one long nightmare. Three emotional, exhausting, painful, long months. There wasn’t time, energy, or money for flowers or chocolate or date nights. We didn’t even have a free moment to just sit together on our couch.

And now Abby is home. Things are happier and much less crazy. Our house is cleaner than it has been since we moved in. But things are still busy, as any mother of two or more would surely understand. And once again there has been no time, money, or energy for date nights or flowers or love letters…you get the idea.

So as I sat there with Abby, so tired, thinking about all these latest events in my life and others, I was struggling to have a good attitude. I began to pray.

God reminded me of the reasons I married Dan. And I remembered my first joy I at being the one who gets to serve him for the rest of his life. I remembered how Eve was created to be Adam’s helper, and how that’s my main job today. And then God brought to mind a passage from Philippians:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

It occurred to me then, that this is true love. It isn’t always happy, or easy, or pretty. This is how Jesus loved us. He humbled himself, came to earth, suffered, was rejected, and died. If this is God’s great example of love, then I can follow His example in how I love Dan. So even when there’s no money for flowers, no time for date nights, and no energy to stay up a few minutes longer together and talk at night, I can still love Dan like Jesus did.

During the late nights, the hard work, and the times apart I can still demonstrate real love to Dan.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the other stuff.

I know it’s an old lesson, and I’ll probably need to learn it again. But it was a good one I thought worth sharing. I made it through the three AM feeding with a song in my heart and a smile (a sleepy smile, that is) on my face. And a couple of nights later the girls were asleep and Dan and I, for the first time in a long time, had the time and energy to sit together on our couch chatting and looking at the lights on our newly decorated Christmas tree.

Babymoon

Posted on December 6, 2013 by justeeni

Abby Update: 9 Weeks Old

Posted on November 13, 2013 by justeeni

Gestation: 37 weeks, 4 days
Weight: 4 pounds, 5 ounces
Feedings: However much she wants by bottle, every three hours

Right now, everyone is just waiting on Abby. On Monday she had lost 10 grams (1/3 of an ounce). Tuesday she stayed the same. Today, however, she gained 36 grams (1 ounce)!

Every feeding time has become a circus act of trying to feed, frequently burp, and hold Abby all while moving her as little as possible. I think it might be working, even though she still spits up at almost every feed. The nice part for us is that she eats like a champ, and frequently wants to eat more after spitting up. On Monday night Abby finally nursed again, and then spit up more than she took in. Then she followed up with a full bottle which she did manage to keep down. Other than that one feed Abby still won’t nurse. We’re trying not to focus on that right now and just try to get enough food in her however she will take it.

Edit: Abby did nurse again this morning and took in 42 milliliters, a full feed!

Abby’s blood and urine cultures came back looking good, which means she doesn’t have an infection. Still, we’re holding off on the hernia surgery until she is a little more stable, consistently gaining weight. It’s possible that she may have her surgery Monday morning.

Abby’s isolette temperature is set at 27.5 degrees Celsius. Every three hours, they take her temperature, and if it’s a little high, they’ll turn down the isolette by half a degree. When it gets down to 26, she can move to an open crib again.

Everyone was so excited at rounds today because of Abby’s big weight gain, that they jumped right to talking about discharge. No, she is not ready to go home yet. But now that she gained weight once, everyone is eager to send her home soon (babies always do better once they get home).

Dan and I are hanging in there. One night as we walked into the hospital, I was insisting that I can’t take any more. It’s one thing when you feel like you can’t take it. It’s another matter when your body starts having problems. Dan and I have been getting a lot of headaches, and mine threaten to become migraines that make me sick and keep me from being able to do much. Dan suggested that it must be possible to handle all of this without “freaking out” or completely “losing it”, because “Hudson Taylor could do it”. I pointed out that, while Hudson Taylor was able to handle trials, heartache, responsibility, and all other sorts of stress all while calmly and peacefully “resting in Jesus”, he did have two wives that both died. Well, in light of our stress and that conversation, we’ve been re-reading a favorite book of ours, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret during our numerous car rides to and from the hospital. I think it might be helping.

Praise the Lord
We are thanking God for:
-that Abby gained weight!
-that it seems like Abby might be spitting up slightly less
-that Abby doesn’t have an infection
-a couple of successful nursing attempts in the past few days
-Hudson Taylor’s story and the encouragement it has given us

Please Pray:
-that Abby will continue to gain weight, spit up less, and keep her temperature up
-that our family will continue to “hang in there” until Abby comes home
-that Abby won’t have any more setbacks

MI Taylor Family

We live in Michigan.

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