Last week at home...

I can’t believe it’s been 3 months… I can’t believe Thursday July 28, my baby girl will be 3 months old! She has gone through so much already!

With my mom leaving and the new challenge we had to face, I totally gave up on breastfeeding… James and I thought about it and we decided it was best for Emily and I to enjoy the time we have left together rather than getting frustrated and trying something that I’m not sure it was working out for Emily anyway… I know exactly how much she is being fed now through the bottle and we feel she is much more content as she is probably eating more breast milk. The important thing for us is that she is getting breast milk!

I’ve continued to pump and she only drinks breast milk exclusively. I continue to get up at 3:30am to pump since my lactation consultant mentioned over and over again that special chemicals are released at night that help with milk production.

I’m going to try to continue to pump in the middle of the night when I go back to work. I guess I will have to go to bed earlier to make up for that time. It’s ok! It will work out!

I was able to freeze about 100 ounces of breast milk so far! I’m so happy about that! We had to buy a new fridge/freezer to put in the garage for the breast milk because we were running out of space for food! LOL

Tomorrow, June 26th, Emily will spend half a day with our new nanny to get used to her and the new environment and Friday she will spend all day at the nanny, Ms Victoria.

I hope it goes well. I’m nervous! Emily has not spent any time with anybody but daddy and mommy.

It’s a full week of events… we also have our optimistically LAST follow-up with the orthopedist and we hope to hear that Emily doesn’t have to wear the harness anymore! We also have a follow-up Thursday with the surgeon to check on the incisions. I hope it goes well because we can’t bathe her right now and she loves her bath time… right now it’s only sponge bath and she is not enjoying it!

I’m also catching up with a couple of friends for lunch this week to get back in the swing of things!

I worry about work... I know it will be an adjustment and I worry about not being able to be as efficient as I was and that my bosses won't give me the time to adjust... My job was my everything and I spent a lot of time on it and unfortunately or fortunately - I'm not saying this is good or bad -, I will have to make some adjustments.

Wish me luck! I hope I’m not a total nervous wreck Monday…

My freezer breastmilk stash! Liquid Gold!

Emily conquered another challenge… surgery at 11 weeks! (Day 2)

July 21st… 2am Emily finally wakes up!

She had been sleeping since the surgery non-stop and was only awake for a couple of minutes last evening around 7pm. It has been very stressful! The nurses assure me it’s normal due to the anesthesia…

James went home, the room only had a small couch and he needed to care for the dogs!

I’m laying down on the couch trying to sleep and I start to hear these sweet little sounds… some gooo, aaahhh, ooo-oooo … it’s Emily, it’s 2am and she is WIDE AWAKE! It was wonderful to hear her! She looked good! Maybe she will eat a little bit! I held her carefully since she was still hooked to the IV and oxygen monitor and we just looked at each other for a little while… it was very special!

Emily drank 2 ounces! It doesn’t seem much but since she didn’t have anything for so many hours, I didn’t want to give her too much at ounce!

The nurse stopped by and checked her vitals… her body temperature is too low, she feels cold to the touch… we wrap her really well and I hold her tight for a while… at 5am she fell asleep again and slept until 7am. At that point, she drank 4 ounces of breast milk! Yeah good sign… her temperature is still low…

Finally around 9am all of her vitals were back to normal and her temperature had risen to a normal 98 degrees!

Hopefully we will go home some time today…

Emily conquered another challenge… surgery at 11 weeks!

July 20, 2011

Emily just got out of surgery... Just talked to the doctor and she did have her ovary stuck in the hernia which is called an incarcerated sliding hernia... She can't do anything simple this little girl. She is in recovery until she awakes. We are being escorted there. Normally we are not allowed in recovery but since she is so small, we can be there.

Poor little sweet thing, you should hear her breathe... she is breathing in 3 little times in a row and breathing out once slowly. She has all these monitors hooked up to her little body... watching her makes me want to cry.

I did break down and cried when the anesthesiologist started to explain to us what was about to happen.

We expect to be moved to the Pediatrics Department. We don't know for sure if we will spend the night... Emily has been great didn't even cry this morning for food – last she ate was at 2:15am. We were at the hospital at 6:30am, surgery started at 9:00am... She has been sleeping non stop since the surgery...

Emily had a special baby gown she had to wear when we arrived at the hospital, here it is:

Mommy holding Emily before surgery:

I love you Emily!

Today, July 12, 2011 I'm a mess...

My baby girl was born on April 28, 2.5 weeks early. She was only 4lbs and 13 ounces.

Immediately at her first pediatrician's appointment, only 4 days later, we were hit with a series of issues:

- dislocated hip
- thyroid not working
- possible heart murmur.

I broke down and started crying at the doctor's office. She was so little and had to deal with all of that already.

Two days later we were at the orthopedist to get fitted for a body harness to help her hip which she had to wear 24/7.

A few days later we had an appointment with the cardiologist which went well. Baby girl has a hole in the heart but doctor hopes it will go away on it's own. He did not hear a heart murmur and we have a follow up in December.

As for the thyroid, we kept on doing blood tests for several weeks and it finally leveled off.

Around June 20th, I felt a lump on my baby's lower abdomen, very close to her privates. My mom felt it too. When we went for her 2 months checkup on June 27th, the pediatrician didn't feel a thing. We tried to get her angry to see if something came out and nothing...

This morning we wake up and I change her and feel something on the other side this time. I tried to push it in like the doctor said. The next time I changed her it was still there. So I called the pediatrician's office and asked to come in. They said ok I had an appointment at 2:30pm...

The doctor confirmed bilateral hernias. We have a consultation Monday with the pediatric surgeon, she is only 9lbs and 4 ounces now... I just can't imagine her having to have an anesthesia and surgery at such a young age... I feel so bad, she has gone through so much already... Why more... I feel helpless that there isn't anything I can do to help... At the same time, as a First Time Mom I wonder if I'm doing something wrong...

We think she has been straining herself pushing against the harness and that's how she got the hernias but we don't really know...

I'm a mess...

Good byes are never easy...

June 30th, 2011

What a sad day it is today… my mom left! Even though at times I felt that we were on top of each other and I could not wait for her to leave, now I’m really sad… I have been feeling the weight of this good bye building up for a few days.

I can honestly say that it was the hardest goodbye ever and I didn’t think it was going to be so… Emily is bringing us closer together… I hope!

It’s a good thing! My heart is heavy with sadness…

The quest for breastfeeding...

Month of June 2011.

My mom arrived May 30, 2011. That was nice. She loved on Emily really big and didn’t realize how small she was!

I’m working hard with my lactation consultant and Emily to see if we can get her to breastfeed.

I have an interesting array of gadgets to use… it takes quite a bit of time and sometimes it’s frustrating because I’m just about done and it’s time to start all over again.

Every three hours I have to use this Medela SNS System that looks like an IV drip, a breast shield, I have to put about 40cc of breast milk in the SNS system, tie it to my bra, put the drip in the shield and have Emily try to drink from it. The theory is that if more milk is coming out, then the baby will suck more. Let’s hope this works… it takes us about 40 minutes and sometimes I have to finish with the bottle because she isn’t done. We are also hoping she is drinking some from the breast.

After that, I have to pump for 15 minutes.

And then, we start all over again! And all over again! And all over again!

I’m not giving up but I can surely tell you that it hasn’t been easy, some days it’s very frustrating and you wonder what you are doing wrong…

Thank God my mother is here helping with the meals and holding Emily when I need a break, even if only to go to the bathroom! LOL. The bad part is that Mom won't let me diet and I need to lose weight! She feeds me and is constantly telling me to eat! It is nice to get up in the morning and having your breakfast ready for you!

Every week we go visit with the lactation consultant and see if Emily is making progress. Sometimes she seems to be doing so much better and other times she seems to regress. I’m not sure what is going on but since Emily was so small, she just doesn’t have the strength to suck really hard and gets easily tired and falls asleep, therefore not eating and she can’t afford to lose any weight.

The good part is that after 10pm, she will sleep until about 6am! At least I get some sleep but I still get up at 3am to pump because the lactation consultant insisted that I do at least one pumping during the night…

Emily with her harness

Emily was fitted with her harness on May 4th, 2011.

Here she is... poor little girl... The orthopedist said she will have to wear it at least for 2 months.

Emily sleeping while I was changing her on 5/23/2011 - Almost 4 weeks old!