Update - VIsit from Lala

As I type this message Dave is driving my sister, Leticia, to the airport. She arrived from Houston on Wednesday evening and spent a wonderful four days with us. Here she is about to see Chloe for the first time. Can you tell she's excited?

And here she is taking her first peek at her newest niece...

Her main goal in visiting was to hold Chloe LOTS and she definitely accomplished that goal! She was an awesome babysitter and it was great for me to get a little break, too. They say that the first few months having a new baby at home are trying and they're not kidding! I don't want to sound like a wimp but if I'm being totally honest the past month with Chloe home has been utterly exhausting! Wonderful, but exhausting! (I don't remember it being this way with Solana but there are a lot of differences. I'm older, we already have another child, Chloe's seriously high maintenance, and I'm OL-der... ;-) It was nice to have a helper for a few days. I let Aunt Lala change diapers, feed, and hold Chloe as much as possible. Dave and I even made it out Saturday night for dinner and a visit to the theatre for my birhtday gift - Wicked! Such an awesome show - I loved it!!! And as it turns out, Dave and I actually DO still enjoy eachother's company! Haha! Leticia also organized a little birthday party for me. Solana made me a crown and they had cake, balloon, cards, banner... All a girl could want on her birthday :-) Solana selected the cake with BLUE icing because that's my favorite color. Here we are enjoying the cake...

And the final treat , my parents sent me some birthday money so I decided to go on a shopping trip to Kohl's. Leticia, who has WAY more style than I, acted as my personal shopper and helped me pick out a ton of cute tops. Thank you Leticia! Your visit was such a refresher! I feel like a new woman :-D

Chloe loved her time with Aunt Lala. This is what Leticia usually looked like during her visit (smile included).

Solana loves her Aunt Lala, too!

She had just a few photo shoots with Chloe. I ordered a bunch of gigantic flowers for Angela to photograph her in. We just couldn't help ourselves today, though. The outfit is a gift from my friend, Melissa. So cute!

We had a little scare with Chloe getting a cold and congestion last week. We took her to the Pediatrician twice but they tested her for RSV (a really common virus that affects the respiratory system and would be really really bad for a baby with chronic lung disease to get) and it came out negative. Whew! She seems to be doing much better now. We also went to the hospital on Wednesday to get her Synagis shot (RSV preventative) and they weighed her at a whopping 7lb 8oz! She's amost to Solana's birth weight of 7lb 14oz! I can't wait to get pictures of her at that weight so we can have matching baby pics :-)

Here she is chillin' out in her swing. The awesome hat and blanket were crocheted by Dave's sister, Carol. Thank you Carol! We love your hats and blankies!!!

Clarification on Nursing

I think I need to clarify something about my last nursing post. It's pretty cool that so many people are so excited about the fact that Chloe might get to nurse. You'd kind of expect most people to say, "So what? A bottle is just as good. Why don't you just get over it?" I know a bottle is fine but I feel like being greedy. Chloe's probably my last chance at nursing. I blew it with Solana by giving up too quickly. I was young (a mere whipper snapper at 30) and took it personally, I think, that she didn't like my milk makers. I cried many times trying to latch Solana and couldn't get over myself enough to revisit the idea once I'd given up. Of course now I am 5 years older and much more matuuuure.

Now that I might possibly have a chance with Chloe I'm going to give it every opportunity to happen that I can (reasonably) give.

I think I may have misled in my last post, though. A few friends have asked how the nursing is going, or if I'm nursing exclusively now, etc. Unfortunately, we're not nursing. Chloe needs thickener so that she won't aspirate her milk and milk in the lungs is not something I'm willing to risk for the sake of nursing. We'll go back for another "feeding study" in March to reevaluate her feeding. I believe they'll feed her barium again and watch it with x-rays to see if it goes down "the right way" or not. Until then I'll just have faith that she's talented enough to remember how to nurse and perhaps throw in some "dry runs" for practice.

Thank you for all your support. In many ways this seems trivial considering everything else she's been though. But it would also be really nice to have this one bit of normalcy in her otherwise crazy first year :-)

Pirate Chloe

All is well in Chloeland. We sort of have a routine that includes MWF taking Solana to and picking her up from school. That somehow begins at 9am and ends at 3pm. What goes on in the middle, I couldn't even tell you...

Tuesdays and Thursdays are our doctor days. We missed the big pulmonology visit this week because of snow so we'll go next week and find out how much Chloe has grown. She should be pushing 7 pounds by now. She has now officially outgrown her premie clothes and I'm plucking newborn clothes our of her room piece by piece. Hopefully, I'll wash and organize them all this weekend. She has TONS of really cute NB clothes that we received as gifts. I'm so glad they weren't all preemie clothes (now that she's outgrown them). Most of them are onesies with pants combos, though. Not too practical to pull outfits over her head with the canula or wear pants with her pulse-ox monitor on her foot. Fashion isn't always easy, right?


We did make it to the Retinologist this week, though. These are the ones that checked her eyes in the NICU and did the laser surgery for ROP. On Wednesday they saw a vitrous hemorrage (blood) in her left eye. This was the bad one back in November. Fortunately, they didn't seem to concerned about it - as far as ROP goes. There's still no retinal detachment or signs of ROP. Supposedly, something as simple as Chloe waving her arms around and smacking herself on the face could rupture some of those tiny vessels and cause it. The problem is that the blood clouds her vision in that eye and her developing brain could just decide to stop working on that eye and put all its effort into the right eye. We had to go back on Thursday to see the pediatric opthomolagist who said we need to patch the good eye until the bad one clears up. So, without further ado I present to you... Valentine Pirate Chloe! Aaargh!







Hopefully, the patch works. She has to wear one for half of her waking time every day. They're kind of like big bandaids that are a little less sticky and only really annoying thing about it is that the part that goes over the bridge of her nose never wants to stick. I just ordered a bunch online and read the "tricks." Supposedly, they're heat activated. I tried pressing gently on the part over her nose today and it already popped up leaving a hole for her to peek through. Yesterday I was all ghetto and used a piece of tape from her sats probe to make it stick from her nose. Looked pretty hilarious. Hopefully, I can figure this out before I resort to other sticky methods. They make some cute ones, though. I ordered the "girl" pack...


My mom sent the cutest valentine outfits. I couldn't resist a photo shoot in them. And I now realize that the headband didn't match. I didn't have any solids and it had hearts. Don't ask my sister about some of the non-matching catastrophes that were Solana's outfits as a baby. I don't know what my deal is with baby clothes. Haha!

And here's my cat Serafina taking advantage of an empty house. We arrived home to find her like this...

Nursing in our future? Maybe? Possibly?

I actually posted the two week post a couple of days ago. But I wrote and posted the entry hastily and while distracted. After re-reading it a few hours later I didn't like the unintentional tone. I sounded like a whiney complainer and TOTALLY didn't mean to sound that way. I mean, I surely don't feel that way. I have nothing to complain about! And plus, I try to avoid unproductive complaining. It's pointless and ugly. Appreciating the irony of life - good and sometimes funny. Complaining and letting it bring me down - bad.

Anyway, I told a story in my first deleted post that I completely forgot to share. And I think it's a good one :-)

So, I've definitely figured out why the NICU ladies called Chloe and Princess (some called her 'Queen' and one even affectionately called her 'evil'). She...um..cries a lot. And by "a lot" I mean that she pretty much cries ALL THE TIME. Unless, that is, she's being properly entertained. Entertained with a bottle, by changing her diaper, definitely NOT by laying her down, but rather, usually while in my arms and with me in a standing/bouncing position. Dave sometimes makes fun of me and pretends that Chloe is telling me, "Dance Monkey!" while I'm bouncing her. It's funny but in a "You're so funny I'm about to bop you in the head" kind of way. ;-) I just hope that I'm getting a good thigh workout with all this bouncing and am not just screwing up my knees!

Ok. Here's the story. Chloe was crying the other night and Dave and I were trying all our tricks to figure out what she wanted. She had just eaten an hour previous so we didn't think she was hungry until she turned her head in a rooting motion toward me. Dave went to get a bottle but her crying escalated and I couldn't wait for him. I flipped my shirt up and litle Miss Chloe latched on and begain nursing like there was no tomorrow. I couldn't believe it!

You may have noticed that I stopped talking about nursing back in December when Chloe got sick? That's because nursing effectively ended when she went NPO (no feedings by mouth) and was put on an IV drip. Once she started eating again they put her on thickener and I was so desperate for her to conquer the bottle that I didn't want to rock the boat and never tried nursing again. The lactation consultant told me to practice non-nutritive sucking at home but...no time. I've now gone from pumping 8 times per day to 4 times and have played with the idea of quitting all together. Our deep freezer is almost out of room. But now I don't know. What if nursing could really be in our future?!? How cool would that be?

Week 2 at Home

Hi everyone! As you can probably imagine I'm slightly busy these days. Plus, I think I'm too old for feedings every three hours. Chloe has been really restless and makes weird gagging/choking sounds all night long. (They told us in the NICU that she probably has mild refulx since most preemies do.) Those, and her kicking legs/beeping pulse-ox, have me at her bedside (which is 1 foot from my bedside, by the way) at least 3 times every hour throughout the night. I half-consciously declared, "Just one hour of uninterrupted sleep. That's all I ask!" when Dave walked out of the bathroom this morning. I opened my eyes and thought, "Did I really say that out loud?" Haha! Kind of funny, if you picture it.


She's doing really well, by the way. She's eating like a champ and is up to 6lb 9.5oz! This is tremendous weight gain in my opinion. The pediatrician called it "not bad" this morning and even stuck with her "not bad" assessment after I asked if "not bad" really means "good." Oh well. She's kicking butt in my eyes, anyway :-D


We met with the Help Me Grow lady this week. She did a little assessment of her own and declared that Chloe is not too far behind her adjusted age of almost two months. (She'll hook us up with the Early Intervention folks who will assign us a teacher. This "teacher" will come to our house and help us with different therapies to keep Chloe on track.) It's difficult to judge, though, since many of the tests are based on vision and we really don't know how much she can see. I don't think she looks at me nearly as much as she should. Instead, she stares at lights. Dave is sure that she was watching Solana this morning. Who knows.

Solana's still a great big sister. We've reigned in the "acting out." Honestly, she really wasn't that bad. She just wasn't doing stuff we told her a lot of the time. The one that's acting out, though, is our house. That's right. Our house is jealous of Chloe. Since Chloe's been home we've:
-replaced the furnace
-replaced the garage door opener
-had the trees trimmed
-replaced the open/close mechanism in our chimney.
While this has cost a lot more money than we planned on spending this month and we've said, "are you flippin' kidding me?" more than once we also can't complain. We have credit cards to pay for this stuff. We own a great house and, for that reason, occasionally need to do maintenance. I just hope our house gets over itself sooner rather than later...

And one more thing to be thankful for. My pink eye last week. Yep. I got pink eye. I guess freakishly over-washing of hands does not prevent pink eye. No longer will I think of it as a sickness for toddlers and pre-schoolers who don't know how to wipe their behinds (eye-rolling). By some amazing fortune I didn't pass it on to either of the girls and it cleared up in just three days. Thank God!

Definitely not a quiet week in the Hendrickson household! But we love drama around here. :-)

Week 1 at Home

Wow! This past week has been a whirlwind. I can't believe a week has already gone by. So far so good. Chloe ate pretty poorly her first two days at home so I actually took her to the pediatrician because I was worried she was sick. (Also, her temp was hanging low - a sign of sickness in tiny babies.) She said Chloe's fine, though, and we'll go back in two weeks. We also got the ok to try a faster flow nipple on her bottles. She was just having to work WAY too hard to get the thickened milk out of regular nipples. We got a cool adjustable nipple from Avent and can just rotate the bottle to increase/decrease the speed. It's great because we can start her at slow speed when she first starts eating, the milk is still really warm and viscous, and she's all cylinders. Then we can just turn our wrist to switch to a higher flow when she slows down and the milk cools/thickens. It seems to be working. She doesn't take an hour to finish a bottle and I think that's good. An hour at work on a bottle is way too long for her.

We also seem to have her pooping under control. We had to give her two glycerin chips, to make her poop, when she first got home. Sticking something up Chloe's bottom wasn't exactly the homecoming I'd envisioned for her but ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do, right? Since then I've been sneaking straight (thickened) breastmilk into her diet when she seems stopped up. It seems like she only needs 3 bottles of breastmilk every three days or so to keep the poop coming. Theoretically, straight breastmilk might hinder weight gain because it has fewer calories than her breastmilk/formula recipe but she eats much more after a good poop so I'm hoping it will actually assist in weight gain and not hinder it.

We saw the pulmonologist today. I really like him a lot. He has a super cool African (big continent, I know, but that's as good as I can do) accent and made silly baby noises for Chloe as he examined her. He was tickled when I said I "hated" the pulse-ox monitor because he'd rather we watch Chloe than the monitor. I thought that was interesting since he was supposedly the one who ordered it but he vehemently denied that and said he doesn't like parents to use them because he'd rather then watch the baby. The monitor is supposed to beep when Chloe's oxygen levels or heart rate drop below acceptable levels. It goes off all the time, though, telling me that my pink babies has a 55% (for example) blood-oxygen level or it's not picking up at all because she's kicking her legs. Crappy monitor! It works sometimes, though, so I think I'll keep it on when Chloe's alone sleeping or when we're in the car and I'm not watching her. He's concerned with Chloe's growth, though (join the club), and is NOT impressed with her weight gain since leaving the hospital. (He said 11grams per day but I came home and did some math and came up with a higher number.) She needs to grow new lung tissue and weight gain is an indicator of that. Anyway, no changes for today. We can expect her to stay on oxygen at least though the winter and that's fine with me. Come back in two weeks. He might consult the nutritionist and increase her calories if she hasn't gained sufficiently by then. Yikes!


CUTIE PATOOTIE

Having Chloe home creates many more photo opportunities. She's SUCH a doll! Is it possible that she's even cuter now that she's at home BECAUSE she's at home? I've taken to kissing her a lot lately, too. Being in the NICU creates an extreme sense of germ paranoia. We're still very germ conscious. We keep antibacterial gel all over the house and I have to sneak into Solana's room at night to lotion up her hands because they're getting so dry from all the gel. (She squirts herself every time she wants to touch Chloe, poor baby.) Anyway, I never really kissed Chloe in the NICU. That sounds so sad all of the sudden - 5 months before kissing my baby properly. :-( Anyway, It's like I've found this new joy and she seems to like it too! I don't kiss her on the mouth or anything - more like her cheeks near her ear and neck. She just stared at me in fascination when I was doing it over and over last night. And I swear she was trying to kiss me back afterward (either that or she was just hungry and trying to eat my cheeks.) Whenever I would go in for another nibble at her ear she's open up her little mouth and plant one on my cheek. I LOVED IT! In fact, I can't wait for her to wake up so I can go do it again! Hehe.



Isn't she gorgeous. Look at how tiny she looks next to Dave's hands. Can you just imagine if Leila were here? Oh my gosh - that would just be a ridiculous amount of beautiful babyness!

We were trying out headbands. She can totally rock a headband but I like to keep a hat on her because her temperature's been a bit on the low side since she's been home.

This is our gorgeous Australian Shepherd, Bluebell (yes, I miss my Blue Bell ice cream). She is the best dog! And she has decided that Chloe is her baby. Ever vigilant she's always by Chloe's side. She loves Chloe. Her herding skills will come in handy when Chloe gets mobile. Oh, funny story. I lowered a swaddled Chloe so that Bluebell could sniff her and Chloe farted right as Bluebell started sniffing her. Bluebell immediately started licking Chloe's bootie area as if she were a puppy. So cute!!!

Playing with Daddy. Note Bluebell in the background...

I really do hold Chloe sometimes...

TUMMY TIME!

Chloe enjoys herself some tummy time! This was taken right at the beginning - before the screaming and crying began. I always feel so bad for her during tummy time :-(

Super Girl! She has yet to roll over for us (the nurses swear she did it three times in a row for them a couple of weeks ago) but she's gotten pretty close.

Here Dave is giving her some moral support. It seemed to work. She got busy right after that.

SISTERS

Solana adores her sister. Of course, we've already witnessed a tiny bit of acting out. I'm torn between maintaining a firm hand with her and letting it slide since she really has been neglected the last few days. If you know me at all you've probably already guessed that I've chosen the "firm hand" option. (With a side of obscenely excessive praise for praise-worthy behavior.) :-P Hopefully, we'll get back to a reasonable amount of "Solana time" really soon.

I love Solana's expressions in these pictures.

I think Chloe kind of resembles Solana in this picture. I never really thought that before...

Look at how she looks at Chloe. Love them!

Well, that's it for this week. I definitely will not be updating every day anymore. I'm lucky if I brush my teeth before noon! (And yes, I do believe I had brushed teeth in the above picture. Definitely no makeup, though!) Blogging is definitely going to fally by the wayside. It's been wonderful to read all the joyous comments of our friends and loved ones the past few days. It's so fun to hear Chloe's cheering squad in full force. :-D

Chloe's NICU Video

Check out this amazing slideshow Angela made.

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewshow?fl=3161454&alb=0

You have to download an ActiveX Control to watch the video and then click on "January 18..." under the title to start it.

Little note: My mom flew to Ohio from Houston the morning after my water broke. We expected her to help out as I began my hospital bedrest. Instead, she was there for my labor and emergency delivery. She, Dave, and I had the opportunity to spend lots of time saying "hello" and "goodbye" to Leila after the girls were born. When it was my mom's turn to hold her she sang "Jesus Loves Me." It was so sweet and perfect. It makes me tear up just thinking of it. I'm not sure if Angela remembered that when making the video but...well...you'll see/hear.