Chloe's New Hairdo

She likes it!

Eye Exam Under Anesthesia

I'm sitting in the hospital waiting for Chloe to come out of recovery. She just had an EUA (Examination Under Anesthesia). The doctor just came to speak to me. Chloe will need another cataract surgery. He said this is common in children because their bodies heal so aggressively. He said he doesn't use the term "scar tissue" but my understanding is that it's sort of a combination of scar tissue/cataract regrowth that is currently clouding her vision and needs to be removed via vatrectomy (looks like we didn't dodge the vetrectomy bullet after all). In addition, her right eye (the good eye) is near-sighted. I'm feeling suddenly very bummed. This is not the news I expected to hear today. Once again my optimism backfires and has momentarily thrown me into despair. Or maybe it's my spoiled-ness. I hate it when I don't get what I want.

Later...
Everything seems fine when she comes out of recovery. My spirits are immediately lifted when I see my little Princess hugging her pony pacie and wearing her hospital gown. She's a sight to behold. She'll be fine and this will just be another notch on her very notch-peppered (and very small) belt. I think we're just beginning to realize her vision impairment. We've been in a wait-and-see pattern for quite a long time now. We're slowly but surely getting to a place where we'll have an idea of her vision. I dared to ask the doctor if she'd need correction on her right eye and he said, "yes, but not for now. We'll just use her near-sightedness as another way to force her left eye to work harder." I didn't ask for any more detail. Who knows what the future has to hold for Chloe? One step at a time.

He Knows Me Too Well

As we sat down to dinner last night I commented to Dave, "Babe. I have gained X pounds in the last two weeks since I quit pumping! Can you believe it? X pounds!!"

Dave under his breath, "I'm going to suffer for this, aren't I?"

Pretending I didn't hear him, "WE are going on a strict diet/exercise regiment starting now."

Dave, "Great."

Feeding Issues

Chloe had her 1-year vaccinations a couple of weeks ago. Last weekend she had a little reaction to the MMR vaccine. It's completely normal and wasn't a big deal - few red bumps and low fever. I'd much rather her have that than measles, mumps, or rubella, right? But she wasn't eating really well for a few days so I went ahead and took her to the doctor just in case. Chloe's not much of an eater to begin with so I always get nervous when she eats even less than normal. The ped. said she's fine and confirmed the MMR reaction.


I was anxious to get Chloe's weight at the doctor's office. She'd just been weighed a week prior but after three days of somewhat pathetic feeding I was curious if she'd lost weight. Surprisingly, she went from 15lb 1oz to 15lb 8oz! Wow! That was pretty impressive! Then we came home and Chloe took a huge dump in her diaper. I opened up the diaper, "Um, yeah. There's at least 7oz in there...." Stinker... (Note: I actually considered weighing her diaper a la NICU style but we only have one small scale and it's my kitchen scale. Cookoo! Cookoo! I chose not, though.)

Her formula intake seems to have settled around 18-20oz per day. Seems pretty pathetic to me but she just refuses to take any more. She always finishes her purees, though. I called the NICU nutritionist (I'm so thankful to still have a relationship with her!) and she said most babies naturally decrease their formula intake at around a year old and as long as Chloe's above the minimum of 13oz per day and she's gaining weight we're ok. I'm going to try adding a little bit of cow's milk to Chloe's bottles to see if that makes them more appealing and add a third baby food meal per day.

I suspect Chloe has some texture issues we need to work through. She kind of gags if the puree isn't runny enough. I recently made her some chicken puree (my first attempt at making baby food) and it was pretty good but still had a slight grainy texture to it. I mixed it with apples one day, peas the next, and sweet potato on the third day. She ate it all but tried to touch her tongue to her chin with every bite. I'm surprised she opened for each new bite. We'll keep working on it. The pediatrician said to work on different textures for about 3 months or so and call her if I can't get Chloe to easily eat more than soupy baby food. I really really don't want a referral to the Feeding Therapist so we'll work on it.

Any suggestions on how to work on texture issues would be greatly appreciated! I'm trying to enter the world of baby food making and recently bookmarked wholesomebabyfood.com. Wish me luck!

Floor Time is Exhausting

For some reason, our floor has turned into a magical sleeping potion for Chloe. I often set her on her blanket with some toys when I need to do something quick. Today I set her down to fix Solana's hair and found her like this after one minute. She's making a habit of it, too. I set her down later to play as I folded clothes next to her and she did it again! Silly goose.

Mind Over Matter

As I mentioned before, I quit pumping on Solana's birthday. It actually took about 5 or 6 days before I pumped for the very last time. Solana was cheering for me to quit, too. Every day she'd ask, "When do you get to quit pumping, Mommy?" I think she must have been excited since I've probably told her, "No, I can't. I have to pump now," over the past year too many times. So we're all enjoying my new-found freedom.

The month before Chloe's birthday I actually transitioned her from breastmilk to formula. Each week I'd switch one more of her daily bottles to formula. So I had a little surplus of milk in the deep freezer. This time I was smart and scalded the milk before freezing it (this is the process of heating the milk on the stovetop just until it starts to boil and then immediately freezing it) so it wouldn't get that yucky lipase taste.

I got a little nervous Thursday when I noticed I was down to my last bag of frozen milk. "This is it." I thought. No more Mommy Milk! Then. Lo and Behold. I filled up with milk on Friday. Painfully, too! A good week since my last pumping and after several days of enjoying my new smaller bustline...I couldn't believe it!

I didn't think it was possible to get milk again several days after drying out but there it was. Weird. I actually think my nervousness over giving Chloe her last milk brought it back. The mind/body connection is pretty crazy sometimes...

One Year Checkup

Chloe had her one year checkup recently. Our pediatrician tends to defer to the specialists for almost anything I ever have a question about. I think she's being a "team player" and doesn't want to contradict them but sometimes I just wish I'd get a different opinion from her to know that she actually has one... I'm sure if she was concerned about anything she'd let me know, though. At least I hope so...

She did say something that made me very happy. Upon inspection of Chloe's head and soft spot she commented that, "She has a really nicely shaped head! Especally for having been so tiny." If you have any idea how obsessed I've been about Chloe's head shape you know what a compliment this was to me. I'm pretty sure my face was glowing with pride when she said this.

I think it's pretty funny how obsessed I've been with this. But I think maybe this was the one thing I felt like I could affect and actually did! Protein drinks, bedrest, surgery - we still lost Leila and had Chloe too early. Daily kangaroo care, pumping breastmilk - Chloe's lungs and body still grew too slowly. Eye patching and contact use - she still has vision issues and crossed eyes. Daily excercises - still not sitting. BUT rotating her while she slept actually worked! She has a round head. Yay! Small victory but at least something I've done has paid off. Ha!

(Yes, I'm being slightly sarcastic but I'm feeling slightly sarcastic :)