Well we've been home for a few days now and things have been quite interesting around here with a new baby. The older two boys are having quite a time figuring out certain things around here. For one they just don't understand how mommy is able to make milk for the baby but not for them. My middle child still insists that if the baby can have mommy milk then he should too because he's not a cow and his milk shouldn't be from a cow. My oldest son doesn't much care who gets what milk but he's confused as to how I can make milk in general and that's one anatomy/health lesson that I just don't want to tackle at age 6.
The older boys are doing a great job of being careful around the baby, remembering to wash their hands before they touch the baby, and not touching his head. They love to lay next to him and talk to him and hold his hands, and baby boy loves the extra attention as he's been staying up a little longer than normal after he eats just so he can soak up a little extra attention. I've tried to include the older boys with as much of the baby's care as possible so they don't feel left out, but I think they are a little disappointed that they can't carry him around.
Babies are much smarter than we give them credit for I must say. Even while my little boy was in the NICU he was telling the doctors and nurses what he did and did not need. When he was tired of the CPAP he started pulling out the feeding tube that was used to keep the extra water from building up in his belly, after about the 4th time he flung that tube out the doctor decided that he didn't need it anymore. When the billi lights were to be slowly turned off he pulled the IV from his arm, again the doctor decided that there was no need to restart it since she was pulling the lights and dehydration would no longer be an issue. Baby Logan's intelligence goes beyond this though, while he and I slept last night he wiggled himself around until he was in just the perfect spot for nursing and then fussed to wake me so I would feed him, then when his daddy came home from work he curled up next to daddy and fell asleep. He knows when I am in the room, and he will not be fed by anyone but me even if I am feeding him from a bottle I have to feed him it's like he knows who the milk came from and it must not be fed to him by anyone else.
Having a new baby in the house is certainly interesting, and it's been a few years since I've had babies so I'm having to learn some things all over again but I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. I love the baby, and I love my older boys and each one of them has their own special personality and I can't wait to see my baby bloom into a little boy though I know this will happen all too fast and I'll be wishing for the baby days again.
So for now Birbitt thinks life is perfect, I have a beautiful and healthy family what more could I ask for? Perhaps a little girl would complete our family but I'm so used to raising boys now I'm not sure I'd know what to do with a girl, though I once thought that about my boys and now look at us I'm an old pro by now. Enjoy your families everyone, love them, cherish them, and be thankful for them, because life is precious and you just never know how lucky you are until something goes wrong. I know I appreciate my healthy family all the more after being in the NICU with baby for 5 days and seeing all the babies that were so much worse off than my little one. Thank you Lord for providing for the health of my son, and for giving me such a beautiful and loving family.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
New Beginnings
He's here, He's here, He's here my oldest son shouted as I walked up the steps and Dear Hubby carried the new baby up in his car seat. It's been a long wait for the boys to see their new baby brother. He was born June 22nd at 6:53pm and all seemed well he came out fine and pink took a breath and cried and just after the nurse laid him on my chest he stopped crying and stopped breathing. His heart rate fell and the Neonatal staff was called in. Baby Logan was taken to the NICU to be cared for by the neonatal team.
He was put on a ventilator for 45 minutes though after about 15 he was breathing on his own, when the ventilator was removed he was put on a cpap machine to help keep his lungs inflated and be sure that he was stable. The cpap was removed after 8 hours and now he's just on IV fluids since he's not yet strong enough to feed.
Tuesday morning: The doctors evaluate him and decide that he's well enough to attempt feeding, so I am allowed to come and nurse him. He's a bit sluggish at nursing so it's suggested that the fastest way to get him home safely would be to nurse and then offer a supplement of expressed milk or formula. Daddy and I agree to supplement him as his health is the most important thing right now.Wednesday: The doctors decide that he's taking in enough breast milk/formula that he can be slowly weaned off the iv fluids this happened very rapidly because he tolerated it so well. We were supposed to take him home Thursday morning. He was moved to another pod within the NICU, this new room has a bed for mom/dad and a reclining chair so that parents can be 100% involved in his care.
Thursday: We are all set to go home and just waiting on the results of his final lab work. Labs come back and his billirubin levels have spiked overnight to a level that's just too close to dangerous to allow him to go home. The doctor decides the best thing to do is to get him on phototherapy as fast as possible...he's put on a biliblanket and 5 billi lights. The hope is to get it down enough that he can safely go home on a bili blanket by Friday morning. This does not happen and by this time I've had enough of this doctor just telling me what she's going to do and leaving the room. So I request a different doctor and he's very nice and actually involved dh and I in the decisions for our son's care. This was the hardest day of them all because we were unable to hold our little boy at all not even to feed him...everything was done in his bassinet under the billi lights.Friday: Am labs are back and baby Logan's billi count is falling so two of the lights are removed and we are now able to take him out of the bassinet on the biliblanket for 30 mins every 3 hours to feed him. 12 hours later he's taken off two more of the lights are removed leaving little Logan on just one billi light and a bili blanket. He's getting better little by little. The plan now is to wean him from the lights and blanket and send him home on Sunday morning.
Saturday: With the results from his am labs the doctor is ever hopeful that Logan will be going home soon! The remaining light and blanket are removed and the doctor says to check his billirubin in 6 hours. 6 hours go by and the results are back his bilirubin has stayed stable even without the phototherapy!!!!! The doctor comes in to talk to us and says Congratulations you get to take baby home today...So he goes home almost 18 hours before the planned discharge and he's healthy and happy!
It was a long road to getting him home, but finally he's here! Birbitt thinks that he just wanted to make a GRAND entrance into the World so that everyone would know he was the king of the house and not his big brothers! What a time we had with this one but now we are all home and so thankful for our healthy baby! Thank you Lord for carrying us through all these tough days and for bringing our beautiful baby boy home sooner than anyone expected. I also want to thank the mostly wonderful staff of the NICU where baby Logan was cared for during those first scary days!
Birbitt and her three sons finally home and together again. (Please excuse the mess we just came home from the hospital and hadn't put all the stuff away yet.)
Monday, June 1, 2009
I will never understand people
As you can probably guess from the title of this post this has been a most trying week for me. I am told that the problem is that I'm too nice and allow people to get away with too much, however I don't think the problem solely rests with my tolerance, I really think there is something wrong with a significant portion of the population. Now before anyone gets the wrong idea I do not dislike people, and really I don't dislike any one person in particular, it's their actions that tie me in knots and frankly right now I don't have the energy for it!
As a woman and a mother I understand the nature of women to feel the need to "help" others when we feel they are not doing things just the way they should be done, but as a person I also understand that it's one thing to help someone who's asked for your help and another entirely to offer unsolicited "advice". This is something that drives me nuts, why do people feel the need to criticize other people for their parenting choices, clothing choices, food choices, and everything else that they do. I have had this happen to me numerous times and it's irritating to say the very least, so I do my best to never do it to another. My only exception to this rule is if a person is in danger by doing as they are. Still people are intent to push their ideas onto others and if you are not doing just as they would you are wrong, what happened to freedom of choice, the right to raise your child as you see fit, and all the other rights we as Americans are entitled to under the constitution? I do not have the energy to deal with these people right now!
Another irritant of mine....people who choose to own animals and then refuse to care for them as they should be cared for. Why have a cat if you are going to throw it outside and never feed it? This I could understand if you lived on a farm and were using the cats to keep mice away from your livestock and home, but when you live in an apartment building why do you own a cat if you are going to leave it to your neighbors to feed it? Why get a dog if it's only going to spend it's entire life outside chained to a tree with nothing but a wooden box for shelter? What is the purpose of the dog? Again I understand having outside dogs, but can you not put up a fence so the dog has full roam of your property and can you not go out and play with the dog from time to time? I have seen people who own multiple animals and yet could not tell you a thing about the animals they own. I personally own two cats and some fish, I feed my cats, pet my cats, comb my cats (one has long hair), provide them with plenty of food and water and things to entertain themselves with when I am unavailable. My fish also get feed three times a day and I provide them with clean water, a clean tank, plenty of plants and even rearrange thing from time to time so they don't get bored (if fish can get bored). I drove by a horse the other day standing out in the sun with 100 + degree temperatures in an enclosure with no shade or shelter and only a bucket of water, this poor horse was thin, sway backed, and looked to have a sore back leg, so I reported this to animal control who came out and determined that the owner was following the minimum of the law so there was nothing they could do. Why does a person own a horse only to treat it that way?
Children are another hot button of mine, if you have children then you should have time for your children. Taking time for your children means more than just feeding them and clothing them and sending them to school! I know each of my children as the individual that they are, I put them in clean clothes at the beginning of each day (they do not always stay clean), I feed them, I provide them with toys and games, I do projects with them, I school them myself, I take them places with me, and I spend time talking to them and playing with them. It really bothers me when parents don't take the time to know their children, and spend time with them but it bothers me even more when parents don't even know that their child hasn't changed clothes in 3 days, or didn't have lunch today because the parents were too busy to stop and make them something to eat, and what makes me the most irritated is when those same parents who can't do the basics for their own children have the nerve to question MY abilities as a mother simply because I am too pregnant to be able to get on the floor with my children and push trucks around!
These are just some things I've encountered in the past week and honestly I don't understand people! I don't think I ever will understand people, and honestly I'm not sure I'd want to even if I could. I know part of my problem right now is that I'm pregnant and uncomfortable, but these things bother me even if I'm not pregnant. I just don't understand how people live with themselves sometimes, and I definitely don't understand why people feel they can comment on another persons shortcomings when they themselves have issues to work on.
Now for the being pregnant part, thankfully I am due in 26 days! I do not however wish to wait 26 days, for the past week I've been unable to sit up and breathe at the same time, and bending has become physically impossible (thankfully dresses go over my head and flip flops don't need tied). Today I found out why I'm having such a difficult time lately, either a) I'm carrying a huge baby b)there's an Olympic sized swimming pool in there for the baby or c)some combination of both, when the dr measured my stomach to ensure proper fetal growth I was told I'm measuring at 46 yes 46 WEEKS! Now as the dr and I both are sure that I am not in fact 46 weeks pregnant there is nothing to do but wait another week or two and see what happens but she says this should explain your discomfort. I do not have the energy for this!
Ok enough of my rambles, thanks for reading and in some way "listening" to my rants.
As a woman and a mother I understand the nature of women to feel the need to "help" others when we feel they are not doing things just the way they should be done, but as a person I also understand that it's one thing to help someone who's asked for your help and another entirely to offer unsolicited "advice". This is something that drives me nuts, why do people feel the need to criticize other people for their parenting choices, clothing choices, food choices, and everything else that they do. I have had this happen to me numerous times and it's irritating to say the very least, so I do my best to never do it to another. My only exception to this rule is if a person is in danger by doing as they are. Still people are intent to push their ideas onto others and if you are not doing just as they would you are wrong, what happened to freedom of choice, the right to raise your child as you see fit, and all the other rights we as Americans are entitled to under the constitution? I do not have the energy to deal with these people right now!
Another irritant of mine....people who choose to own animals and then refuse to care for them as they should be cared for. Why have a cat if you are going to throw it outside and never feed it? This I could understand if you lived on a farm and were using the cats to keep mice away from your livestock and home, but when you live in an apartment building why do you own a cat if you are going to leave it to your neighbors to feed it? Why get a dog if it's only going to spend it's entire life outside chained to a tree with nothing but a wooden box for shelter? What is the purpose of the dog? Again I understand having outside dogs, but can you not put up a fence so the dog has full roam of your property and can you not go out and play with the dog from time to time? I have seen people who own multiple animals and yet could not tell you a thing about the animals they own. I personally own two cats and some fish, I feed my cats, pet my cats, comb my cats (one has long hair), provide them with plenty of food and water and things to entertain themselves with when I am unavailable. My fish also get feed three times a day and I provide them with clean water, a clean tank, plenty of plants and even rearrange thing from time to time so they don't get bored (if fish can get bored). I drove by a horse the other day standing out in the sun with 100 + degree temperatures in an enclosure with no shade or shelter and only a bucket of water, this poor horse was thin, sway backed, and looked to have a sore back leg, so I reported this to animal control who came out and determined that the owner was following the minimum of the law so there was nothing they could do. Why does a person own a horse only to treat it that way?
Children are another hot button of mine, if you have children then you should have time for your children. Taking time for your children means more than just feeding them and clothing them and sending them to school! I know each of my children as the individual that they are, I put them in clean clothes at the beginning of each day (they do not always stay clean), I feed them, I provide them with toys and games, I do projects with them, I school them myself, I take them places with me, and I spend time talking to them and playing with them. It really bothers me when parents don't take the time to know their children, and spend time with them but it bothers me even more when parents don't even know that their child hasn't changed clothes in 3 days, or didn't have lunch today because the parents were too busy to stop and make them something to eat, and what makes me the most irritated is when those same parents who can't do the basics for their own children have the nerve to question MY abilities as a mother simply because I am too pregnant to be able to get on the floor with my children and push trucks around!
These are just some things I've encountered in the past week and honestly I don't understand people! I don't think I ever will understand people, and honestly I'm not sure I'd want to even if I could. I know part of my problem right now is that I'm pregnant and uncomfortable, but these things bother me even if I'm not pregnant. I just don't understand how people live with themselves sometimes, and I definitely don't understand why people feel they can comment on another persons shortcomings when they themselves have issues to work on.
Now for the being pregnant part, thankfully I am due in 26 days! I do not however wish to wait 26 days, for the past week I've been unable to sit up and breathe at the same time, and bending has become physically impossible (thankfully dresses go over my head and flip flops don't need tied). Today I found out why I'm having such a difficult time lately, either a) I'm carrying a huge baby b)there's an Olympic sized swimming pool in there for the baby or c)some combination of both, when the dr measured my stomach to ensure proper fetal growth I was told I'm measuring at 46 yes 46 WEEKS! Now as the dr and I both are sure that I am not in fact 46 weeks pregnant there is nothing to do but wait another week or two and see what happens but she says this should explain your discomfort. I do not have the energy for this!
Ok enough of my rambles, thanks for reading and in some way "listening" to my rants.
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