Haiku of the Day

Lightbulb nippling

 

Too good not to share
Must ignore fears of jinxing
Ike's almost ready

We have the word from Dr.s H, P, and L, ike's team of neonatologists. We have the word from the case worker and the social worker. We have word from the nurses.

If Ike-a-saurus can take all of his bottles for several days in a row, he can come home. If he can go 10 days (we're at least three days into this) without any resting Brady's, he can come home. It could be as soon as this time next week or as long as three weeks. It's all up to him.

We've been instructed to buy a car seat. We're all signed up for a CPR course.

So if you have a spare moment, please throw out a whisper to the universe or God or Buddha or whomever you want... Please ask for Ike to eat. If you want to be specific you can ask for him to master his nippling. I bet God loves the word nippling. Who wouldn't?

Ike-a-saurus is doing well with his bottles and his breastfeeding, but he still has a lot of work to do - especially with the turning blue when he gets too much milk. That needs to stop. The doctors say any day now he will have a lightbulb moment and just go crazy for eating.

Lightbulb nippling.

That's what we want. Here's to lightbulb nippling and an insanely expensive car seat!

Go, Ike, go.

A bonding moment

learn priorities
a lesson of parenthood
except for football

There are a lot of sacrifices I make for my children, but when it comes to the annual Texas-OU game, it is well known in this house that no one is allowed to speak to or otherwise engage me in conversation unless it is to yell "Go Horns!" at appropriate times. Mama is not to be bothered. At all.

Today, though, I left the house at halftime to go to the NICU to feed Ike-a-saurus. I admit to staying in the car until the last possible second so that I could hear the beginning of the third quarter. And I admit having set the TiVo to record the game - and threatening everyone that wrath of unknowable proportions would set in if the TV was touched or otherwise altered from how I left it.

But I left it.

I turned off my phone so that I wouldn't get any texts or emails or voicemails that would ruin the final score. I had every plan to feed Ike-a-saurus and make it home without learning how the game ended. My plan was to create my own little time machine: pause the game, sneak around and get some important stuff done, and unpause, voila. Then I was going to settle in, eat some junk food and watch it all unfold as if it were happening live.

On my way up to the 8th floor, though, after passing a scant number of hastily moving, excitedly chattering orange-clad folks, I remembered, wait... I live in Texas. In the city of the Horns. What am I thinking? There's no WAY I'll make it home without finding out anything about the game. And sure enough, as soon as I walked into the NICU, the nurses were in a frenzy. The ones on their break would run in and report the score to the ones who were working. Parents would come in with updates from the waiting room. Moms who I haven't seen smile in weeks were broadly grinning and trash talking with other moms.

There was a brief attempt to engage Bay 5's laptop to stream the radio broadcast of the game, but the nurses were busy with the babies and the mamas were busy with the babies, so we became dependent on the game messengers who would appear after each score.

It's been almost 7 weeks that we've been in the NICU now and I know the nurses pretty well. They know me. But today, we got to know a little more about each other personally, and it was kind of fun. It settled me down with my rigid, panicky football game rules. I was able to relax with Ike-a-saurus, take my time with him, and not worry about knowing the final score of the game.

And the nurses, though noisier and sillier than usual, would leave me in mid-sentence to run see to an alarm, to feed a baby, or to change a diaper. They were not distracted, but they were having fun. This is something I have to learn to do.

It was a fun couple of hours - not something you can always say about a NICU visit - and I still came home and watched the game. Hopefully, in the next few weeks I'll be able to watch the games with Ike. Finally, another family member to try to recruit to my side.

mmm mmm good

whatever she'll eat
I won't argue anymore
as long as she's full

The wee-er one has become a picky eater. Well, not picky, per se, it's just that she won't eat anything. At all. Ever. I think it has something to do with the dreaded two year molars coming in. Bleh.

So anyway, all day has become the new gameshow: What Will The Wee-er One Eat?!. The winner gets to not become malnourished. Yay! It's a really fun game and usually culminates with me tossing some chopped up strawberries into a bowl, some pirate booty into another bowl, putting both bowls on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, and backing away as if I am trying to feed an angry miniature hyena that has spontaneously appeared in my kitchen.

Well, tonight was the same as all nights. Much screaming. Much "NO LIKE DAT!" and "NO WANT DAT!" until we accidentally stumbled upon the perfect combination of food she'll eat:

maple yogurt in an ice cream cone
orange juice
a V8
cheese

Whatever works, right?

Look who's 4lbs 3.1oz!

Originally uploaded by haikumama.

Ike-a-saurus was moved to a bassinet today. Yay! Good-bye temperature-controlled isolette, hello noisy cold room of nurses!

This is actually a trial run to see if he can maintain his temperature without getting too cold or too tired, and without losing any weight. He may have to go back to his plexiglass condo, but hopefully not.

There's some talk about giving him EPO for his anemia (the same stuff the doping cyclists take!). But hopefully his platelet count will go up and we won't have to worry about it. I guess with preemies, their little bodies aren't able to make their own red blood cells yet, so they get anemic pretty easily. Our fingers are crossed that his numbers will go up in the next week or so and we can avoid any illicit cycling drugs or transfusions.

I tell you what, it is getting harder and harder to leave this little guy at the NICU. He's my baby. And I have to drive 20 minutes, park in the giant parking garage, walk a mile to the elevators, hitch a ride to the 8th floor, get permission to enter the NICU, scrub my arms like they are covered in malaria soaked with flu wrapped in ebola virus, and then steal a chair and screens so that Ike and I can have an hour or two of time together.

I am trying to not let it get to me. I am trying to stay happy and excited and positive and very ra ra about it - because after everything we've been through, it IS ra ra right now. But still. I want him home. I want him to remember to breathe when he eats (he's getting very good at it). I want him to be ready to holler in the car seat. I want to be writing blog posts about how the kids won't leave him alone and about how the stupid dog keeps waking him up from his naps. I want him here. Right now.

Ah, well. It's hard to not be impatient. I feel like I've been tested enough. I am done with the being tested. I just want to hold him and watch poorly chosen TV shows with him. I want the wee one and the wee-er one to get to see him everyday. I want a lot of things.

Mostly, though, I want to show you how dressed up he got today for the big move. Necktie and matchy matchy hat. Woo!

What's your story?

I was reading this week's Entertainment Weekly and there's a line from Stephen Colbert commenting on how big his hips look on the cover photo. He says, "I could drop a baby like a peasant."

Reading that line made my milk let down.

Yes, even my boobs are out to prove that I am crazy.

Also, the smell of olive oil makes my milk let down, because I use olive oil to lube up the flanges. God, how I wish "lube up the flanges" was a euphemism for something.

So. Colbert's hips and olive oil. I have to steadily avoid Italian restaurants showing Comedy Central, or else it's a Kill Bill splatterfest of milk everywhere.

I can't be alone in this. Right? Anyone else have weird stuff make their milk let down? Anyone? Someone help me out here.

It's that time

to go or not go
not fun decision to make
where's teleporter?

It's the time of night where I have to decide - am I going up to the NICU? If I am, I have to leave now so that I'm there for the 8pm feeding. That way Ike-a-saurus can have a go at breastfeeding before the gavage. I was up there this morning and he nursed for ten minutes straight and then for another five. He did great. In between those two bouts, though, he had two consecutive heartrate drops, turned pale and blue and FREAKED MY FREAKING SHIT. He was fine, but damn if that didn't shave about five years off my life.

Now I have to not let that scare me from feeding him. Obviously, he has to learn how to eat. And obviously, he is not ready to just chow down. He is getting stronger everyday and sometimes I forget that things are still perilous. But today reminded me. "This is why he's still here and not at home," the nurse said and I nodded my head vehemently. Yes yes. I totally understand.

In the evening, when I am so tired and the drive to the hospital looms and the mile-long walk to the elevators taunts me, and I am afraid of nearly killing him with my boobs, I know it's a good night to stay home, regroup, catch up on TV and relax. But I feel tremendously guilty.

I want to be there with him tonight. I want to try to nurse him. I want to scrub the germs from my arms and fingernails. I want to hold him and smell his head and pepper him with staccato kisses. I want to whisper in his ear how strong and amazing he is and how he's going to make it through the night with no Brady's or apneas or de-sats. I want to tell him that he's perfectly capable of breastfeeding and surviving, that this is just the training period now. He is like a triathalon athlete, training for the big race, and he will improve his stamina the more he practices. This is what I say to him in the mornings when I visit and in the evenings, and all the time. I'm sure he's probably tired of hearing it.

I hate to not be there tonight to have our chat. And my husband is too tired to go, too. I know the two of us need quiet time together, too, but still. I miss the little dude, and even on good days I only spend about two hours out of my whole day with him. I hate to not be there. I hate to be tired.

The nurses will take care of him, though. They will give the bottle a whirl if he's alert and awake. Maybe they'll even give his stinky butt a bath. It's nice to know they're there for him, but it hurts my heart to not be the one doing it.

The TiVo better hold some magic for me tonight, because damn if I'm staying home to just watch crap TV and feel inadequate.

Nippling Protocol

Nippling Protocol
Not a dirty spy movie
a big step ahead

Ike-a-saurus begins his nippling protocol today! And though it sounds like a backroom James Bond-esque porno, it is not. It means the nurses are going to try to feed him a bottle. It also means we can really work on the breastfeeding in earnest. Yay! He is officially 33 weeks today, gestationally (which is weird to say, since he is gestating in a little temp controlled condo and not my belly), and 33 weeks is when they can really start practicing the whole suck, swallow breathe thing.

Wish us luck - this one's a biggie towards coming home!

When it's good to neglect your kids, or why I was so excited I fell asleep from overstimulation

So!

This morning did not start off well. It is my second day All Alone With The Kids (tm). (I don't know why I TM'd that, it just makes it seem important.) I haven't been All Alone With The Kids (tm) since something like April. There has always been a grandma or grandpa or aunt here to help out. It's been great to have so much help, and we've been incredibly fortunate, but I was really itching to get things back to "normal."

In fact, I've been acting a lot like the wee-er one has been acting in her splendor of being two. In our own ways both of us have been shouting MY DO IT! and NO NO NO WAY, MY DOES IT NOW! Because we both have wanted to be independent and we both have not been able to do it.

Well, my independence has returned to something like 85% of normal. I still can't go up and down the stairs all day long and I can't pick up heavy things and I get tired really, really easily, but it's OK, because MY DO IT. And my has been liking it. Well, until the wee-er one went crazy apeshit this morning, hollering and shrieking (and that was before the sitter got here).

The sitter calmed her down, though, and off I went to the NICU.

Well. I got to the NICU and the first surprising thing was that Ike-a-saurus was wearing clothes. Actual baby clothes! I was like, "Uh, hi, is this my baby? Did he sneak out for a trip to Abercrombie last night?" And the nurse told me that he's big enough for clothes now and doing a better job of regulating his temperature so they took him off the shiny silver temp lead that sticks to his belly and plugs into the isolette. Yay!

You know what this means. This means shopping. Hard core, heavy duty, preemie clothes shopping. Oh yeah.

Also - and this is the most incredible news of all... he nursed. More than just nuzzling. His little mouth latched on and he sucked like a champ! His eyes were wide open, and as I immediately bragged to my best friend, the look on his face was all, "Shit, yo, stuff comes OUT of these things!"

The nurses were disbelieving that, at 32 and a half weeks he was clearly latching on. I just kept yelling for people - anyone, strangers, janitors - to come watch. It made me cry.

I was warned he might not do it again for a while, that this just might have been all the stars aligned at a perfect moment in time, but that's OK. My baby that wasn't even supposed to be born sucked milk out of my white hot pump-bruised nipple and I luxuriated in it.

And he looked at me with those bottomless dark eyes and we had a mind meld. Our thoughts met and they said, "Take that, bitches. Look at us now." And then our mind meld decided to not be so harsh because we have an incredible team at the hospital now - and we did throughout my stay, too - so our thoughts met and they said, "No one here ever expected less. And now we are showing you that you were right."

At one point the lactation consultant came by and assumed she was there to help us. But then the nurse said the 32 and half week baby was doing fine, it was the full term baby at the end of the bay that needed the help. And she winked at me. Of course, we may need tons of help in the future and breastfeeding will, of course, be hard, but today was some kind of magical moment.

And so, I ran around like a maniac this afternoon, so excited about the nursing, so excited about the clothes, and once the wee one came home from school I passed out, unconscious on the couch. The wee one and the wee-er one then managed to spill bubbles, glue one or more of their hands to the kitchen table, eat ketchup directly from the bottle and chew on a black marker all while I snored desperately from the sofa.

It has been a big day today. And I am pretending that my incision doesn't feel like it is sewed over a bowling ball right now because I so want to go back to the hospital tonight. I don't want to still be this tired. I want to go nurse Ike-a-saurus all night and dress him up in tiny onesies and beg the nurses to let me take him home, even though he's only 3 lbs 4.9 ounces (big!) and still on the canula. It is both exhilarating and incredibly frustrating to have these great days. I want him here right now.

I WANT THAT.

THAT MINE.

MY DO IT.

***
ps. writing this post made my milk let down.

He stinks

sniffing homemade cheese
it is a great stinky smell
when in tiny neck

Ike-a-saurus is so smelly all of a sudden! Like blow-out-your-cheeks-put-one-finger-on-your-lips-
pretend-that-you're-trying-not-to-barf smelly. For real.

I'm not sure how one gets so stinky while living in an isolette pumped full of regulated clean air, but I'm guessing it has something to do with trying (sometimes unsuccessfully, but mostly successfully) to keep 30mL of expressed breast milk in one's belly every 3 hours.

I am so proud of his stink. He smells like a real baby. Not that he isn't a real baby, or that I haven't perceived him as a real baby, but something about the visceral neck cheese smell does my heart good. He is a real baby. A tiny real baby.

Yay!

Happy three week birthday, Ike-a-saurus!

You're the most butt-kickingest, awesome 2lb 13ounce superhero the world has ever seen!

Love love and more love,
Mommy