Mommy on the brink!

November 9, 2007 (written mostly on Thursday, November 8^th)

Dear Caring Community,

I am sitting here in the lobby of the NICU, writing to you while I have a little time with absolutely no potential for parenting, and therefore can concentrate on writing. Janelle is at Dottie and Bill Scott’s place (our temporary home base) with Kali, and I am here on NICU duty, but they’ve got Nora down in the MRI room right now, so I am here doing some more waiting.

I’m not totally sure why they are doing the MRI…it seems to be a “just in case it might turn up some useful information” kind of thing. Maybe just in case her spitting up might be more than normal baby-with-full-bellyness, maybe just in case it might provide a clue as to why her head is normal-baby size when she’s half normal-baby weight? She continues apace, acting in every way so far like a normal baby who just needs to grow, and who happens to have some probably minor abnormalities. And she is growing. In fact, she’s growing more or less precisely the way the doctors might have expected (not that their expectations have been all that precise).

What all the doctors and other prognosticators who have examined this baby can agree on is this: she is a puzzle, and not just a little bit of one. Fortunately, so far she has not developed into a puzzle that needs immediate and drastic solving. She’s been actually very steady, and doing everything basically appropriately for her size, if not gestational age. She needs a lot of sleep, but gets mad when disturbed. She gets tired out by trying to nurse, but she is capable of the correct motions and does them at the right times. When she’s awake and alert, she opens her eyes, turns her head, and takes a basic interest in sounds and sights in her environment. All bodily functions seem appropriate. Furthermore, the more weight she gains, the more like a normal baby she looks. She is still scrawny without a doubt, but her ribcage is filling in a little, I think her little bottom is getting fatter, and her face look just like…well…a baby’s. All over her body the wrinkles are beginning to subside.

Janelle’s biggest concern has been that each time Janelle has been there for a feeding, Nora has refluxed a small portion of the milk they give her through the feeding tube. Of all the people who have a stake in those events, the person who seems most concerned about them is Janelle, and the person who seems least concerned is Nora. The nurse wishes she wouldn’t, because she’s concerned about her aspirating some milk, but otherwise doesn’t seem too flapped by it. The doctors are not panicked about a few ccs of milk per feeding. I could go through a whole list of possible reasons she’s doing this, including proportional stomach size, sphincter energy level, sensitivity to motion, etc., but in my mind the most likely explanation seems to be that she spits up after she eats. But seriously, though, it does seem related to stomach capacity and motion, and the goal is just for the nurses to learn her groove.

The more significant factor associated with this phenomenon is its effect on the patient’s mother. Janelle’s beat. She’s been operating on too little sleep and too little to do but worry. The NICU environment could hardly be less friendly to Janelle’s personality, but she has endured it for a week now in the interest of being a diligent mother and attempting to increase breastfeeding. It was the spitting up that finally pushed her to a recognition that the current situation was not going to work. It’s painful to see her so stressed, but I’m glad we’re going to be dividing the NICU parenting up a little. I am not nearly so rumpled by all the false alarms, crying babies, and medical machinery (at least not yet), and I have a basically positive intuition about this baby, whereas Janelle’s (possibly influenced by exhaustion and cabin fever) has been a little more morose for the past two days or so.

Baby stats and events:

Heart rate: nothing to report

Breathing: nothing to report

Blood pressure: nothing to report

Weight: up 45 grams (1.5 ounces) from yesterday

MRI results: pending (but neurology has examined her again today and says they will stop by this afternoon.

Genetic blood tests: pending

Cuteness factor: up 5 points since yesterday

Thanks for your interest! Love, Jason

P.S. Dottie and Bill have been so good to us. It was definitely the right choice to accept their offer of hospitality to us, rather than bunking at the local Ronald McDonald house. Kali is enjoying their preschool very much and we are all enjoying their kind and generous spirits in a diversity of ways both emotional and practical.