As the sun set out of sight this evening behind the hill into which our home is tucked, I took the brief walk down to my chicken coops to close the birds in for the night.
It doesn’t take long to do, but for the last two nights it has either slipped my mind or been edited out of the evening in favor of child care.
As I walked past the garden (which still badly needs its fall clean-up) a small herd of white-tailed deer startled and bounded away, their white flag tails just visible through the dim evening.
I noticed them and then went back to thinking about my family.
I am concerned that we not give the impression that the logistics of what we are currently experiencing are far beyond what a family that just received its second child would normally have to deal with. We have no intention of milking our situation to unfair advantage in terms of community support (I am aware that this probably doesn’t need saying, but it is a nagging worry of mine). That having been said it has felt, for other reasons, like a pretty heavy load and we have been most grateful for all of the great help we have been given—most of it logistical or practical in nature.
We are still needing to feed Nora as often as she’ll eat…no less frequently than every three hours and however much more frequently she wakes up and demands it. This is because she came into this world with no fat reserves, so if she runs out of calories in her digestive tract she could be in trouble pretty quickly. Fortunately she IS gaining weight (another 4 ounces this week to a total of 4lb 15oz), and seems to be indicating to us by her feeding and activity patterns that she is ready for one longer block of sleep each night. Her pediatrician has agreed to the experiment, for which we are grateful, because she had been pursuing a feeding pattern typical for a baby her age (though not her weight), which is to be awake in the evening and tank up on milk, and then be zonked out for the first five hours or so of the night. It’s satisfying and heartening to see her gobbling milk in the evenings, but has been pretty frustrating when we blow an hour of our own sleep just to cajole our baby into swallowing a third of an ounce of breast milk. Cross your fingers for us…we hope to try it tonight. Boy, could we use a 3 ½ hour block of uninterrupted sleep.
When we’re so caught up in maximizing her hour-by-hour milk consumption and day-by-day growth, it’s not often we spend much thought energy on Nora Lynne’s future. And honestly we don’t really have any more helpful information about that than we’ve ever had before. Her pediatrician told us today to be prepared for the whole range of possibilities, from radiantly normal outcome to extremely impaired. He has just gotten a copy of the discharge summary from UVA, which indicated to him just what we thought it would: lots of findings with no conclusions (I think those are the appropriate terms). In other words, nobody will risk a guess about her future or diagnosis, because it would be as much a stab in the dark for the experts as for us amateurs.
Leaving us where?
Hopeful each time she makes an advance in weight gain or any new or intensified ability or behavior.
Anxious each time the light catches her the wrong way and she seems so different from other babies, or when a feeding doesn’t go well.
If you average it out, we’re doing o.k., so that’s how we’ll usually respond when people ask. But each nuance in our opinion of what her future will be or how she’s fairing now implies a wide swing in our sense of equilibrium.
Also, we’re dealing somewhat with the after-effects of six weeks of bed rest followed by a month at the hospital, so if you add those factors to the normal logistics of adding a second child to the family, you can see why we still feel fragile and don’t know when we will begin to feel ourselves resilient again, which is why we still appreciate the support that our friends, family, and church community have shown for us.
Well, I’d better go join Janelle and Kali for some soup and corn pone before Nora wakes up and needs attention again. Love, Jason
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I just read over this letter written by Jason while I hear Kali in the background trying to convince her Daddy that her supper stomach is full but not her dessert stomach. Oh and now Nora is crying…
Some time later I’m back and have a limited window of time so this won’t be the time for much in depth reflecting. Nora is with Jason and Kali in the front room for a few minutes to give me the time to send this out to all of you. She may or may not be happy with this plan. She seems to be starting to have a bit of a fussier/gassier time in the evenings where she can’t quite decide what she wants to do next.
Back to the idea of in depth reflecting – I think both Jason and I only get a chance to do that in small snippets throughout the day. However, we were so grateful to be afforded the chance to take a walk together on Saturday when my folks came to visit and my Dad took Kali on a little adventure to a nearby lake while Mom stayed in our home to be available should Nora wake (which she didn’t). It was the first time in a very long time that Jason and I were able to take a walk here at home and while I relished it, I also realize how very much I miss those times.
Saturday we also did some Christmas decorating in our home with Mom and Dad’s help and some of their decorations (since we have yet to amass many of our own). We now have a swag (greens and a red bow) hanging above our front door, a Christmas tree with an eclectic collection of ornaments, our stockings from my Mom since we won’t be able to join my family for that tradition, and various other things. It will be a different Christmas to not travel to Pennsylvania to be with family, but it was also special to decorate our own home for the first time. We hope we can make this holiday season special for Kali in particular.
Well, Nora is not sounding very patient so I better send this and go see if she is wanting to tank up on milk for the night. Thanks to all of you for remembering us in this continued journey. Janelle
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