5 Pounder Club!!

We took Cate to the eye dr and pediatrician on Monday. The eye dr said she's still stage one for ROP. He said her eyes are still immature. He was hoping that her eyes would have matured a little bit more at this point, but said sometimes with babies born this early it just takes a little longer. We go back to see him in 5 weeks. Then we raced over to the pediatrician's office. She weighed in at a wopping 5 lb, 2 oz!! We had just fed her 2 oz. so she may be closer to 5 lb., but we are ecstatic. Duke's nickname for Cate is 4 pounder. He better get used to calling her 5 pounder for awhile. :) I wish I could show her off to everyone. She is so sweet!

4 Weeks Old (Corrected)

On Friday the visiting nurse came. She weighed Cate before and after I nursed. She did not gain any weight after she nursed because she went #2 during. But she was up 2 ounces from Wednesday. She's now at 4 lb, 13 oz. We will be jumping for joy when she makes the 5 pounder club. We had a bit of a routine going that doesn't seem to work anymore. The swing seemed to really help her fall asleep for the past few weeks. Not anymore. So Cate's been a little fussier lately. The new hits--the halo swaddle sack and Baby Bach dvd. The swaddle sack is nice because I don't have to worry about waking her when I reswaddle her after feeding. I can just put that thing on her quickly. Great invention. Baby Bach is hilarious. She sits in her bouncer and swings her arms and legs around. When the dvd runs out she starts crying. Duke said he's lost his tv. :) Her attention span isn't quite there yet, so it only works for about 20 minutes, but it's a very peaceful 20 minutes. This weekend has been nice. We love having Dad home. We have the eye dr and pediatrician tomorrow. Wish us luck! Gotta run... She's yelling for me. Bath time is tonight. I'll try to get some good pix to post. Bath time is usually a good time for a photo op.

Week In Review

Lots of appointments!! It seems that every week we have lots of appointments. On Friday the 13th I went to Methodist for an abdominal ultrasound, chest x-ray, and echocardiogram. All results came back good--I have 2 kidneys and the chest x-ray and echo came back good. While I was waiting for my echo I fell asleep in the waiting room (accidentally). The tech thought it was funny so I explained that I have a newborn at home. When she asked me 10 minutes later how old my baby is, I wondered how she knew I had a baby. Wow--I do not get smarter with sleep deprivation. The next day was Valentine's Day. My mom babysat and forced Duke and I to go to dinner and a movie. The whole time we talked about how cute our baby girl is and how much we missed her. :) I took a short nap during the movie (again accidentally). It was nice to get out though and feel like real people. Thanks Mom!! On Monday the 16th we took Cate to see the surgeon at Children's because of the pediatrician noticing she has a groin hernia. At first the surgeon said he didn't see one and almost sent us on our way. Then he got Cate fired up and he saw it. He immediately said he would be doing surgery in 2 weeks. He said what is sticking out when you see the hernia is her ovary. :( He said that it shouldn't have an effect on her ovary if they do the surgery soon. It is scheduled for Friday, March 6th. She will have to be put back on the ventilator and will be given iv fluids. She will be in the hospital for at least 24 hours, maybe longer depending on her vitals and how well she does on the vent. She will stay in either the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) or the NICU. I am hoping she will be in the NICU since that is what we are familiar with. But hopefully it is just for one night. When we were up at Children's we stopped by the NICU to see Cate's friends (the nurses). We had to tell her about it later as she slept through it. It was great to see you guys! Maybe we'll see more of you on the 6th. On Tuesday the 17th the school system came out to look at Cate. This is a service that the pediatrician told me I should use. The school system offers free services to disabled children (Cate is considered disabled because of her being so premature). The occupational and physical therapists came out and looked at her. They will give us a report on their recommendations next month. On Wednesday the 18th the home health nurse came over to see how much milk Cate was getting from nursing. We were concerned that Cate may not have been nursing well because her weight gain has been so slow. She weighed 2 oz more at the end of the feed than at the beginning (4 lb 11 oz--4 lb 13 oz). That was great news. We were so worried that she was not getting anything while nursing. Now we know that I am not starving her. The home health nurse will continue to come out a couple times each week. She will be back tomorrow. Yesterday I had to go in for another dye test. It came back the same as last time. It looks like I have a unicornuate uterus and only one fallopian tube. My o.b. said they know I have 2 fallopian tubes because they saw them when she delivered Cate. She said that the one tube would only give me a tubal pregnancy, so now we have to decide whether to surgically remove that tube. She is consulting with a fertility specialist to see what we should do. Tomorrow I go in for more labs with my genetic heart condition and then the home health nurse will be coming over tomorrow afternoon. More later... Sorry for the novel!

Doctor Appointments

I took Cate to the pediatrician's office both Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday we went in for her synagis (RSV) shot. Yesterday we went in to see if her weight was up from last week. The dr said he wanted her to be up a minimum of 4 ounces. She was only up 3 ounces. He said for now he wants to remain optimistic and he's having a home healthcare nurse come to our house to make sure everything is going ok with nursing. We told him that she was a slow gainer in the hospital as well. She's always eaten well, but gains slowly. I guess she has my high metabolism. :) So I don't know when we go back to the dr to get her weight checked again. I guess I'll have to check on that. My aunt and uncle have been here this whole week helping me out. Thanks Uncle Virgil and Aunt Julie! They do things around the house and watch Cate while I nap. I feel so lazy. Cate is improving on the sleeping thing, but it could still get a lot better. She definitely sleeps better during the day than at night. It seems like we're going to the dr everyday. Tomorrow I have to have an ultrasound, chest x-ray, and echocardiogram. I had some testing done after having Cate to see why I had the HELLP syndrome (severe pre-eclampsia, the reason I went into labor so early). One of the labs came back positive that I had some genetic disorder that can cause heart disease. So I was sent to an internist to see what I should do. He determined (by doing more labs) that I probably have vater/vacterl syndrome. My trachea and esophagus being connected when I was born, me having half of a uterus, my right thumb not having a joint, etc., may all be connected to this one disorder. Tomorrow they are looking to see if I have a hole in my heart and if I have one or 2 kidneys. Can you believe I'm 32 years old and am still finding out things about myself?

Hey NICU nurses, Duke, Cate, and I will be up at Children's this coming Monday for a dr appt. at 1:15 pm. We're planning on stopping by. Hope to see you then. We miss you guys!

Long Time No Talk

Well, I haven't posted in quite awhile. I'm so busy I have to make time to eat. But you moms know how it is. How do you do it? :) Cate's been to the pediatrician a few times since my last posting. He told me all the crying all night is colic (I knew it). I would say for about 3 weeks she was fussy/crying most of the time. I was going on only a couple hours of sleep most days. Thank God for the grandmas coming over in the evenings to help. When I took her to the dr on Wednesday, he said to switch up a few things with her feeding and give her milk of magnesia for upset tummy. It seems we were not feeding her often enough. We'll get this figured out sometime before she turns 16. I don't know if it's the medicine or the new feeding schedule, but something is working. She has been close to an angel for the past 2 days. I have gotten more like 5-6 hours of sleep in a 24 hour time period. I can now conquer the world. The pictures above are post bath this evening. She is at 4 lb 8 oz. I'm taking her back to the dr next week because she is gaining a little too slowly. Hopefully this new feeding schedule will have her gaining more weight. We had our last eye dr visit on Monday 1/26. It went very well. The dr said her chances for blindness have gone way down. Her eyes are still immature, but it seems that things are improving. Now we only have to take her to the eye dr once a month. When we were at the pediatrician the other day he noticed a groin hernia on Cate that I hadn't noticed (very small). He said it could potentially be a serious thing if left untreated. We have an appt with the surgeon to discuss where we go from here on 2/16. Hopefully we've made a turn for the better and I'll be blogging about Cate more often. More later...