Grandma Clarke came to visit

Yay...Grandma came to visit. I don't know who's happier to see who ... it was a great visit... a great first meeting (with out glass/plastic between them). 143 Grandma!

Tipping the scales

(remember...you can click on the pictures to make them full size...then just hit the back button to return here)

Hi everyone! It has just been so wonderful with Olivia home that I almost forgot about this blog. Shame on me. So selfish.

Olivia is doing awesome. We're all getting into a grove around here although it will take some more time to get it down. (i imagine that once we all get it down, it will change anyway...but it's good practice and we definitely adapt).

I'm noticing more and more awake time as the days go by. It used to be eat and fall back to sleep almost before the last sip but now she spends time checking out her surroundings and searching for her thumb. Mike says that i have set a world record...spoiling a baby in under 72 hours, but i can't help it...i have 3 months to make up for. It's not my fault that it feels so darn good to hold her and kiss her.

Her eye exam this week was the same...no change for the better or the worse. Still level two zone two. The 2 week follow up at ther pediatricians was more interesting. Any one want to wager a guess at how much she weighs this week? 5lb 11oz? 5lb 14oz (Mike's prediction)? 6lbs? How about 6lb 3ozs! 4oz shy of gaining a pound in just one week. (legnth is now 18") She is really catching up fast. Here are some pictures from today and yesterday.

More pictures from the 17th

Someone is trying hard to find her thumb

blogger is having issues and will not upload my pictures .... the rest of them ... so this is all i have for now.

Sleepy heads

She's home she's home!

99 days in the hospital and Olivia is finally home. Mike, Savanah and I are ecstatic. Sunday Mike and i spent the night in the hospital with Olivia as part of the requirement before she could come home. It was the strangest feeling because she was completely "wireless". For the very first time we could pick her and carry her around w/o worrying about pulling wires or tubes. It was great to change her and see her bare chest ... no more sticky pads leaving terrible red blotches...no more monitors beeping .... I can't even explain how that feels after so many weeks of knowing nothing else but that.

We are doing our best to keep her on some sort of schedule. The nurses really had a great thing going on with feedings every four hours as well as the night and day schedule. Last night after her 8 o'clock feed i turned off the lights and she fell fast asleep. When she woke for her middle of the night snacks it was the same thing...just get down to business and then sleep. During the day it is different ... we eat and then spend time taking everything in, looking around, talking our peanut language of grunts and snorts (no cooing yet ... we still have the tell tale premature baby grunts going on).

Today (Wed) I took Olivia on our first outing. She had an eye exam this morning (still about a level 2 zone 2 as she has always been) and we'll go out again tomorrow for an appointment with her pediatrician. These doctors don't waste any time wanting to see her once she gets out of the hospital.

I got the kind of comments today that everyone warned me I would.... "wow she's small, are you sure she's 3 months old?" ... and no one had to warn me about how protective I would feel of her, that I already knew. BACK OFF STRANGERS...THIS IS NOT A FREAK SHOW EXHIBIT. Maybe i didn't really think that in capital letters...but I did wish there was a seperate waiting room just for neurotic mom's like me.

Apologies for not writing sooner...i've been sleeping when she sleeps and of course enjoying her when she is awake. It feels a lot like time was warped and even though she was born months ago, these last few days feel very much like those of a mom with a newborn who has just come home after a two day hospital stay.

Olivia is wonderful and the NC Melvilles are extremely happy! I hope everyone reading this is doing just as well.

Vitamin D

only have a second.... the blood work on the parathyroid came back ok. this means that her body knows how to process the vitamins so it's a matter of just giving her more of them. yay. two more tests are pending and we should have the results soon.

sticks and stones .... and big hugs

Hi everyone.

I may post an older, but not yet posted picture, on here so it won't seem so boring...but I did have a few things to pass along. The first one being obvious .... i didn't bring the camera with me yet again today. I know, shame on me. There were some cute pictures to be taken too.

Weight gain has been a little slow the last two days...i think an ounce over all. 4lbs 11ozs. The amount she is eating would indicate a growth spurt in the near future (to me). In the last two weeks she has gone from 8 feedings a day of 37mls to anywhere from 60-90mls. She ate 80 for her dad tonight ... that's pretty good.

The .... i don't want to call it bad news .... but the newest news has to do with her bones. It has been explained to me twice and I still don't feel comfortable trying to explain it so I'm attaching this link. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007231.htm

It basically means that even though we all want to hug and squeeze her ... we shouldn't. At least not too tightly. I'm told that this "condition" should correct itself (with proper management) by the time Olivia is 6 months corrected age (9 months from birth). My understanding is that just by being as early as she was she was already at risk for this and then the many doses of lasix ( http://www.drugs.com/lasix.html ) as well as Bumex ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/medmaster/a684051.html ) only compounded things. They are already fortifying my breast milk with certain vitamins, so this revelation means they will be adding additional vitamins as well as running more tests. Tests like the one that checks something called a parathyroid hormone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parathyroid_hormone and two other ones that I can't remember at the moment. These tests were requested by the endocrinologist at Big Wake ( Olivia is at a satellite hospital and Big Wake is sort of the Mother hospital that all the satellites are affiliated with). I shall keep you posted on the results as we get them.

Big Sister

Olivia will be three months old tomorrow and today was the first day that her big sister has been able to hold her. Because of the flu restrictions and the hospital regulations Savanah has not even seen her sister in over two months ... and back then she had to look at her through the plastic walls of the isolette. It was very sweet to see them together. Though these pictures are endearing I regret that I did not get any of the 100 smiles that Olivia had for Savanah. I was so drawn in to their interactions that grabbing the camera did not come to mind. Never the less, these are great pictures and I'm glad that Mike took the pictures that he did.

I don't have a weight update for tonight b/c the nurse won't weigh her until her midnight feeding but I can tell you that she has gone aprox. 36 hours w/o a brady. This is great news.

It is getting late...I should get some rest...Thank you for checking in...hope everyone is doing well.

More good news

I apologize for not posting in a while. We have good news though. Olivia now weighs 2027 grams! TWO kilos! That's 4lbs 7.5ozs. Big girl. It's no wonder, the way she's been eating, that she weighs this much. All of the nurses (even the ones that don't personally take care of her) stop us to say how they have heard about what a little piggy she is making of herself at meal times. Mike fed her a 60ml bottle last night (video) and she still wanted more so the nurse gave him another 1/2 bottle and she sucked it down too.

Weight is not what is keeping her from coming home. It's the bradycardias that are the last and only thing keeping us from bringing Olivia home with us. Once or twice a day her heart rate will drop down to the 60's or 50's for a moment or two ... rarely requiring intervention (intervention being a pat on the butt or tickle of the foot by the nurse to get her heart rate up). We are told that the earlier the baby is born the longer it may take to grown out of these spells. If she was only droping to the 70's they would have sent her home already ... but 50 is pretty low.

Aside from her healthy appetite and great job at growing, Olivia has also passed her hearing test and her eye exams continue to be negative for major problems.

More proof that Olivia Grace Melville is an amazing baby girl!