Shiny Happy Baby

Essie had her most recent neonatologist appointment a couple of days ago. I went into this one stressed out because the last visit brought lots of head-shaking and stern words about Essie's lack of upper body strength.

At that time she'd been not getting enough tummy time, and not cooperating when having it. (Argh, the term 'tummy time' still gets me with its cutesy-ness, but whatever.) I wasn't expecting quite the level of negativity we got out of that one and it primed me to freak out about this visit. Leading up to it I was worrying about her development, wondering if the things she could do were enough to get a passing 'grade' or not.

And O, did this frustrate me. I don't tend to worry that much about what she's doing as a general rule. I quit checking the sites that tell you what babies should be accomplishing month by month because she was fairly normal-seeming and I didn't want to become a worrywart charting every single little thing. Also the preemie-to-adjusted age thing muddies the developmental waters anyhow and I knew it would be crazymaking.

So in the last couple of weeks I'd been getting more and more anxious about what they'd see in her development and even broke my rule and looked at a couple of sites; an action I immediately regretted. I started getting really angsty about things I thought she was behind on.

Then we went to the neonatologist appointment and everything was fine! They praised her up, said she had all the ingredients for crawling and just needed to put them together, said her prone posture was perfect and even put my mind to rest about her current refusal to eat solid foods. They did say to keep working on her torso strength, of course, and I suspect that will continue to be a weakness of hers but overall they were pleased with her and my stress levels about it went way, way down.

She's so close to crawling. And she wants to be moving, let me tell you. She can scoot on her butt a bit but it's slow going so far. She face-plants a lot in her experiments with getting on all fours, but doesn't cry over that kind of thing much because she's a tough little nut. I'm a bit taken aback by this speedy transition from immobile baby to almost-toddler, honestly. Nobody warned me how fast all this goes when it's your baby doing the changing. Sigh.

Her one-year birthday is approaching so quickly. I'm also amazed by that. Where is the time going?

The Big LEEP.

Well, yesterday I went in for my LEEP procedure. Andrew drove me there in the morning for ten o'clock. I was still pretty nervous about the whole thing but I felt OK going in, honestly. I knew it had to happen and would probably not take very long so I just decided to grit my teeth and bear it.

And it would have been completely bearable except for the fact that, because Princess Margaret's is a teaching hospital, someone who was still learning performed the anaesthesia and the procedure. She either did not use enough anaesthesia or put it in the wrong spot because when they started the procedure I felt it.

The injections did sting, but it wasn't all that bad. I was surprised, then, that I started feeling really faint and dizzy and everything started sounding weird in my ears. They waited for it to pass, then once I was feeling all right started the LEEP.

I'd been told to expect a feeling of heat, which I did immediately feel. Then I started to feel pain which surprised me since they'd said that the injection of anaesthesia would be the worst part and I'd feel all right after that. My brain kind of went like this:

"Yep, heat. Huh. Hmmm. ow. ow. ow. owowow. Ow. Ow. OW. OWOWOW."

I quickly said I was feeling pain and they stopped, then talked a bit. The doctor told the student not to go so deep on the next pass, then they started again. This time it was immediately painful and I nearly jumped. I'd been told not to jump since they were using a crazy cauterizing tool inside my body and things could go very badly. I again said I could feel what they were doing and at this point started crying a bit which embarrassed me pretty badly. But man, it hurt. So. Much.

They gave me another shot and while it helped I still felt the rest of the procedure, but it was more like an aching feeling than a searing pain. I'm not sure why it was so painful since I've been told there aren't nerve endings in the cervix, but survey (of my cervix) seems to say otherwise.

I'm glad it's over, but I've been feeling a bit silly about how traumatized I feel. I think my strong reaction was specifically because I was so relieved when the needles were over, then found out that it could get a whole lot worse. I'm just crossing my fingers that I don't have to have another one!

A different kind of leeping.

I haven't been very writely lately, I know. Things are OK, but I've been stressing out about a certain something and trying to write about anything else just wasn't working for me. I'd start stuff and never finish it.

Anyone who's been reading this blog from the beginning might remember that when I had my first OBGYN visit after finding out I was pregnant he did a pap smear (of course) and that there were abnormal cells present. He saw the results as serious enough to send me to Princess Margaret hospital to have a colposcopy done by a doctor who specializes in treating cancer during pregnancy.

So she did the colposcopy back in December and scheduled me to have another one in mid-March to see if the bad patches had spread. The big wrench in that plan happened when Essie was born on March 3rd almost three months early and I missed the appointment. As soon as I realized what had happened I tried to contact the clinic, but it proved very difficult, for some reason. Calling the hospital and trying to get transferred to the correct office was a bunch of fail because every time they'd transfer me I'd end up on a line that rang and rang but never went to an answering machine or was picked up by a human.

When I went to see my OBGYN for my post-partum checkup I told him about my difficulties and he gave me a different number to call. Awesome. So I started calling that number and it went to an answering machine for a few different doctors, at which I left pleading messages to call me back so I could make a new followup appointment. These messages went unanswered for quite a long time, then finally I called the general hospital number again and wouldn't let the woman transfer me until she could assure me that she was doing so to a number with real people on the other end.

Someone answered! And told me to call a different number, but this woman did go to the trouble of pulling up my patient number and giving it to me, instructing me to leave that information next time I left a message. So that's what I did, and I waited some more. I left maybe one or two more messages, but finally someone called me back and told me I could make an appointment! O, happy day.

I did so, and they scheduled me for September 8th. I ended up also getting my tattoo done on that day and was quite honestly more nervous about the tattoo since I knew that a colposcopy doesn't hurt in the slightest. So they did their thing and checked it all out and said that things weren't looking bad at all, but decided to do a biopsy for the sake of being thorough. That made me nervous but it ended up not hurting at all, either. The tattoo was much more painful!

I wasn't too terribly worried. The doctor had been quite casual about what she was seeing with her naked eye, saying it didn't look worrisome at all. So I was actually a bit shocked when I got the results and they told me I have severe cervical dysplasia, otherwise known as high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions or carcinoma in situ. All very scary-sounding. When they did the biopsy they'd scheduled me for a treatment in case things did end up worse than they appeared, and I'm thankful for that now. I'm going in for a loop electrical excision procedure (LEEP). That, my friends, is a loop of electrified wire used as a knife to cut away the offending pre-cancerous hot spots on my cervix. Also very scary-sounding, although they use local anaesthetic to make sure I don't feel anything during.

Dudes, I am so freaking nervous about this procedure. In the last year I have pretty much lost all fear of needles WRT them taking my blood, putting in an IV or giving me some kind of shot in my muscle. The thing I'm most nervous about for this procedure is the locality of the anaesthetic. OW. I'm not looking forward to the needles they're going to give me to freeze the area. Not at all. Not one little bit. I am what you call somewhat terrified. Electrified cauterizing wire used as a blade? I'm not going to feel that one! I'll feel the impalement of my inner bits and I'm sad.

I know. Suck it up, be grateful this was caught before it was full-blown cancer, be thankful there's treatment and I should be fine. I'm thankful, but still scared.

Six months old.

Today was Essie's six-month birthday, or half-birthday as I like to call it. We didn't do anything to celebrate, of course, since she could care less and we had other things to do. Well, I did, anyhow, having an appointment to keep this afternoon. Andrew goes back to work at the end of the month so it's nice to take advantage of being able to go out by myself!

Anyhow: Essie is six months old and we're completely amazed. Yesterday was also her four-month homecoming anniversary, so we had two notable days in a row to feel great about. It's incredibly strange to remember what it was like to hold her as a brand-new preemie. It's even a bit weird to think what it was like to bring her home! I have pictures to look at of that time, but I have to admit that I find it very difficult to go back and look at the Facebook albums I made when she was in the hospital. This is odd to me, since at the time those pictures were precious and I couldn't stop myself from poring over them whenever I was at home where she wasn't. I loved to gaze at them, inspect her every tiny feature, obsess about how much weight she'd put on and whether it was noticeable yet.



Now, though, I get extremely emotional and upset when I look at them. Back then I was trying to be so strong and for the most part succeeding. I didn't have a lot of choice, really, and so I just did it. It was hard and it felt hard, but Essie herself was more important to me. Now that she's home, she's healthy, she's happy and chubby and thriving ... well, maybe now I'm feeling the backlash of how truly difficult the whole experience was. I've got some distance from it and gained some perspective that tells me just how traumatizing it is to nearly lose your baby, nearly die yourself and then have to deal with your baby being very sick and requiring intervention just to survive each day for two months. It ... kind of sucks.



It makes me overwhelmingly grateful for the baby she is now. She's so alive and every day Andrew and I look at her and marvel at her. She reminds us to stop what we're doing and just enjoy life since that's what she does all day long. Her smile makes us smile back every single time. It's impossible not to smile back at her, so smiles have increased exponentially around here. Watching her discover something new or figure out a new trick is like watching a magic show. Every day she's a little brighter, a little stronger, a little bit more aware and alert.



I didn't expect a baby that looks like me, but the older she gets the more people say she does. I don't mind, certainly, and I see so much of my family in her. Her hair is still indeterminate except for the two stubbornly white-blonde spots on the right side near the front. Her eyebrows seem reddish-blonde, but might be darkening up a bit. Her eyes are definitely not blue, but haven't settled on a positive true brown like mine and might end up being hazel; that particular brown-green that a few of my family members share. Her legs don't look especially long to me, but it's hard to find sleepers with long enough legs for her in her age range and so she might end up tall, something that would surprise me but not shock me totally since there are some taller women in my extended family, and there certainly are on Andrew's side of the family.



It's just exciting to watch her grow. She's only three months adjusted and keeping up well with the milestones for that age, but the changes just pop up every few days and I haven't gotten used to one when suddenly she's on to the next thing, soaking up experience as quick as she can. She saw her feet a while ago and watched them suspiciously, not sure how to get them within tasting reach, but grabbed them for the first time the other day at my mom's place while she was playing with an overhead toy, kicking at Big Bird and Cookie Monster. She still doesn't really understand them and hasn't grabbed them since, but to see her grip her pudgy toes with her fingers was amazing to me.

She's a baby, normal and lovely as can be, and I'm so very, very lucky to have her in my life.

Good times, good times.

Last weekend we went to Ottawa for the annual cottage weekend at Colin's family cottage. It's something I really look forward to every year, and this year even more so since it was Essie's first time. She got to meet Colin (the birthday boy) and Jen for the first time which was very awesome.



We may have overestimated Essie's ability to deal with lots of travel, though. We stayed in Ottawa at night and traveled to the cottage in Val Des Monts during the day instead of staying there overnight. I figured it would be more sensitive to the other cottage-goers in the sense that they wouldn't be disturbed by overnight baby noises or the early rising of babies that often happens. I also figured it would be easier to care for Essie in the city and that part was definitely true.




Essie was not quite herself, though, and I think perhaps she didn't quite cope with the back-and-forthing in the car coupled with the exuberance of the cottage atmosphere as well as we'd hoped. This isn't to say she was screechy or anything. No; she was just more somber and a bit more whimpery than we're used to with her. When we had her to ourselves back at Colin and Jen's place she was smiley and sweet as usual.

But O, the good times we had eating fabulous cupcakes, playing games, talking and even doing karaoke! (It was my first karaoke experience, and even though I sucked it was fun.) There was an incident, however. Andrew usually sets off a fireworks display after dark on one of the nights, and this year the finale firework malfunctioned and he ended up burning a couple of his fingers. Not terribly badly, thankfully, but just in case it was worse than it looked Andrew went to the emergency room back in Ottawa. This meant that Colin and another lovely couple accompanied us back to town so that Andrew wouldn't have to drive, then they headed back in one car together. We appreciated that a LOT, since I currently don't have a license and couldn't drive the rental.

His burns turned out to be mostly second-degree and warranted nothing more than some bandaids, so all is well if slightly sore.



We came home on Tuesday to our sweet cats and Essie has been doing very well. She had a pediatrician's appointment today and she's just, just shy of thirteen pounds. It's a bit less than we expected based on how she's been gaining over the last few months, but she put on almost two pounds since her last visit so that's still pretty substantial! She's getting so big and active and LOUD. She's really discovered her 'complaining' voice, and it's got quite a volume. I'm not surprised, but the days of the growls are officially over now and I'm already nostalgic for my tiny, grunty little baby. Of course this big, smiley, talkative baby is just as lovely and even more engaging but damn if they don't change overnight.

Oh, how you've changed.

Becoming a mother for the first time is scary in a lot of ways, but one of the less talked about ways is that it can be a problem for other people in your life. Your life changes drastically, and so your interactions with others change as well. I understand that well, and understood it before I had Essie. I never said to myself, "Oh, motherhood will never change me. I'll still be the same old Keltie!"

What I was most afraid of? That it wouldn't change me. That I'd be the same old Keltie.

Being pregnant was overall very odd for me. Just when it was getting real and fun and far less tiring I was suddenly an early mom. I didn't get a lot of opportunity to get past the 'this can't be real' phase before it was incredibly real and twice as terrifying. I looked definitely pregnant for about, oh ... two weeks? Tops. Nobody ever gave me their seat on the subway or patted my belly.

So I don't feel as if I changed much as a person during that time. I hadn't made room in my brain for the reality of Shaughnessy since I thought I had more time to get used to her being inside of me. She was a concept, and a pretty major one, but not part of the world yet. She was yet another oddity about my physical being that I was contending with, I guess.

The circumstances of her birth were kind of equivalent to being thrown into a pool when you can't swim. And the pool water is freezing cold. And not very clean. I had to learn to swim with a quickness. Once I was discharged from the hospital I had to do all kinds of things that I wasn't thrilled about doing, but having a kid takes choice away from you completely. You don't have a choice about taking care of your baby. YOU had it, you silly thing, so you have to take care of it. I had to pump if I wanted her to have my breastmilk and I had to get out of the apartment every single day to go see her and take it to her (something difficult for my agoraphobic self, even if it doesn't sound like such a big deal.)

Now that she's home I have even less choice. 'Sleeping in' doesn't actually exist any more, even if Andrew is taking care of her while letting me sleep. On a very visceral level I'm so attuned to being her mother that the sound of her crying or making any other baby noise will wake me and I'll be on high alert even when I'm trying to get myself settled back to sleep. But when I do have to wake up to her cries or whimpers for a bottle or a diaper change it sucks as much as waking up to a strident alarm clock. It feels shitty to rouse yourself from comfortable sleep. There is no choice though, and so I do it.

So on that level I have changed. I have a giant new responsibility and I'm doing what is necessary to fulfill it and changing my entire previous lifestyle to accommodate it. The nice thing about babies is that the longer you work at it the greater the returns. She's started smiling at us now when she sees our faces, which is pretty awesome at a time when you're feeling sad about having to be awake.

I've also changed in some ways that I was worried I wouldn't. I worried I wouldn't love my baby enough, which is so obviously not the case that I feel relieved every time I think of it. She is heart-splittingly lovable and I can't decide if it's that I have an exceptionally awesome kid or it's a built-in failsafe kicking in deep in my brain. Whichever; I don't care. I love this kid. I spend all day with her and it's all about her needs coming first now, not mine. It's not painful in the way I feared it would be, though. I worried that I'd be the mom sitting there staring at her wailing baby trying VERY hard not to smother it with a pillow and yes; there are frustrating moments so far, but no murderous instincts. I know that there are tantrum times coming down the road that I'll have to contend with. For now, though, I'm just happy that I've turned into a mother, one who loves her daughter when she's unhappy as well as being smilingly adorable.

So, um ... I've changed. I'm finding that it's hard to put into words how I've changed, I guess. I am embracing the all-consuming aspect of it right now in a way that might be surprising to anyone who knew me before Essie was born and had heard my many reservations about motherhood back when I was contemplating never having children. She's here, though, and I am now throwing myself willingly into the water rather than being forced in. I'm taking all the pictures I can, talking about her all the time, noticing other babies more as a result and maybe squee-ing a bit over them. I'm not trying to retain my concept of what I was before she came along; rather I'm excited about watching what I grow into now that she's here.

My hope is that if you love me, so are you.

O noes! It's an emergency!

Last night we had our first emergency room experience with Essie. Thankfully it wasn't a terrifying emergency at any point. Essie'd been kind of out of sorts for about a week since starting on the thrush medication. Last night Mom and I went shopping with Mimi and when we got back Andrew said that while we were gone Essie had been fighting with drinking her bottle and then throwing up pretty much every drop she drank after each eating session. I fed her a bit more and she did exactly what he'd been talking about; struggling and fussing while eating like it was uncomfortable, then barfing it all back up.

Seeming a bit uncomfortable is one thing; not keeping any food down is quite another. After a quick call to TeleHealth we decided to just go to the emergency room with her. We all loaded up into Mom's car and off we went.

I brought a full bottle with us in case the doctor wanted to see what we were talking about and since her stomach was mostly empty Essie got fairly quiet and calm. We had a bit of a wait to see the triage nurse, then another minor wait in the common waiting area. Things moved pretty fast for us, though, since Essie is so young and a preemie to boot. I felt guilty about that since I felt like she was doing well and in no immediate danger, but I'm no doctor and if there was something serious going on with her we wanted to know.

The ER nurse was a former NICU nurse so she was extra-great with Ess, but the funny part was that she'd forgotten we were the parents of the preemie baby and couldn't tell until I mentioned it. She was totally surprised and said she'd never have known unless we'd said something about it. She took us off to weigh old Essie and I was wondering how much she'd have put on. Last time she was weighed on June 8th she was eight pounds, four ounces, and this time she was 11 pounds! This kid is not kidding around about being big and healthy.


Sucking back a bottle in the emergency room like nothing was ever wrong with her.

The ER doctor (Dr. Cottle, for all you BSG fans) pretty quickly determined that Essie doesn't have anything wrong with her other than ongoing thrush issues, and that the vomiting might be because the thrush is in her throat as well and it's irritating to her. So she just told us to continue with the meds four times a day, and assured me that no, the meds will not harm her in any way even if she seems uncomfortable. After the diagnosis she praised Essie up like gangbusters and told us we were obviously taking great care of her and that she was a superstar.

I always love hearing stuff like that, especially that it's obvious that we're taking good care of her. It does make me wonder, though, how many babies they see that aren't receiving good care. Is it in any way remarkable or are they just being reassuring? Babies are pretty straightforward when all is said and done. Keep 'em clean, keep 'em clothed, feed 'em when they're hungry and talk nicely to them. They grow! They're even amusing and interesting a lot of the time as a result.

They're not quite as simple to take care of as houseplants, but then every houseplant I've ever owned has died a horrible death of outright neglect. Essie, on the other hand, is doing just fine. I think the reason for this is that a houseplant has never once smiled at me.

Guess what today is!

Happy Due Date, Essie!

That's right; today is the day Essie was 'supposed' to be born. Or, the most likely day on which she could have been born. Of course things didn't exactly go to plan, but I was attached to this date for a number of reasons. It was my grandma Morrow's birthday, it's one of Andrew's wonderful cousins birthday, and it just has nice vibes what with all the partying and goodtimes on May 24 weekend.




But yeah ... not so much, huh? Instead of sitting here with a massive belly and feeling as supremely uncomfortable as a pregnant woman can feel (which you know I would be; I am very accomplished at feeling physically uncomfortable) I am sitting here typing on my laptop with a little warm baby sleeping cradled against my left shoulder. I've been a mom for almost three months now. Essie's been home with us for three weeks! What should have been a third trimester became a scary medical journey that I never want to repeat again.




But despite the rough start Essie's so great. So healthy and strong. She's growing and changing incredibly quickly, fattening up and getting more and more aware of us and her surroundings. I've said multiple times to multiple people that her prematurity had nothing to do with her, technically. Pre-eclampsia is about the mother's body malfunctioning, and Essie wasn't the problem physically. She was trying to grow and flourish in there and would have if I hadn't crossed my wires. So I believe very strongly that this is why she managed to grow and flourish like she did in the NICU. She wasn't sick, she didn't need any intervention; she was just early, evicted from her safe haven and forced to deal with a ton of obstacles as a result. In response she basically kicked the ass of all those obstacles and now here she is, a full-term-age baby with fat cheeks (both kinds), a great appetite, a friendly, resilient personality and all the love in the world at her fingertips.




Sometimes when she was in the NICU I felt like the day I got to be a 'real' mom would never come. The constraints of having a NICU baby are many and I've talked a lot about them before. Since she came home I've come to appreciate how that time allowed me to regain my strength and health while helping her develop hers and I'm thankful for it as such. But now that she's here I'm so in love with having her with me, with being her mom and taking care of her that I'd never want to relinquish her to anyone else like that again.




The fact that I'm enjoying this new role as much as I am has been a pleasant surprise. Yes, of course I'm always tired. I was this tired when I worked that night job in Ottawa, though, and this is definitely a more rewarding variant of exhausted. She wakes me up to feed her with escalating growls and when I give her her bottle she is hungry and attacks it like a snapping turtle, her eyes wide. Then she settles into a happy feed, humming and sighing and staring into my eyes. I talk to her and sometimes she 'talks' as well, groaning and growling around her bottle which results in pretty much one of the most hilarious noises ever. She does this with her soother too, and I laugh every single time.




She is lauded for her every poop, fart and burp. Pooping is difficult for her so of course I get genuinely happy that she is more comfortable when she works out her issues, so to speak. Just because her accomplishments are basic and biological in nature doesn't mean she doesn't deserve praise, you know. Hooray for being so good at being a baby! Maybe I feel so enthusiastic about it since for so long she was holed up in an incubator, unable to do all these usual baby things because of the shitty hand she'd been dealt. Her pure baby-ness now is a wonderful thing.




I'm a frickin' mom. Essie has made me into a mom. It's not like I thought it might be which is a relief because frankly I had a dim view of what kind of a mother I'd end up being and what kind of kid I might have. BUT! I had Essie, who is pretty much wonderful and I genuinely like being with her. And so far I'm not sucking so much at the mom thing, most of which I credit entirely to hormones and instinct and the example set me by my own Mom, who taught me common sense.




So Essie; today, the day that I held in my mind for six months as a kind of finish line, a theoretical kind of thing like the idea of what's over that next hill we've never climbed before; today I want to celebrate you and how far you've come in this crazy old world. I'm so proud of how strong you were in the NICU, how you put up with all the discomfort and pain and fright. I'm proud that the nurses all recognized the toughness of you, the fight you put up to make the sliver of the world you were aware of as comfortable and controlled as you could even if it meant just shoving your CPAP or holding tightly on to your feeding tube. I'm proud that you surpassed their expectations of you and did things ahead of schedule as often as possible, even when it caught us unprepared. And I'm proud, proud, proud that you're MY daughter.

GrrrRAHrahrargharghARGH.

We took Essie over to Maysie and Dan's for the first time the other night. I was really looking forward to introducing her to Dan, who had not yet met her, and just chilling with friends since we hadn't done so since she came home.

It was a great night and she was lovely. Emma also came over so she got to meet her, and everyone who wanted to got a chance to hold her. At one point, though, Maysie said that she was surprised I got any sleep co-sleeping with her like I do since she's so noisy.

I was a bit bemused since I actually hadn't even noticed her making much noise while we were hanging out. What's very possible is that I've just gotten used to her particular brand of noise and am tuning it out. But THEN the next day I was on the phone with my mom and Essie was beside me making her poop growl, which is the gutteral growl she makes when she's trying very hard to poop. Mom was all, "Is she OK? She sounds upset." I assured her that no, she's not upset. She's just narrating her life. Loudly.

She doesn't get upset to the point of inconsolable crying so far. The closest she comes is when we're attempting a nursing session and as soon as she starts making the high-pitched shriek noise I stop and we switch to bottle feeding. I think, though, that this nursing balderdash is teaching her to cry more quickly than she would if we weren't still persisting. Or at least if I weren't still persisting. I have been purposely not talking about the nursing situation these days, so that's all I'll say about that.

But noisy; yes. I honestly do not mind the kind of noisy she is currently. I mean, this served her very well in the NICU where the squeaky wheel was definitely more likely to get greased. Her nurses (and those who didn't have her) all knew her trademark growl. At St. Mikes one nurse told me that she'd went prowling around the room to find which baby was making such a noise and fix whatever was wrong, only to find Essie just growling to herself for no apparent reason. I was tickled by it then and I still am, since it's obvious just by looking at her that she's not in any distress, she's just talking in her baby way about the situation. When there's something bugging her she still growls and groans, but kicks it up a notch or two without resorting to screaming or anything like that.

I fully expect her to find her crying voice sometime very, very soon. Her due date is coming up within the week and any money one day she'll suddenly start with the regular baby cry and leave her tiny bear growls behind. I will miss them so, so much.

Good from the bad.

On Monday I had to take Essie to Toronto Sick Kids Hospital for an eye exam. Preemies get tested on a regular basis after they're born for retinopathy of prematurity and this was to make sure that she was still doing well since she'd scored pretty much perfect on all her tests before this. Even so I was unhappy because I know for a fact that these tests are highly invasive and distressing for the poor babies.

Basically they take these gadgets like from A Clockwork Orange and clamp them inside their eyelids to hold their sockets wide open so they can go in there with a pokey-proddy tool and poke and prod their eyeballs, or 'manipulate' them, as they put it. They give them eye drops to dilate their pupils, and before they do the testing they anesthetize their eyeballs, but it's horrific for the poor little things. The doctor asked me if I'd brought her soother so she'd had something comforting to distract her, but I hadn't and I'm sure it wouldn't have done any good at all.

They also asked me if I'd be more comfortable waiting outside of the room, but since it was my daughter having to lie on that table and be supremely uncomfortable I figured I could handle sitting there not being the one with my eyeholes cranked open. So I sat in a chair and watched. From my angle I couldn't actually see what they were doing, but it was agony to listen to my normally low-fuss baby girl scream and scream and scream. One doctor swaddled her and held her head very still while the other did the tests, and after they finished the one holding her unwrapped her and told me I could pick her up.

I picked her up with a quickness, you can be sure, and immediately held her close to me against my left shoulder, trying to soothe her with my voice and physical contact. And, she instantly stopped crying, wiggling in closer to me and dropping the noise down to an aggrieved whimper. The doctor said, "Wow. She knows who her momma is!"

I was upset about seeing poor Essie so scared and uncomfortable, but the doctor's comment made me feel pretty good. Since she's come home I've been doing my best to give her as much touch and positive contact as humanly possible, wearing her in the sling a lot and sleeping with her beside me rather than putting her in a bassinet or crib. Also talking to her a lot so she'll know my voice. She had to spend her first two months so isolated, despite the best efforts of the nurses and our visits. Not the way a baby should begin life! So it means a LOT to me that she already knows me as a safe haven, that I won't hurt her and that my physical presence is a constant in her life now. One of the hardest aspects of her being in the NICU was imagining the times when she needed or wanted physical comfort when there wasn't a nurse able to provide it and I wasn't there.

Now I can give her that, and I'm seeing the difference it's making.

The baby has landed.

Essie's home now. She's been home since yesterday morning, and we 'roomed in' overnight on Friday night. The rooming in went pretty well all things considered, if you consider that taking care of our daughter was the first priority and sleep was definitely the second! We managed to grab a few hours of sleep each, but not much. Also, a real cold finally decided to hit me that very night. Not one of the 'oh, maybe I'm a cold, maybe I'm not' things that have been plaguing me since she was born. No; a real, no-kidding cold.

Coming home, though, was lovely. We rented a car for the weekend to make things a bit easier for the first couple of days and you should have seen us on the drive from the hospital. Giddy with happiness and love for our little family unit, thrilled to be united at last. Bringing her into the apartment was strange, strange strange and the reality hit pretty dang fast. Like any newborn, Essie's schedule is eat, sleep, diaper change, eat, sleep, diaper change, eat, sleep, diaper change. She goes approximately three hours between feeds, so my entire focus has been on following this schedule and grabbing sleep when she's sleeping (after I've expressed milk, maybe eaten some food, had something to drink, possibly gone to the washroom. I hear tell I might even have a shower someday!)

In a very unexpected development my girl has decided she wants NOTHING to do with my boobs. I'm not talking simply bare boob, here. I mean she seems to suddenly hate the nipple shield with a tiny grunty passion. Whenever I attempt it she gets furious and overwrought and finally I just get a bottle and bottle-feed her because girlfriend needs to eat! She still isn't latching on enough to eat without the nipple shield, so this is a project we'll have to revisit a little later on when things have settled down. She has her first pediatrician's appointment tomorrow and I'll be damned if I go in there with a baby that's lost weight.

In all honesty this last day has been extremely difficult. Even without the cold it would have been, I'm sure, but it's been rough. I've been feverish and coughing and sneezing and throwing up and even with Andrew's considerable help I've found myself wondering how this parenting thing can be manageable long term.

The answer, of course, is that it won't be like this long term and that every new parent goes through this sudden reality-check of actually having a baby to care for around the clock. I will get over this cold, she will gradually go longer between feedings over the months and then start sleeping through the night (hopefully; I'm not dumb enough to think that's any sort of guarantee!) She's going to change so fast and I'll find myself looking back and missing with everything in me the tiny, perfect being that she is in this very moment. I'm disappointed that I got sick for these first, formative days together because I'm already realizing that I hardly remember the many details of what the last 24-plus hours have been like.

What I will remember is how it felt to instinctively hold her near me when I'd crash out with her on the sofa during her sleeps. My own head spinning and sore and stuffed up, but all my senses focused on her breathing and how perfect her round little cheeks are. I'll also remember the painful reality that struck each time her hungry grunts would wake me up too soon from a desperately needed nap. There is no choice. Baby must eat, baby is our baby, we're the ones who have to sustain her. That's life, momma.

So I guess yet another chapter in this weird blog now begins. We'll see how regular my updates are now, but I guarantee I'll have a lot to share when I do!

A bit of a surprise!

Our precious, precocious daughter yanked out her feed tube the other day and rather than put it back in her nurse decided to see how well she did on a 'feed on demand' schedule rather than a timed gravity feed schedule. That just means that every time she acted hungry they bottle-fed her with my breastmilk. Apparently she did well and gained weight at her usual rate, so they decided there was no real reason to keep her around much longer and informed us that she should come home within a few days! She'll likely be home on Saturday or Sunday!

Um ... what? A baby here, living with us? We are master procrastinators and having not expected her to come home for at least another couple of weeks we find ourselves now scrambling to prepare. Some things we'd intended to do won't get done before the weekend, but they're not the important things like having diapers and bottles and all the little things you find yourself needing. Moving furniture? Can wait.

Luckily we have the most important basics at hand like a place for her to sleep, a car seat, clothes and other essentials. Plus, my boobs. She actually managed to latch without using the nipple shield for a few minutes today, but I am still glad I have that thing or I don't think we'd be having so much success. But the fact that she can be sustained through bottle feeds means that the hospital feels she's ready to strike out on her own, and so it's time for us to take over.

More to follow, but we have a lot to do!

Glimpsing the bottom of the well.

I'm so thankful that I told the nurses that it was OK to bottle feed Shaughnessy. Since the night before last I've had a scratchy throat, sinus pain and an on-again, off-again slight fever. It doesn't feel all that serious but the presence of symptoms like this keeps me out of the nursery where my daughter still lives and that makes me very sad. Even worse it keeps me from breastfeeding my girl, but at least she's being bottle-fed which keeps up her practice at suck-and-swallow.

They did make some worried noises about how much breastmilk they have on hand and feel that they're running low. I wouldn't be overly concerned but my milk supply has decided to get less plentiful over the last week and I'm not quite sure why. If it does happen that they find themselves out at some point I'll give them permission to give her formula, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. She's never had formula and the sudden switch would probably give her gas for miles, not to mention worse constipation than the poor little bug already has.

Mostly it's a selfish worry, though. She's at what is considered full-term with regards to her gestational age. Drinking formula is pretty much a non-issue at this point. Being able to express milk for her and know that all of her sustenance came directly from me was a major source of comfort for me during the time when there wasn't anything more concrete I could do for her. I couldn't cuddle her, I couldn't comfort her, I couldn't even really touch her much, but by golly I could pump! Even if I hated physically doing it, I was glad to do something so maternal for her.

Now that I can hold her, interact with her and even breastfeed her directly it's not as emotionally necessary, but I'm still a bit freaked out. I didn't have to put much effort into keeping up my milk supply, and suddenly it is betraying me! The nurses at both hospitals were/are very pro-breastmilk and although they're not explicitly anti-formula (and I am decidedly NOT anti-formula) I have overheard disparaging comments about it. I don't want to be disparaged! I'm already paranoid enough about seeming like I'm not a good enough or caring enough parent.

Anyhow, it's just something new for me to freak out about and poke at with my brain. I'm stepping up my pumping/expressing a bit to try to stimulate more milk production but if anything I've seemed to be getting even less as a result. I do not know what this is all about. What up, boobs. I'll have to chat with the lactation consultant at St. Mike's, someone I have not yet met. Reports to follow on whether she is terrifying.

Anus, whatever.

So I've had three good breastfeeding sessions with Essie so far. The last one was today and she drank about 22 cc's altogether which is almost half of a feed. I tried to get her to do it again for her next feed but she was like, "What? I'm tired!" So, no go. Her stamina is not yet enough, I suppose, so I may have to try to nurse her at alternating feeds rather than two in a row for a bit.

We did have a nice visit with her today. The nursing session was cozy and wonderful, of course, and Andrew was there too which was nice because he wasn't for the last two sessions. The breastfeeding might be going well because I gave permission for the nurses to bottle-feed her and that's apparently been going well too, so she's getting lots of practice with suck and swallow. I just want this kid to be able to eat, as I've mentioned, so the fact that it's all going well makes me very happy.

She is getting a bit of a diaper rash, and I've noticed when I change her diaper at St. Mike's that it's always very, very wet. Like, many pees worth of wet. At WCH that didn't seem to happen and she never really came down with a rash at any point. The nurse gave us some zinc cream to use on her to help with it and Andrew changed her.

While we were sitting around he got in a conversation with the nurse about the rash and ... well, he used a lot of proper terms. Stuff like, "When I wiped her anus," and "I noticed she was red around the anus," and "There wasn't really any fecal matter around her anus."

I was sitting there holding our daughter and all I wanted was to holler, "STOP SAYING 'ANUS'!" He went on to say 'feces' and 'anus' and 'fecal matter' a few more times, and I just clenched my teeth and stayed quiet. We went out for dinner during the shift change and over our meal I suggested to him that terms like 'bum bum' and 'poo poo' were just as serviceable.

He disliked the unprofessionalism of such language and pointed out that when the nurse gave us a bath demo she kept saying 'vagina' a lot and it's true; she did. It was all vagina this and vagina that and vagina over here. But still she is a nurse and he's not! He's a dad! I still can't imagine him saying bum bum and poo poo, though. He's far more likely to say 'ass' than 'anus', to be entirely honest.

The big transfer.

On Thursday afternoon I got a call from the charge nurse to tell me that Shaughnessy was going to be transferred that night to the level 2 nursery at St. Michael's hospital. I'd been expecting yet dreading this call for a while so it wasn't much of a surprise. I knew that we weren't supposed to be at WCH any more and it was only serendipity that had kept us there thus far.

The transfer was supposed to happen at 8:30 but the ambulance actually arrived early so she went around 8-ish, I think. I was about to change her diaper and take her temperature and all that stuff when they got there, so instead her night nurse took over and got her ready to go. It was a nurse who hadn't had her before and while she was listening to her chest with the stethoscope Shaughnessy started up her usual grunting and growling. The nurse tried to work around it, but eventually looked at my girl in pretend exasperation and said, 'You sound like a bear!" I loved this, since her growliness is something that I find extremely funny. If my sources are correct she'll outgrow some of this around the time she reaches her due date so I really need to cherish it while I can!

Anyhow, the nurse did get her settled into the transfer incubator out in the hallway where the ambulance attendants were waiting around. When she was done she draped a blanket over the top, saying to us that whenever people see one of these incubators they gawk at it to try to see the baby inside so it was just a bit of privacy. Then we all started off.

When we got to the elevators to go down to the first floor a huge group of people came out into the elevator area. It was a tour showing expectant parents the various floors they'd be visiting or could possibly end up visiting. It looked like they'd just come up from the high risk floor where we'd spent the first month and a half and when they all saw the incubator they looked very solemn indeed. All the moms were hugely pregnant, likely due near the time I'd been or near thereabouts. The back of the incubator wasn't covered by the blanket and we did see lots of the parents peering in trying to get a look at the preemie within. Shaughnessy was wrapped in blankets, wearing a hat, strapped in a head hugger, covered with more blankets over that, strapped down to the floor of the incubator itself and surrounded by rolled up towels so there was nothing to see but fabric.

We eventually got into the elevator and left the group behind but it was just so awkward and funny and strange. For them the reality that our daughter has had to live is what they are hoping against with everything they have, so that brief encounter in the elevator area was serious and scary and sad. For us it was anything but, seeing as how her transfer is just another indicator of how healthy she is and how much progress she's made. I know that if I'd been a part of that group I'd have felt the exact same way and pitied the poor parents walking next to the incubator, but all I felt was grateful that my girl was OK.

I rode up front with the ambulance driver and Andrew took the subway to meet us at St. Mike's. The drive over was pretty awkward because the driver had a sense of humour that I just didn't understand at all, and had a little outburst to himself where he was looking out the window to his left and muttered angrily, "I just don't give a damn!" It was unrelated to anything we'd said and anything going on around us (that I could see) so I just waited out the rest of the ride as best I could. Eeek.

When we arrived and got up to the nursery one of the first people I saw was a mom I'd been getting to know at WCH, so she and I chatted a bit while the nurse got Ms. Essie out of the incubator and handed her off to her new nurse. Then they did a whole inspection of her with the pediatrics fellow checking all of her reflexes and muscles and whatnot. After all that the new nurse dressed her in new clothes, wrapped her up, covered her with a blanket and that was it! Transfer complete!

I'm having a lot of separation anxiety about not being at WCH any more. Yes, the St. Mike's nursery is bigger and fancier and the rocking chairs are nicer and all that jazz, but it's just not WCH with the nurses we know and the familiar surroundings and all that. WCH is a hospital that I have come to have a lot of respect for and I want to give back to it in some way. Also, change sucks and in a weird way I feel very unsettled about Shaughnessy being in a place that I don't know well. It's not sensible since she's about as safe as safe can be living in a hospital nursery with medical professionals all around her, but whatever.

I did get to nurse her again yesterday which was awesome and went even better than the first time. She drank about 12 cc's before getting tired this time. I can see how it will take some time before she's able to subsist just on breastfeeding alone since she really needs to work up her strength in order to get a full feed from nursing. But it's just as wonderful as I thought it would be to be able to sit and look down at my daughter and hold her hand and sing to her while she nurses. She's awake for most of it and she looks at me and we connect. I feel like I'm more than just her friendliest nurse in that moment.

My baby is unreasonably accomplished.

I went into the hospital yesterday so that I could spend Shaughnessy's eight o'clock and eleven o'clock feedings with her. The nurses seem to think that doing the lick and sniff in the half hour before the feed is supposed to start is best, so I wanted to time it right. She was sleepy when I got there, but I changed her diaper and took her temperature before starting the first lick and sniff and she woke up and was nice and perky.

I'm going to start off each session without the nipple shield but then switch to it after a few minutes. I'm not really expecting her to get a good latch yet without it since she still needs to build up some strength, but I also want her to be familiar with me sans silicone barrier.

Her nurse wasn't there when I started, but when she came to check on us she told me that we looked like a textbook illustration of the football position so that was nice. I'd already started with the nipple shield but S-Girl was still kind of fussing around a bit, moving her head back and forth a lot. All of a sudden, though, she latched right on and started sucking. I could tell she was getting some milk because she paused a bit and seemed to be concentrating on how to coordinate this new aspect of sucking, but then swallowed and from there on didn't skip a beat!

The nurse came back and saw that she was sucking and seemed very impressed. We hadn't weighed her first so the nurse decided to see if any milk would come back up the feed tube, and sure enough it did! She also used the stethoscope to verify that there was swallowing going on (since it's hard to tell with her fatty little neck now), which there most definitely was. Through all this little Ms. Essie just sucked away, kind of ignoring all the fuss going on around her. In the end she really only drank about 5 cc's of milk, but she NURSED THAT BREASTMILK, BOOYAH! The nurse was impressed and wrote it in her chart as a mini-feed, not a lick and sniff!

I know. Babies nurse. It's not earth-shattering. But she's a month shy of her due date and seeing my daughter go from a 1000g baby with no body fat to a 2169g+ baby with thunder cheeks who can nurse like it's no big thang, well ... it thrills me. OK?



Phew. After her feed was over and all that excitement faded I cuddled her for a long time and she flaked right out in my lap, snoring her little snores and getting really warm and comfy and content. I had to put her back in her incubator so I could go eat something, but I had a feeling she was going to be a sleepy baby for her next feed and that the second lick and sniff wouldn't happen. I was right, and oh noes the horror instead I had to cuddle my baby girl for another long period of time, what a chore.

Then I came home to sickly Andrew who has been sick and not able to go to the hospital himself, sadness. His parental leave from work cannot come soon enough. Man needs a vacation and this summer looks like it's going to be the best of our lives!

Suckle THIS, smartypants!

Since I'd gone in earlier in the day I called the nursery at around midnight last night to check on Ms. S before going to bed. The call went really well until the end, when things degenerated for me. Here's how it went.

NURSE: She wants to suckle.

ME: Oh, I know. We had a great session with the lactation consultant today. She's really getting it.

NURSE: No, she needs to do it more than that!

ME: Well, I try to do it every day. It doesn't always work out.

NURSE: Every day! More times a day! If you don't she won't nurse later on. She won't know how!

ME: (Getting a bit defensive.) She had an eye exam today. She was too exhausted for more than the once.*

NURSE: Well she really needs to learn this. More times a day!

Now I am all agitated by the thought that due to my negligence my daughter will never really learn to nurse, even though that's bullshit of the highest order and we'd made real progress earlier in the day. I was feeling great about it, really encouraged by the experience and glad that the lactation consultant had helped me out so much and now I am trying to hang on to that and not feel like I'm failing her in some way.

To me the true point is not that she's breastfeeding, even if I've talked a lot about how much I want to be able to do so with her. The truly important thing is that she's getting my breastmilk and the how of it getting inside her is secondary. If she never takes to nursing and we have to bottle-feed her while I continue to pump then that's how it'll be. Ideally I want her to do both so that Andrew can also feed her and so that we can bottle-feed her when it's less convenient to nurse. I am not stuck on her ONLY breastfeeding and nothing else. I think it would be irrational to feel that way, and potentially crazy-making. I don't want to set myself and Shaughnessy up for disappointment and difficulty. I just want to do what works best and makes us both comfortable

I am doing my reading on all this, believe me, and even if it takes time the majority of babies, preemie or otherwise, figure it out and end up doing fine on only nursing, or a combination of both. I wasn't even planning to breastfeed in the first place and had fully expected to formula-feed her with bottles but the fact of her prematurity threw a wrench into those plans. So, this has been a pretty major adjustment of expectations for me and that's probably why I'm pretty flexible about the idea of bottle vs. breast since either is a vehicle for her to drink my breastmilk. She'll be in my arms, alive, not dead due to undiagnosed preeclampsia. I'd rather wake up every day happy about those things than stress out about whether she'll be a perfect breastfeeder!

* The eye exams that the doctors do to check for ROP are very traumatizing and uncomfortable for the babies, so after they have them they're usually very exhausted and out of it for the rest of the day. They tend to sleep more and be more fussy when awake, so things like lick and sniffs aren't usually all that successful.

Ow, my everything!

WELL! I certainly had a day of man-handling. Or ... person-handling, anyhow.

It started off with a visit to the OBGYN for the six-week followup visit. I had a wait of at least an hour and a half, an hour of which was spent half-naked and trying not to fall asleep on the examining table. No kidding; an hour. Maaaan. But when my doctor got in there he was his usual charming self. He looked at my incision and admired it, which is what every medical professional does when they look at it. All, "Oooooh, very nice. It's hardly going to be noticeable!" This is wasted on my non-bikini-wearing self, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

After he got done looking at it he proceeded to PROD MY INNARDS INTO A PULP while checking my uterus and ovaries. Seriously, I was ready to crawl off the table it was so uncomfortable. I'm not talking about the hand in my privates, I'm talking about the one feeling around on the outside. Ow! My incision is pretty (so they say) but it's still a healing wound, people!

Then it was all, "Put on your pants and scram," so I did. I went to the hospital that houses my daughter and spent the afternoon with her. I was intent on this visit because I was supposed to spend some time with the lactation consultant trying to figure out a comfortable position to nurse Shaughnessy in since what I'd been doing hadn't been working for me.

She recommended the football hold, which is where you tuck your baby under your arm like you're a quarterback and nurse her that way instead of having her lay across your lap in front. It was actually really good and comfy right from the start and I was very happy, but then we moved on to trying to get Shaughnessy to latch, which is something she hasn't done yet. The LC watched me for a minute and then said, "May I?" I said yes, of course.

So she grabbed my boob and the back of my daughter's head, squishing my boob into what she referred to as a 'sandwich', and anytime Shaughnessy opened her mouth she jammed the two together. All I could do was laugh because it kind of showed that there isn't a lot of science involved in the nursing concept. Shaughnessy didn't mind at all, although she still wasn't getting the latching concept very well. Baby+boob=eventual nursing if you're persistent, it seems, so I do think it was a valuable lesson. I don't think I was really doing enough to introduce S-Girl to the concept of nipple going in mouth.

We also tried a nipple shield, which is a thin silicone thingie that goes over your nipple. It's closer to the shape of the soother she's been using, so she actually did latch onto it and do the right thing for a while, but she was super-tired and kept falling asleep. All in all, however, it was a success and things are looking good for future breastfeeding, woot woot! I also have a newfound respect and admiration for the lactation consultant, so won't have heart palpitations from now on when I see her. ;)

I had a bad headache by evening so came home to recuperate from that and all the bodily indignities I'd suffered for the day. Becoming a mother really has stripped away a lot of my extraneous dignity, I must say.

I think this song is about me.

OK, one of the weird things about having a premature baby in the hospital is that you are watched and analyzed in a way that parents of full-term, healthy babies are definitely not. When we go in to see our girl our visits get entered in her daily chart and there is a checklist of parental involvement that the nurses have to keep an eye on.

This is for a sensible reason. There are parents who react badly to having a premature baby. They don't know how to relate to this tiny, alarming being. If the baby is especially ill some parents are scared out of their minds and don't know how to deal with it, so end up avoiding the NICU and having to handle their baby. The nurses and doctors need to be aware of this so they can address the situation and help the parents cope.

This hasn't been a problem for us. We go in to see her every day. We gladly change her diapers, hold her, take her temperature, wipe her face and do all the little things we can do for her. Now that she's in level 2 we're encouraged to do even more for her and so far we're loving it.

Because I yam who I yam, though, this is crazy-making for me. I love my baby, I am not afraid to handle her, bathe her, change her, feed her, do all the things for her that as a mother I have to and want to do, but while she's in the hospital this stuff is being monitored and I find it really intimidating. I have this irrational fear that no matter how hard I try, something will be found lacking.

Of course if she'd gone full-term I'd have had her and then been sent home ASAP. There wouldn't be anyone keeping an eye on how many times a day I feed her, how much time I spend with her, what bathing technique I use. I am an overly-private person (in my RL, not so much online, I guess) so this situation pushes all my buttons and I have to work hard to remember that it's not personal.

The nurse who did the bath demo with us the other night said that in a sense the parents of preemies who are first-time parents are lucky to have this extended period of acclimatization. Having the opportunity to learn all the things you've never done before in a setting with professionals who can show you what to do instead of having to figure it out on your own is a luxury. She's totally right. It's my personal oddities that make the 'being monitored' aspect of it difficult for me and I know it. Parents of full-term babies no longer stay in the hospital long enough to experience that kind of nursing care and our nurse said it made her sad.

Do not get me wrong. I am inexpressibly grateful for Shaughnessy's time in the NICU. I have total respect and admiration for WCH and the staff. They have made the scariest time of my life so much easier than it could have been and I will gladly continue to forgo privacy and autonomy in my interactions with my daughter as long as it's in her best interests. If it had to be that way for the rest of her life I'd do it and do it willingly. But the day that she comes home and she's all mine, MINE, MINE! Well; that'll be a really good day. :)

Tiny little leaps and bounds.

This has been quite a week in the life of Shaughnessy. And her parents. She's started wearing actual clothing now instead of just hanging out in a diaper all the time, and we got to be there while she had a bath on Wednesday. The best thing, though, is that she's moved out of her incubator! That's right; girlfriend sleeps in a crib.

The clothing is all hospital-issue but it's adorable little pajamas that are donated so she wears something different and cute every day. One outfit so far was even a bit small on her teeny preemie self! She just looks so much like a 'real' baby all of a sudden, and in my eyes the clothes make her look even smaller somehow.



The bath was great. She'd already had a few so it wasn't new to her, but the nurses always do a demo bath with the parents before getting us to do it on our own. Shaughnessy enjoys it and didn't make a peep the whole time, even after the bath when they're most likely to cry because of colder air on their damp skin. She just made her usual conversational grunts about everything. The very best part was when her hair dried. It all stuck straight out from her head in this awesome fuzzy halo of cuteness and looked much lighter than it does when it's all stuck down to her scalp. I nearly passed out, she looked so awesome all dressed up and fuzzy-haired.



Her nurse had intended to change out her incubator to a cot that same night but ended up not doing it, so when I went in the next day I found her in her brand new crib, hanging out like a full-term baby. The crib is awesome because it's so much easier to access her and hold her whenever I want to. That's getting more and more usual, too. The nurses are less and less concerned about her ins and outs and pretty much let us decide when we want to hold her or not.



We've done three lick and sniffs now and she's still pretty much just licking and sniffing. Not a lot new to report there, but I'm going to start trying to go in earlier now and hopefully do more of that so she has lots of chances to get used to it.

That's all that's new. I've been feeling really tired this week and finding it hard to get the energy to do much and force myself to get up and go. Not sure what's up with that, but I'll have to get over it with a quickness! We'll be invaded by a baby tyrant soon and I won't have much choice in the matter.

Oh, I added a Flickr badge over in the sidebar where I upload all the pictures of Shaughnessy that I put in my Facebook albums. Anyone can see the pics, so feel free to click on it to admire her cuteness. They go all the way back to her first week, and I'll keep adding whenever I have new ones.