Amelia's eating solid food!

Um, this is yet another thing I should have posted about in March.

How do I get so far behind? I have no idea. Perhaps if pictures uploaded to Blogger at the rate of more than one per hour, I'd not be so loathe to do posts with a bunch of pictures.

Amelia started eating some veggies a little over a month ago. A couple of things are different since the last time we started solids, with Jake ... The pediatrician recommended that we:

• wait until 6 months of age, when we'd always started at around 5 months with the boys.
• skip rice cereal altogether and just jump right in with veggies.

She's going gangbusters now, but at the beginning she wasn't at all sure what to make of having to wait until the spoon made it to her mouth. She was used to having a bottle go in, and she could just drink until it was all gone.

Just like the boys did, she would suck the spoon dry and then cry until you could get another bite in her mouth.

(I've since clipped Scout's claws, so I no longer look like a cutter.)

The big boys both wanted to give it a try, so I let each of them feed her after the first few days ... when she understood the concept a little better.

One funny thing she does is close her eyes every time she works on a bite. That's probably what I look like while I'm chewing a Butterfinger.

Nathaniel and Nick both did great with feeding her and continue to enjoy it a month later.

Nathaniel likes to coach her.

The closed eyes. They slay me.

Ready for another bite!

"WHERE'S THE NEXT BITE?"

Here, her lip started to quiver and she was about to cry because Nathaniel wasn't quick enough with the next bite.

As if she needed it, he was showing her how to "open up" to let the spoon in.

Next, it was Nick's turn. (They were both freshly showered, which is why they look drenched.)

Nick was thrilled to get to feed her ... fulfilling his destiny as big brother to a sister.

Closed eyes AND hand raised in food worship. THAT'S MY GIRL!

Some of her cutest moments in the last month have been while eating. She's growing up!

And I love it and hate it at the same time.

Amelia's adventure, Part 3

If you missed them, you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. 

As we entered the late evening, Amelia was content to rest in the crib, but we did wake her up every 45 to 60 minutes to eat. The NICU was closed from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., so I went and walked the lobby and administrative office area during that time to put more steps on my pedometer. The hospital was eerily quiet at that time of night, especially those areas.

I was so glad to have my iPhone with me, because I used the HECK out of Twitter and played a lot of games during that time. And I also had a big laugh because I was getting so many sweet Tweets from followers and friends all night:

And in the middle of them, I see one from Grayson.

Since I'd ridden in the ambulance with Amelia and the car wasn't in the garage when he got home, he realized he didn't know where it was. (It was still at the pediatrician's office.)

When the unit reopened at 12:30, I went back in and joined Amelia, who looked like E.T. in the darkness with her single lit toe.

I sat about two feet away from her all night long, feeding her when I wanted to take a turn, but also happy to let Bailey do it. (Bailey was our night-shift nurse, and I loved her.) Amelia had gone to taking about an ounce per feeding at that point, which was a big improvement.

The unit closed again from 6 to 8:30 a.m., so I went down and had breakfast in the cafe, checked email and walked a little more, then went back upstairs. And Amelia was looking refreshed! She was even playing with her favorite toy: her rings.

She was so much more alert than she'd been in days, and although she was a long way from normal, she was seemingly light-years ahead of where she'd been 24 hours before.

I even got really close to a grin out of her at one point.

I went home to get what I thought was going to be just a few hours of sleep around 11:30 on Wednesday morning, but her doctor at the hospital called me around 4:00 and said that he felt like she was doing so well that she could come home if we were comfortable with it. I said that if she was eating at least half an ounce an hour and she was breathing normally on room air, I was okay with it. (Sometimes the risks of staying in the hospital outweigh the potential benefits.)

So once Grayson called me to confirm the plan shortly afterward, I went back to sleep. And with the exception of about 30 minutes, I slept until THURSDAY MORNING. For those who are math-challenged, that's like 17 hours. Hot cow.

We had a follow-up appointment with our pediatrician at 9:30 that morning, during which Amelia was diagnosed with double ear infections, so she got a shot of Rocephin and acted completely indignant that I'd subjected her to even more pricks of a needle. And then they pricked her finger to check her white count. I know.

I was awake with her again a good portion of Thursday night as she struggled with her ears ... she just cried and pulled at them all night, and it was pitiful. The ped had asked us to come back Friday for another Rocephin shot and one more check of her RSV symptoms, so we did that ... and she got a good report. We're still in the middle of the 10 days on Omnicef for her ears, but we have our happy baby back.

She's grinning again and completely stealing our hearts with every glance.

She's hanging out with her brothers ...

And they're ever so grateful that she's home.

As am I. Welcome home, baby ... love you so much.

Amelia's adventure, Part 2

If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.

My friend Melanie said, "The whole time you were Tweeting those pictures in the hospital, I just wanted you to stop. I was afraid things were going to go badly, and then we'd all have all these pictures leading up to it." Melanie is clearly not a blogger. Or a scrapbooker.

I mean, not to make light of it or anything, but my boys LOVE their scrapbooks. And guess what Nick and Jake did all Sunday afternoon. They pulled out their scrapbooks and went through each one looking SPECIFICALLY for pictures of all the times they've either been in the hospital or bloodied. And there are more of those times documented than I should probably admit.

But those are their favorites. As a matter of fact, Nick said, about one of his head injuries that's documented in his scrapbook, "But I thought there was more BLOOD. WHERE'S ALL THE BLOOD?" Never mind that I had pictures of him in the CT scan from behind the glass ... he wanted to see more of the bloody wound. If only he could live inside my head, he could see that particular wound IN HIS NIGHTMARES.

But I digress. This is about Amelia. I was simply stating for the record that I'm glad to have the pictures, and Amelia will be really glad one day too, I think. And if not, she can just skip over those pages in her book.

As stressful as entering the hospital is, there's also a sense of relief when you get there. You know that people are going to help your child ... they're being paid to do so, and they're also hopefully passionate about their vocation.

We wheeled in through the ER and waited briefly while they confirmed that she was a direct admit to the NICU.

Once she started getting unloaded from the gurney into a crib, I headed down to Admissions to get her checked in. Grayson was still trying to get there, but Amelia's such a social little creature, I knew she'd be fine on her own until I could get back up there.

Sure enough, when I returned they'd gotten her all hooked up, but she was still in her romper and they hadn't tried to start the IV yet. Soon, Grayson arrived, and they asked us to go grab a bite to eat while they started the IV, just because it's obviously uncomfortable for the baby and they didn't want us to watch her suffer. 

When we came back, they'd stuck her eight times (four of those times in her scalp), and six or seven different people had attempted. No luck. We were fine to stay, so we watched as they tried four more times ... no dice. One of the stick spots on her head ...

Another one on her head ...

Her veins kept blowing because she was so dehydrated, so instead we decided to just try giving her small amounts of formula every half hour to every hour, out of a syringe if needed. At that point, she was taking anywhere from a couple of teaspoons to half an ounce or so at a time.

Her little chubby hand with two sticks ...

Each hand had two sticks. Poor little pincushion.

Grayson left at 5:30 to go pick the other kids up at friends' houses (it was Spring Break week), and I was set to spend the night, with him to return Wednesday morning so I could go home and sleep. We had to wear gowns, masks and gloves to be able to touch her or her crib. Since RSV is airborne, they take a lot of precautions to keep it from spreading, especially in an open environment like the NICU.

I didn't let the gloves stop me from getting in a lot of snuggle time with my precious baby!

She didn't really like the way the gloves felt against her skin, but I nuzzled her a lot with my chin and cheeks. (It's entirely possible that that negated the effect of the gloves altogether, but nobody asked me to stop. So I didn't. I soaked her in.)

The monitor leads were so cute and cheerful, you know, for monitor leads.

Snuggling was made a little more difficult because of all the wires to contend with, but we absolutely needed to monitor her resp rate, heart rate and pulse-ox (that's the one on her foot).

Through the evening she did well, with her sats up to 96% on room air (no nasal cannula -- the little clear rubber thing that goes in your nose) and her heart rate in the 160s. She was awake a good bit because of all the noise on the unit, but that just meant more time for my oily T-zone and me to snuggle with her.

I didn't know how the long overnight hours would go, but I was feeling hopeful.

Third and final installment tomorrow.

Amelia's adventure, Part 1

A little over a week ago, Amelia developed a cold. It worsened over that weekend, and on Monday she didn't do well at school. I didn't realize it until Grayson brought her home and I read her status sheet for the day; she'd been running a low-grade fever during the day, but what concerned me the most was that she'd only taken about eight ounces of formula all day, and she'd only had two wet diapers.

The daycare center was already closed when I figured all of this out, so I couldn't call and ask them a bunch of annoying questions. Looking at Amelia's flushed cheeks and hearing her cough, I decided to call the nurse on call at our pediatrician's office and ask her what she thought. Having been down the RSV road with Jake twice, I was 99 percent sure that was what we were dealing with. The nurse agreed with me, especially when I told her that Amelia was wheezing a little and that her respiration rate was at least 80.

She called ahead to the ER at Children's and told them we were coming. I sent Grayson with her, because I was developing a migraine, and I thought I'd be better off with the other kids at home. I texted him a list of questions to ask the ER doc and told him not to leave the ER without an RSV test, for sure. I REALLY wanted to go and be there for her, but I knew I'd only make my migraine worse if I tried to go, so I reluctantly stayed behind.

He texted me a few pictures while they were there ...

She was pitiful ...

but apparently she perked up after they gave her some Tylenol, so they decided to send her home. No RSV test, not even a finger prick for a white count.

Now granted, she looked pretty cute in her polka dots, and I believe them when they said she perked up. I mean, you generally DO if your fever goes down two points in 20 minutes. But well enough to go home? I THOUGHT NOT.

Since she'd had a fever the day before and it was even higher the next morning, she couldn't go back to daycare, so I stayed home with her on Tuesday. It was apparent to me by 9:30 a.m. that she should have been in the hospital. I called our pediatrician and asked for an appointment that day, and they could see us at 2:00. I specifically didn't want to be "worked in" ... I wanted an APPOINTMENT, because I didn't want to have to sit in the waiting room for hours while we waited and hoped.

So we showed up at 1:55, were in a room at 2:00, and by 2:10, she was receiving a breathing treatment and an ambulance had been called.

Her pulse-ox (oxygen sats) was only 88, and her heart rate was 227. During the breathing treatment, her sats went up to 97 and her heart rate came down a little, but within five minutes of the neb treatment, her sats were back down below 90. It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to arrive, and I was dreading it.

Seeing the paramedics come into the room and crowd around her, securing her to the gurney, was so reminiscent of my own ambulance ride back in October ... I swear I think I have PTSD or something.

But this was worse, because it was my baby. And no one ever wants to see their baby being loaded into an ambulance. Ever. But if you DO have occasion to see it, you should take pictures for your blog, obviously.

She was a total champ, tolerating every bump and noise with barely a whimper.

She wasn't a huge fan of the "attaching the leads" process, though. Little Miss made her displeasure known, briefly, but I was happy to hear her cry. It was certainly better than the little whimpers and rasps that escaped her lips sporadically.

Poor, poor baby. She was worn slap out. Just the act of breathing was working her so hard, she was as limp as a big bag of rice. My baby.

My baby.

At some point on this day, I Tweeted something to the effect of, "I'm getting ready to go all Mama Bear on those assholes into Mama Bear Mode." And it was so true. I told the paramedics: "You don't want to leave me alone in that ER, because I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind about sending her home last night."

Look. I have a lot of respect for medical professionals. And we are fortunate -- SO fortunate -- to live in one of the top cities in the country with regard to modern medicine. But even our pediatrician said, "There's no way they should have sent her home last night. This baby needs to be IN THE HOSPITAL." And she did. She really, really did.

As much as I didn't want her to experience the inside of an ambulance, the wail of the siren, the bumpy, bumpy ride, the running of the stoplights ... she needed it. She needed to get there quickly.

As far as I was concerned, we were already at least 14 hours behind in her treatment, and I was ready to get her the help she needed. The paramedics were the first step.

More to come.