2 is more than twice the fun (and work!)

So you dear readers finally got a detailed account of my baby boy's arrival and first weeks in this world and then I disappeared for 6 months.  I didn't really disappear though, I just had more tasks, more hugs, more life to live than I had hands to hold it or time to share it in this space.  This time has been wonderful and hectic, a tiring and emotional adventure.

 I never like it when this much time passes between posts because I know I am letting so many moments slip past that I would otherwise share here.  I can never take enough pictures or record enough stories, mostly because I have to choose to live in the moments or merely record them.  Guess which one wins out most of the time?  But I want to pause now for a moment to acknowledge the fact that my baby is about to celebrate his first year with us.  The next days are going to be busy with planning and preparing to celebrate that day, and if I am lucky I will have pictures and stories to post next week.  It truly blows my mind that a year has gone so quickly.  I have a beautiful, smart, funny, HAPPY boy.  I have a walker already, a daredevil who sees no obstacles in front of him, merely things to be climbed. He grins at everyone, knows no stranger, and makes some of the goofiest faces/noises you could possibly imagine.  Mister Personality could be this guy's title.  He crawls like a speed demon bulldog puppy, and when he tries to meow like the cat, it sounds a little more like someone is strangling a cat.  He says Momma, Dadda, Bubba, and cat.  He points at everything and says "isthis?"  At church, he sings during the hymns and will not let the pastor give the sermon without adding his own thoughts.

 I have another big boy about to celebrate a birthday of his own in a month who is turning into quite the big brother.  He is so grown up sometimes it scares me a little, and yet often still my little guy who wants to cuddle in my lap.  He starts his first full year of preschool in a couple of weeks, and he is so excited to go back and see some of the friends he met in January.  I can get nothing past this child, and he is as stubborn as his father, and I hate to say it but he argues as well as his mother ever did (does).  He is starting to tell jokes, which are hysterically bad/funny, and he will make up songs to sing in the car about what he is doing or about to do (just like his Dad).  He makes up these elaborate stories combining all of his favorite story/tv characters.  He loves watching spooky kids shows, but then won't walk down the hall by himself to wash his hands or go to the bathroom.  He plays Angry Birds better than I do.  He is so tall and grows in such fast spurts that his joints hurt him sometimes (he gets that from his granddaddy) and unfortunately he also has the Davis clumsy gene.

These are just a few things the boys do now that make life so much fun, and occasionally such a challenge.  Hopefully I can share with you dear readers a bit more often now that we are beginning a schedule of sorts, but regardless this snapshot gives you a glimpse of my great guys.  I hope all is well with you, and I will see you here soon when I can.

A Brief History of Benjamin Armstrong: Part 2

Part 2 of this brief history covers Ben's 5th day of life through the following week.   A short window of time, I know, but very eventful for our family.

The day we checked out of the hospital, (technically day 3 for Ben)we were both checked out by our respective doctors.  Both of us were given a clean bill of health, though Ben's pediatrician did note that his bilirubin levels were slightly elevated, but had not been increasing quickly and weren't high enough to cause concern.  We packed up, changed Ben into his cute little blue and white striped one piece outfit, and made the 45 minute trip home.  Any of you dear readers who have experienced bringing a newborn home, it is wonderful, miraculous, life changing.  It is also stressful, terrifying, and anxiety-filled.  While it is true that I did not feel the same overwhelming feeling of terror and adrenaline that I felt with Will, bringing Ben home had its own set of ups and downs.

                                                       On our way home from the hospital.

The first 2 nights home were just as hard as we expected, which is actually a good thing because they could have been worse than we expected.  Sleep was minimal at best, but I think we both had the feeling that we were going to survive a little better than before.  My only problem was that as time went on it was getting harder and harder to nurse Ben.  He was extremely lethargic, to the point that by the time I actually got him awake enough to eat, he was so upset that he wouldn't eat for screaming.  We would go on like this for 45 minutes to an hour, after which he would finally eat, but not for very long before he fell asleep again.

(Small break for a soapbox moment here.) As far as the old adage "never wake a sleeping baby"- which people have felt the need to say to me on far too many occasions- it is NOT true for newborns.  Many newborns take quite a while to respond to their biological cues, like hunger, and their systems are not meant to go too long without eating.  They actually will sleep even longer if you don't wake them, but because they go into a shutdown mode where their bodies think they have to conserve energy because they are not getting food when they need it  As they get older this changes, at which point the adage makes more sense.  So when I say I had to wake my baby to feed him, I was doing it not only based on my own reading on the subject, but based on specific instructions from his pediatrician and the hospital staff.  (End of soapbox moment.)

I was getting very frustrated with the nursing situation, but honestly even then I wasn't overly worried because I had such difficulty nursing Will, and had to use so many aids to get through, that I was still just impressed that when the little guy finally did eat he was doing so completely naturally, and reasonably efficiently.

That Wednesday, 2 days after we came home from the hospital, we had an appointment with the pediatrician for a weight check.  This is a normal part of the routine with our pediatrician (and most I believe) to keep track of weight gain until it is clear the little guy is thriving.  I dressed him in a cute little outfit and we all loaded into the car to make the 45 trip to the doctor (I know, a long way for a doctor, but you go where the good doctors are, right?).  We all had to go because as a post-op patient I couldn't drive, but I also couldn't stay home with Will because I had to be with Ben to feed him before the drive home. (One of the downsides to not living close to any family; no one to watch little ones on the fly.)

When we got there, I noticed that Ben looked a little orange under the florescent lights.  Ok, he looked ORANGE.  Not yellow, not tan, but bad fake tanner orange.  When our nurse Kay retrieved us from the waiting room to take a us back for the check-up, she notice his color too.  She weighed Ben, and he was 11 lb exactly, which was his weight the day he left the hospital.  I was actually pretty happy about that number because babies will often continue to lose for a day or two before they start regaining their birth weight, so no change was a good thing.  The doctor came in and did the normal checkup, and was generally happy with his responses.  I told her about the nursing problems, but since he was having plenty of wet and dirty diapers, the doctor wasn't overly concerned, feeling we still needed to find a routine that worked for us.  She then told me that she thought Ben's billirubin was probably somewhat high, given his color, and she wanted to test him to make sure the levels were not too high.  She said that levels under 14 were fine for his age and weight, and levels between 14-18 were elevated and might require a home billirubin bed for a few days.  

I have to say that I was very unconcerned with this information, all things considered.  I know several people who had to "bake" their babies in a billi bed, and it all sounds very routine.  A little jaundice seemed like no big deal, and honestly I was relieved to know that Ben's sluggishness to nurse had an easily identifiable cause.  So I took the lab sheet the Dr. gave us and took Ben downstairs for the heel stick.  Any time your child has to have blood drawn or a needle used on them in any way, it is not fun.  Heel sticks are bad particularly bad because they often have to squeeze the heel to get a good flow to fill the tube.  Little guy turned pretty red on top of that fake tanner orange, and everyone got to hear just how strong his lungs were, but thankfully it was over quickly.  Following the Dr.'s directions, we then headed home- if his levels were high enough for a bed she was going to send home health to the house to set up the bed and show us how to use it.  

We drove the 45 minutes home and decided to stop at the park to give Will some much needed playtime and bake the baby in a little natural sunlight.  The baby slept peacefully while Eli ran Will as hard as he could.  We then came home and made lunch.  I had just sat down to have my sandwich when I got a call from the Dr.'s office.  She asked me if we were home yet, and I happily told her about our trip to the park.  She then apologized to me and told me we would need to come back to the hospital because Ben was going to have to be re-admitted.  Ben's bilirubin level was 22.9, and if the levels increase past the mid-20s and up into the 30s, a condition called Kernicterus can set in.  The NIH describes Kernicterus in the following way:

Kernicterus is caused by very high levels of bilirubin. Bilirubin is a yellow pigment that is created in the body during the normal recycling of old red blood cells. High levels of bilirubin in the body can cause the skin to look yellow (which is called jaundice).

In some cases when there are extremely high levels of bilirubin in the body or the baby is extremely ill, the substance will move out of the blood and collect in the brain tissue. This can lead to serious neurological complications, including brain damage and hearing loss.

I was crying before she got much else out.  She apologized again and again, but honestly, I saw the same things she did, and in my follow-up reading on the subject I agreed that Ben really didn't present symptoms indicative of bilirubin levels that high.  I was so upset that we had to go back the hospital, but I was never upset with our doctor.  I always felt she was doing what was in Ben's best interest, and glad that she was cautious enough to go through the testing despite the fact that Ben didn't have all the symptoms.  So I got off the phone with her and spent the next 10 minutes crying and repacking bags that hadn't even been fully emptied.  Eli ran all over the house for me grabbing things for us.  I was being admitted with Ben since he was a breastfeeding baby, so I would have the luxury of a bed- which is so much more than many parents get when their child is in the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and went to the small section for Pediatrics.  The nurses were waiting for us and had a room set up.  They had me take Ben's clothes off so he was just in his diaper, and after taking his vital signs, they slipped and eye mask on him and put him on a flat bassinet with no bedding, under lit with a strong blue light, and rolled another large blue light over him.  He hated it.  He cried and cried, and of course I cried too.  He couldn't be swaddled, which is a  big way newborns get comfort and security when they aren't being held, and we could only hold him to feed him.  Thankfully, he was able to get comfortable after a while and drifted off to sleep.  

So we were admitted Wednesday afternoon, and the plan was to keep him under the lights as much as possible, and re-test his bilirubin levels every 8-12 hours.  Eli and Will went home after a couple of hours because Will just couldn't be expected to stay still and calm for so long.  I know Eli absolutely hated leaving us there, but without anyone close by to help, we had to be practical.  So I mostly sat in this room by myself, either watching Ben, or mindlessly staring at the tv.  As the afternoon went into evening and I started getting used to the routine they would take us through, I was able to relax a little and read some.  I was still nursing every 2-3 hours, and they were having me supplement him with formula after I was finished nursing, since one of the causes of jaundice can be a lack of fluids when breastfeeding isn't yet well-established.  

They checked his levels fairly late that night (another heel stick) and were happy to report that his levels had come down a bit.  The next morning when they checked again the levels had dropped even further, and after a check-in with the doctor, it was decided that if he continued through the day at the same rate we would be able to go home the next morning.  I was so happy that he was responding to the treatment.  Friday morning came, and as expected his levels were great- 14.3.  When he came out of the bed and took his eye-mask off you could tell a big difference between the exposed and unexposed skin- he was all pretty and pink where the lights had shone, and had yellow raccoon eyes where the mask had been. We went through the discharge paperwork, and the Dr. asked us to come in the following Wednesday for a weight and color check to make sure everything was back to normal feeding -wise.  

We went home and basically started the routine of settling in all over again.  Ben was definitely more alert starting out, and nursing was going a bit better.  We got  through the weekend and the couple of days that followed, and I looked forward to his appointment to see how much weight he gained.  

Once again, when I took Ben into the office, he seemed orange to me again, and while our nurse noticed the color too, she didn't seem too worried.  Ben had only gained 2 oz  though, and when the Dr. examined him she decided we should do another bilirubin test just to make sure.  She told me that in 14 years of practice she had never had an infant get re-admitted twice for jaundice, but just to be safe we should stick around the hospital until the results came back.  

When the results came back, his levels were at 23.2- even higher than the first time.  The Dr. came in to talk to us as they were getting a room ready for us on the Pediatric floor.  I sat there nursing Ben with tears streaming down my face as she explained that they were going to have to do a much more in depth series of tests, because this kind of rebound in the bilirubin levels was not at all typical, and they needed to check his thyroid, kidneys, and do lots of blood work.  She also told me that I would have to completely stop nursing, at least temporarily, to make sure my milk was not contributing to the problem.  

I am going to stop here as this post has already gone on forever.  I will finish this part of the story in the next couple of days I promise, but typing all this out is a little emotional, and I want to clear my head and start fresh tomorrow.

A Brief History of Benjamin Armstrong So Far: Part 1

I had to go back and read my previous post because it had been so long since I looked at this blog that I couldn't remember the last thing I had written.  So much time has passed, and so much has happened, that it would be laughable for me to try to catch things up in any consequential way.  I have decided to try and cover the highlights from Ben's birth to now in a series of posts to keep any one post from turning into a novel.  This post will cover Ben's arrival.  This is going to be a walk down memory lane for me too, since I haven't had a chance to organize my thoughts and memories until now.  I will try not to go on forever :)

Just as had happened with Will, the night before the c-section I was sure I wouldn't sleep at all.  And just as with Will I slept soundly.  I think the body just takes over and says "you have way too much to do to worry instead of sleep".  I wish that would happen more often.  We were up early the next morning and I got to cuddle Will for a little bit before we left.  I gave him my pillow to sleep with since I was going to be gone for a few days.  (He still has it.)  I have to admit that I was pretty emotional. I felt like I was about to betray him a little.  I knew I was about to change his world in a major way that he would not really understand.  He had been the only little guy in our lives and he was about to lose that status.  I would imagine most parents experience the same moments of sadness and guilt I felt when a new baby is about to come into the home.  He mostly looked at me like I was very strange and went on as usual.  He was more excited to go play at his friend Jake's house than anything else.  

So we dropped Will off with our friend Julie and made our way to the hospital.  Unlike our first delivery day, when we were extremely early, traffic snarled and we were actually late by about 15 minutes.  I HATE being late, so that didn't help to calm me at all.  But they took it in stride and immediately led us to the surgery prep room and began the ridiculously long paperwork. I forgot my wallet at home, which gave me another goose of adrenaline that I didn't need while wondering if they would send us home to retrieve it, which they did not thankfully.  

I got changed and loaded onto the gurney (loaded is the closest I can come to describing what it is like to get a large woman carrying a child the size of a VW Bug onto a table just wide enough to hold Kate Moss) and then came my least favorite part of the ENTIRE day.  I hate IVs.  HATE them.  My few and faithful regular readers have been informed of this fact on a couple of occasions now, and my hate has not lessened in the time since.  But a miraculous thing happened.  I got a nurse who was capable and NOT AT ALL BUBBLY.  For those who know me at all, I am a talker.  Get me nervous and I cross right over to a babbler, a nervous, non-stop, stream of consciousness spouter of nonsense.  I always hope to have a happy, cheerful nurse to join in my babble, because I think it will help me.  I learned that day how wrong I have been all this time.  What I need to stay calm is someone who is older than me, extremely capable, calm, and not at all swayed or impressed by my babbling, constant questions, and whiny requests.  The first couple of times she left the room to grab something I made comments to Eli about her lack of bedside manner.  By the time she was putting in my IV I was grateful for her ability to intimidate me and her lack of interest in engaging in conversation.  I know this seems backwards, and I certainly wouldn't want this particular personality to handle my recovery care, but God bless this woman for being the introvert she is.  I sailed threw my IV and didn't even have the shakes.  

The next 30 minutes or so was basically a waiting game.  The anaesthesiologist stopped in to go over what she was going to do (In retrospect I did not pay enough attention to this discussion.  More on that later.) and my doctor stopped in as well.  On her way out to prep she asked us to guess about the weight.  I can't remember what Eli and I guessed, other than we were both in the 10 lb range.  Dr. V guessed 11 lb, 1oz, and I remember being a little pouty because I didn't want her thinking Ben was going to be so big.  Boy was I in for a shock.

Finally it was time, and the nurses wheeled me into the operating room.  The epidural was not nearly as scary this time, and I had the presence of mind to get situated on the table BEFORE I lost all feeling from the chest down.  I remember more of the surgery this time, which isn't saying much considering with Will I was basically passed out most of the time.  Other than having the shakes I was actually pretty comfortable.  We had a few bad minutes just after they got Ben out.  As a mom, you are just waiting to hear that  first cry.  Well, I didn't hear anything, and only knew he was out because I saw a nurse carry him over to the warmer. I kept asking if he was ok, and they would just say they were working on him.  Eli was allowed over there so I knew they weren't in emergency mode yet, but it is still very scary to know something isn't right.  It took a couple of minutes, but I finally heard that wonderful, mad little cry.  They told me afterwards that he was completely non-responsive.  His only sign of life was a heartbeat.  No breathing, no muscle control, bad color, the works.  They bagged him for a couple of minutes and roughed him up a little, and suddenly he got the hint and woke up.  They watched him for another minute or two, but it was clear he was just slow to get going- again like his brother, if a little more dramatic.  I once again thank God that Eli is both calm and very smart.  He knew what was happening, and I know he was scared too, but he was a trooper and kept me calm and stood right there with our boy until he was ok.

Eli then got to follow the nurse out to the little room adjacent to the operating room to see Ben get weighed and measured.  I couldn't see them to know when they came back in, and to be honest I was distracted by the fact that the Dr. was requesting some dye to insert into my bladder to make sure I didn't have a leak.  Ben had compressed several of my internal organs and they just wanted to make sure I was in good working order. (I am.) Next thing I hear is one of the nurses saying "11, 12" and I wondered what they were counting.  Turns out they were telling the room my son's weight.  Yes, 11 POUNDS and 12 OUNCES.  The entire room, including me and my doctor, began exclaiming over the size of this boy.  No one was expecting an almost 12 lb baby.

So, the doctor was finishing up with me when I began to feel pretty nauseous.  Remember that talk with the anaesthesiologist I should have paid more attention to?  Well in that talk, she told me she would be giving me a cocktail of pain medicine along with the epidural to help manage my pain once the epidural wore off, which sounded fabulous to me.  My mistake was not following up that information by asking what kind of cocktail. I cannot take pretty much any narcotic pain killer without getting very loopy and throwing up.  Turns out my cocktail was Demerol and morphine, so on my way out of the operating room a nurse was holding one of those little crescent shaped bowls to my mouth so I could be sick.  I spent the next 4 hours or so barely being able to keep my eyes open, except for every 15 minutes or so when I would get sick.  I am very thankful for 2 things: first that you can't eat anything for 12 hours before surgery, and second, the the epidural kept me from feeling any of my stomach spasms.

After 4 hours of being a space cadet and being sick every 15 minutes (while also trying to hold and nurse my baby in between) I passed out for a couple of hours.  When I woke up, I was clear-headed and my nausea was gone, but my right arm was swollen.  Very swollen.  Swollen like someone had hooked me up to a basketball pump and gone crazy.  Turns out that sometime in my sleep I jarred my IV just enough that it wasn't flowing properly.  Thankfully, they decided that I didn't have to have a new IV put in, so I just spent the next 12 hours wrapping towels around a very sore arm.

While all this was going on, I did still get a chance to examine my new little guy.  Well, little is a relative term. Ben's hair was much lighter and there was less of it than his brother had at birth.   He was fantastically chubby, quite pink, and his general expression at that point made him look like an angry trucker.  He was beautiful. :)

The rest of the that hospital stay was pretty uneventful.  Despite the my disaster of a delivery day, I actually recovered very quickly, and was up walking around without much discomfort the next morning.  I was evidently doing quite well the next day- the on-call doctor had to recheck my chart to verify that I had in fact had a c-section, because I wasn't acting like I had.  My dad came in that weekend and braved taking care of Will overnight on his own that first night for us.  Eli brought Will to see us on Sunday, and I will be forever grateful that my Dad had the video camera going when Will saw his brother for the first time.  I could not have asked for a sweeter introduction if I had choreographed it.  Will was instantly in love and climbed right onto the bed with us and gave his brother a big kiss.

So much for being brief- but this may be my one opportunity to write all of this down, and I don't want to neglect details for the sake of brevity.  There is much more to tell, and I will try to get another chapter in our saga written before another 5 months passes by.