Baths are Dangerous

Tess's umbilical cord FINALLY fell off, so she got to have her first full bath today.  She didn't like it at first, but pretty quickly she relaxed and really enjoyed the warm water.

Just for the record, bathing a newborn with two little devils helpers is pretty tricky.  Getting pictures of the process is even trickier.

See?  Totally relaxed. *yawn*

Tess liked her bath so much that she kept trying to lay down all the way in the water.  (Hence the weird lookin' hand holding her up.)

After her bath she dried off and warmed up in a big fluffy hoodie towel that her Great-Grandma Roper made for her.  (So cute!)

Okay, so far the bath doesn't seem that dangerous, right?  Well, the bath itself wasn't dangerous, but the after-effects were.

Tess decided she needed to eat every 2 hours today.  Every TWO HOURS.  And not only that, she didn't want to sleep.  Oh sure, she'd sleep for 5 minutes here or 10 minutes there, but that's it.  And the rest of the time she HAD to be held, or there'd be @$^@!! to pay.

Seriously, that child doesn't know how to just wimper or whine - she only knows silence and ANGRY.  It's really quite impressive.

What does this have to do with the bath?  Well, I'm pretty sure that was the cause.  Mainly because it was her first bath and I have no other ideas as to why she acted the way she did all day.

This is the only way I could get her to stop crying and actually sleep today.

Thank heaven for baby slings!

Tess earned herself a new title today.

Grandparent Eye Candy

Originally I had planned on writing a post about our stupid insurance, which wins the prize for giving me billing problems earlier than any other insurance we've ever had after having a baby.  (I've had to fight with insurance after the birth of each child.  Good times.)  They tried to get out of paying for my c-section because they claimed I hadn't updated my information with them in the past 12 months.  This is new insurance we've only had since January 1st, a fact which gave pause to the person I spoke to on the phone.  That's right, jerks, I caught ya.

But instead of being angry about that all day I decided to take a few pics of our cutie-pie Tess instead.  Today was the first really warm day we've had since she's been born, which called for putting her in a cute little dress.  She actually has lots of dresses to choose from, but this is the only one that didn't dwarf her little froggy legs... too much. :)

Tess is finally waking up a little out of that whole sleepy newborn phase.  She likes to look around, wide-eyed, and scowl.

She has cute little footsies.  Boy, are they long.  Speaking of long feet, I compared Cole's feet with Josh's the other day and Cole's are shorter by only 1/2 an inch.  That kid's gonna be a giant.  Crazy.

Poor Tess has a receding hairline and subsequently has little-old-man hair.  A perfect reason to break out the headbands!

And if one flower on the headband is good, two has got to be better, right?!

Cuteness.  Skinny skinny cuteness.  BTW, she's slowly starting to gain weight, but the doctor is still giving me a hard time about it.  I just think she's taking her sweet time and will start eating in earnest when she's ready.  I'm not so worried, mainly because she looks healthy, has good color, is trying to hold her head up, and really gets down to business when she's hungry.

Survival Mode

Today was the first day Lance has been back to work in 2 weeks.  I was left home alone with four kiddos - well, 3 really, since Spencer went to school.  One cute but rather talkative/whiny four-year-old, one crazy busy "I must get into as much trouble as possible" toddler, and one "I'm driving my pediatrician nuts because I'm not hardly gaining any weight even though my mom feeds me all the time" baby girl.

The day included breakfast, 39 loads of laundry, getting showered and dressed, a doctor appointment, a trip to CVS, lunch, trying (unsuccessfully) to get Cole to take a nap before 4pm, homework, and dinner.

I am happy to announce that we all survived.

But I am dang tired and achy and I really really wish that children had on/off buttons.  Or that I had a nanny. 

One of the two.

Mother's Day: 2010 vs. 2011

Last year on Mother's Day I fled the country with this guy I've been hanging out with for 10+ years. 

This year for Mother's Day I stayed up half the night with a certain arm-flailing baby girl who decided to move in with us a few weeks ago. 

I'm not gonna lie - last year's Mother's Day was better than this year's.

But not by much.

Happy Mother's Day!

More New Arrivals!

We had more new arrivals the week Tess was born.  These arrivals had been almost as highly anticipated as Tess.  (Hey, I said almost.)  We certainly had been waiting as long for them.

That's right!  I finally have living room furniture!  They were actually delivered the day we brought Tess home from the hospital.  It was sooo nice to actually have somewhere to sit upstairs.

I had to explain to the boys that this was special furniture - not to be played, climbed, jumped, etc. upon.  In general they've been pretty good about it, although I do have to still get after them every once in a while. Cole, of course, decided that the couch would make a good tissue, so last week I was continually wiping it off.  Gross, Cole.

Of course, he does make a pretty cute (albeit pants-less) model.

My hope is to paint the back wall of the kitchen the same blue as the couch some time this summer.  I'd also like to get an area rug to pull it all together.  But seeing as how it took me 9 months just to get the furniture, I'm not holding my breath.

A Bit of This and That

1.  I am now in that awkward phase where my maternity clothes are getting too big for me (read: my pants keep falling down), but my regular clothes are still too small.  This is annoying.

Also, I knew that it would take a while for my tummy to go back down this time.  It was my 4th kid and tummies tend to stay a bit swollen after surgery, for Pete's sake.  However, I am tired of looking like I'm 5 months pregnant.  Crunches are still out of the question, but let's be honest here: no amount of crunches is gonna completely get rid of this belly.  Ah well, pass the M&M's... :)

2.  Remember a while back when I mentioned that Cole was a little delayed in the speech department?  (I could link to it, but I'm too lazy.)  Anywho, I kept saying that he wasn't talking because he just didn't want to, and once the baby came he would start talking just to get some attention.

I was right. 

He's picking up new words and phrases every day, but his current favorites include:

• Stop!  (Used especially when Mommy is making him do something he doesn't want)
• Good job!
• What's that?
• Baby Tess
• Uh-oh.  Oweeee!

3.  Speaking of Cole, he has now discovered Mommy's wrath when he hits his baby sister on the head.  Yesterday, out of the blue, he came up to her while she was eating and smacked her on the face.  It was hard enough to leave little red fingerprints across her cheek.   You can imagine how well that went over with both Tess and I.  Cole was unceremoniously kicked out of the room, and then was quite upset to discover I had locked the door behind him.

4.  Yesterday I picked Josh up from preschool.  On the way home we had the following conversation (I kid you not):

Josh: Mommy, Daddy is smarter than you.
Me (eyebrows raised): Reeeaaally?  Who told you that?
Josh: Daddy.
Me: Well, he's not that smart if he told you thinking you wouldn't tell me.
Josh: Hahahaha HAHAHA!  Daddy's also funnier.

5. Tess came home from the hospital with a good case of thrush, which she promptly shared with me.  It hurt a lot.  I loathe thrush.

6. I do this every time I have a baby: I start to feel better and then overdo it and regret it.  Yesterday I overdid it by going to Wal-Mart to get Tess's thrush prescription filled.  They of course did not have it filled even though the doctor had called it in several hours earlier, so I had 45 minutes to kill.  With Josh and Cole.  I felt fine the entire time, but was sore and tired the rest of the afternoon.  Stupid recovery.

Tess's Second Hospital Stay

Tess with her IV.  The red mark on her forehead was from the tourniquet they had to put around her noggin'.  To be honest, the IV reminded me a lot of all the crazy hats the women wore to the royal wedding a few days earlier.  

Apparently Tess really missed the hospital and decided it was time for another visit.  Due to lack of sleep and the fact that it was all so traumatizing, a lot of what happened is a bit of a blur.

On Saturday Tess seemed a little extra sleepy and a little extra stuffy.  I figured she was just trying to work through the cold that Cole had so nicely shared with her.  No big deal.

But at 7:30 that evening, when I woke her up to eat, I noticed that she was a bit warmer than normal.  I thought maybe she had gotten a little overheated, so I went ahead and fed her.  But she was still warm after I fed her so I took her temperature under her arm: 100.4. 

Yikes.

So I decided I should take her temperature the not-so-fun way: 100.3.

Double yikes.  I quickly called the pediatrician, but since it was the weekend I only got the answering service.  I decided to start getting ready to go while I waited for the on-call pediatrician to call back.  It's a good thing I did because as soon as she called she told me to get Tess to the Emergency room asap.

Lance stayed home with the boys while I rushed down to the hospital.  Poor Tess cried the entire way, still upset about me taking her temperature.  I got her checked in and a med student came into the room and checked her out.  Then a couple of nurses.  And then a real doctor.  I don't know - like I mentioned, it's kind of a blur.  All I know is Tess was NOT happy getting poked and prodded by these strangers.  I wasn't happy that I had to give her medical history 382 times; did these people not talk to each other?

The doctor explained that because of her age (she was only 12 days old), and because her temp was so high, we needed to rule out any sort of infection, which meant a battery of tests and cultures.  I wasn't too keen on the idea, but I knew it was best to go ahead and do it.

First the nurse had to get a urine sample, which meant a catheter.  I'd rather not remember how upset this made Tess.  I felt so helpless and sad.  You know how you feel bad when your baby has to get immunization shots, and you know it hurts them but it's for the best?  It felt like that, only times a million.

Next they brought in a portable x-ray machine. The techs were really weird, and the one guy was kinda rude.  He was all "Mom, if you're gonna be in here you have to wear an apron." I know it doesn't sound that bad, but the tone he said it in was pretty rude and sarcastic, and I was planning on putting one on but I was still holding Tess and waiting for the other tech to get the bed ready so I didn't have to wake her up earlier than necessary.  Sheesh.

Then, the nurses had to get an IV started.  The nurses tried once in each hand, and you can imagine how much Tess enjoyed that.  By this time I asked for a pediatric nurse, and they said they had already called for one.  I wondered why they didn't just do that in the first place, but held my tongue.  The pediatric nurse came in and decided to put the IV in poor Tess' head.  That also went over really well, but it was much better than digging around for veins in her hands, poor thing.

By this point Tess was exhausted.  She had been crying off and on for several hours and had been through all sorts of awfulness.  But the worst was yet to come.

The doctor came back in and said that the immediate tests done didn't show anything; this was good and bad.   Good because it meant that she didn't have whatever it was that those tests were looking for, but bad because we still didn't know what was wrong with her.  He really felt that we should do a spinal tap to rule out meningitis.  Once again I knew we should do it but didn't really want to. 

I decided to stay in the room for the LP.  I'm glad I did, but it was still just AWFUL.  Worse than awful.  Horrible.  They had to lay her on her side and bend her in half so her back was well exposed.  The doctor actually did a really good job and got the puncture right the first time, but still.  I couldn't help but cry along with poor Tess.  Eventually she kinda passed out into sleep, which was probably for the best.  She needed to stay on the bed to help prevent a headache, so I couldn't even hold her.  Everyone left the room and I just lost it. I was so emotionally spent and so exhausted that all I could do was cry and cry and feel sorry for myself and for my baby.

By this time it was close to midnight.  The doctor came back in later and said that the LP was negative, which was a huge relief but I also felt bad she had to go through it for nothing.  (I guess not nothing, but you know what I mean.)  He said we needed to admit Tess to the hospital for observation and so we could wait for her other tests and cultures.

We didn't get admitted into the pediatric unit until close to 2am.  The room they put us in was tiny and dark.  There was an uncomfortable chair for me and one of those jail-like cribs for Tess.  It was very depressing.  It's not like it wasn't nice and clean, it was just a far cry from the labor and delivery suite we had been in less than 2 weeks earlier!

The nurse took Tess's medical history - AGAIN - and then left me to feed Tess and settle in for the night.  Poor Tess; it was hard to nurse her when she was connected to an IV and had heart monitor wires all connected to her.  She was so tired I could barely get her to eat.

I tried to get some sleep, but the chair was seriously the most uncomfortable piece of furniture I have ever had to sit in.  It was a recliner, but not very long or soft.  Tess slept lots that night, but I sure didn't.  I spent most of the night dozing and praying.

Side note: I'm now convinced that 98% of all time in a hospital is spent in the futile - nay, impossible - attempt to sleep.

The next morning the on-call pediatrician came in to check on Tess.  She let me know that she had tested positive for RSV, which was the cause of the congestion and fever.  RSV is a virus, which means that there aren't any medications for it.  But because we hadn't gotten all of the other cultures and test results back they wanted to continue the IV antibiotics, just as a precautionary measure.

I reluctantly left Tess to go home for a shower and some breakfast.  I felt so guilty leaving her, but knew I really needed to get home for at least a little bit.  Lance and the boys were at home when I got there, having decided to stay home from church.  (Understandable, given all the circumstances.)  I thought Cole might be mad again about me leaving, but he seemed to be okay.  I quickly showered, ate, and packed a bag full of stuff I thought I might need.

I got back to the hospital and spent the rest of the day feeding Tess, watching old movies on TV (Sunday daytime TV is terrible), and trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep.  Tess had calmed down quite a bit and only got upset when the nurses had to take her temperature. 

By that early afternoon I decided to go home and eat some dinner with my family.  Tess was doing a lot better and her temperature had come down.  I got home and almost laughed - the house looked like it had been hit by a tornado.  (And still does, to be honest.)  I think Lance had just let the boys overrun the house.  I can't blame him too much - he's not used to taking care of them all by himself for that long.  I made a quick dinner (pizza sticks left by my wonderful visiting teacher a few days earlier!) and spent some time with the boys. 

By this point I knew I wasn't as worried about Tess because I really did NOT want to go back to the hospital. (I knew it would be another long night!)  But of course I went back.  

That evening my super-wonderful friend Gigi came to visit me.  She brought me yummy treats and talked with me for quite a while.  Gig, you totally made my day with that visit.  Thank you SO much for coming!  It was just a little thing on her part, but it made that night so much more bearable.

That night Tess felt better and decided to have a late-night party.  I was exhausted but happy because I knew it meant she was getting back to normal!  I was up with her until at least 3am.  We read on my Kindle and watched lots of TV.  (I learned more about the whole Osama Bin Laden thing than I really wanted to.)  We finally got comfortable and fell asleep for a while, although the nurses kept coming in to check on us because Tess kept pulling out the wires for the monitor.  (Pesky baby!)

By morning I was totally exhausted and sore, but not nearly as depressed as I expected.  Tess's pediatrician stopped by to check on her.  She was just as surprised as I was that Tess was there, seeing as how we had just been in her office the day before.  But I guess newborns are tricky like that.  Dr. Oliver said that if all of the other tests and cultures came back negative (and she figured they would), we could go home by 3pm.  Happy day!

I happily went home again for a shower and some breakfast.  Lance had gotten Spencer off to school, but Josh and Cole were still running around in jammies, so I got them dressed and spent a bit of time reading to Cole.  (Remember Hippos Go Berserk?  He's still in love with that book.)

Then it was back to the hospital.  More futile napping.  More feeding the tube-and-wire-wrapped baby.  More bad TV.  I even got to "enjoy" a salad for lunch from the hospital cafe.  (Actually, it wasn't that bad.  It wasn't that great, either, but it wasn't that bad.)

Much to my surprise, by 3:15 we were out of the hospital.  To be quite honest I thought it would take a lot longer, like when we took her home from the hospital - the first time.

I really don't remember much after that.  I was TIRED.  So was Tess.  I know we had dinner but after that I decided to take a little nap.  Three hours later I woke up to find it dark and the boys were all in bed and Tess ready to eat. 

I'm trying to end this post, but a certain baby is letting me know in no uncertain terms that it's time for her to eat.  Again.  Last week this would have irritated me a little.  But now?  I'm just glad to have her home with me.