FAO: Dr. Ruth [Archive] - ParentingBanter.com

Ruth Shear

January 7th 06, 07:54 PM

G'day

wrote:

Oh my goodness - I've never had my own FAO. Nice to be thought of! 8-)

> How are Brazos and his mother doing these days?

For those who missed the start of this, Brazos was born by CS at 30
weeks due to pre-eclampsia of his mum, my best friend, too far away in
Boston. He was a 3 lbs and 16 inches. Now, Brazos has just broken the 4
lb barrier, is learning to suck (both mother's nipples and bottle) and
drank 2 ozs at one sitting this week, is being fed EBM supplemented with
something caloric to get him fattened up, and is wearing clothes. He was
moved to a smaller hospital nearer my friends home so she doesn't have
to travel so far and so dad can actually see him morning and night too
on his way to and from work. Hopefully he'll be home within the month.
The biggest barrier is getting past the stopping breathing incidents
which are still 5-6 times per day at the moment. Mum is pumping like a
trooper but has turned out to be allergic to something in the plastic of
medela pumps, and now has mastitis. By the time he gets home both Leina
and I should be ready to fly to Boston and meet him, which we can't wait
to do.

> And how are you and Leina?

We are doing great too. Leina is 8 weeks old today. Yay. She's feeding
like a champ. Unlike with Joshua, I know what I am doing this time
around and we've had zero problems with BF so far. I was a little
worried for a few weeks where she seemed to be bringing milk back up
every single time we fed. But it rarely caused her any discomfort and I
learned to keep her vertical for longer after feeding before putting her
down. We still have the occasional gush, and I've seen milk come out of
her nose more times than I would like to have, but her weight gain has
been good so I think we are fine there.

She's still smaller than Josh ever was - he was 8 11 at birth and she
was 7 7. Initially she lost a bit more than the 10% of birth weight that
they like to see and was a bili baby, and then when we finally got home
after my hospitalization she was very nice to me and would only wake
once per night for the first three weeks of her life. VEry nice for us.
But not so good for her because her weight had not returned to her birth
weight at 2 weeks like they want to see. Leina rose to the task though
and starting at 3 weeks she switched to waking every 2 hours and at 4
wks she was 7 lb 15 ozs which was 14 oz gain in 15 days. Much better.
Puts her in the 10th percentile for weight. At two weeks her height was
25th percentile and head circumference was 50th percentile. She's
clearly gaining in length now because she has started to grow out of
some of her onesies. Our 8 wk well check is still over a week away, but
I'm sure everything will be looking perfect.

Leina is beautiful of course. Sleeps a lot while at work with me so I
can get lots done, but has more and more periods of being alert and
awake. She grins. She has a big open mouth smile reserved for when she
hears her name or does a good poo. She makes cute little noises at us.
First smile and first noises were reserved for her big brother Joshua
who adores her. He is very protective of her around other kids, and
rushes over to comfort her when she is sad or mad. He doesnt' quite know
his own strength and I spent a few weeks feeling very stressed worrying
about his interactions with her, not wanting to dissuade him at all, and
loving seeing his love for her, but wincing every time he would pat,
stroke, tickle, touch her with too much strength. The only thing I've
seen him do that is not nice is he wants to put his finger into her
mouth. Too far. Luckily now Madeleina is learning to let him know when
he is too rough or does something she doesn't like.

I'm waiting for my latest blood work to come back, but at 4 weeks my
haemoglobin was up to 11 from a low of 6 and aiming for my prepregnancy
14. I've cut back on the amount of iron supplement I"m taking to normal
levels rather than 3 times normal and my bowels thank me. I'm still
eating more red meat and green leafy stuff than I usually do. I think
the anemia based tiredness has mostly been replaced by normal new mum
tiredness. All my stitches have healed up, but once I was undistracted
by them, I realized that I have stress incontinence. Kegeling away I
think that that is improving slowly.

I'm doing cloth diapers with a service again, but unlike last time when
I used disposables at night, I've invensted in Fuzzibunz which are great
and my diaper service washes them for us - only means we need to own two
weeks worth. The hugabub is back in service in a big way, and I've also
learned to use a sling correctly this time. Last time it just hurt my
shoulder too much, but that was because I wasn't sitting it over my
shoulder or spreading it out over my back. Now I love the sling for when
I want to get up and go somewhere quickly with Venus. The hugabub still
rules for long term wearing, but I'm already thinking about buying a
pouch as well as a sling (my current sling is borrowed).

Trying to catch up work from the basically one month that I was useless
confined to the couch getting over my bloodloss has been difficult. I
finally succumbed and decided to give up my plans to be full time
working with Leina at school like I did with Josh. This was a very hard
decision, but now that I've located someone to cover what I would have
done, I'm starting to let myself be excited about the idea of being
part-time for a whole 18 months. I've located an excellent mamas support
group here in Austin (one of the reasons I dont' spend much time on
usenet anymore!) and unlike last time, I'll be raising an infant
surrounded by lots of support from other mums. Think it will be great.

Because of all my work catch up I haven't got Leina's photos online,
haven't got the new website going, haven't even announced her birth to
all our extended friends (most of whom have emailed me by this point
asking what's going on), and haven't written my birth story which must
happen SOON. I have BIRTH PHOTOS which I am totally wrapped in. DH
thought I wouldn't want to look at them - that I would be reliving the
pain. What pain? Hah. I absolutely love looking at the photos of the
most perfect moment of my life. I showed them to Josh and he was
fascinated. Think I might make an alternate webpage with password
protection for people I know who would like to see them.

Anyway, that's what's going on with us for anyone who's interested and
I'll try to check mkb more often again.

DrRuth
Mum to Joshua Eamon (Nov 15th, 2001)
Madeleina Venus (Nov 12th, 2005)
<http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~drruth/joshua/>