Archive for November, 2006

i think madeline must be mourning the eagles horrendous performance last night. i could swear i heard her mumbling something about how she could tackle better than the eagles D, but i could be wrong…today she has slept more than any other day since she’s been home. maybe she’s just getting accustomed to the routine, but she did seem to take the loss pretty hard last night. she was really hitting the bottle! har har!

in an attempt to take her mind off football for a while, we took our first family stroll around the neighborhood! i am still getting used to the contraptions we put these kids in! it took like 15 minutes to get her secured in the stroller and sufficiently bundled! when I was a kid, we didn’t NEED this do-hickery…and look at me…i turned out just fine!

i guess all this complexity is just preparing her for her future as a brain surgeon.

Hello all!

Good to be home. I actually feel “rested” today, we had a pretty good night last night and I was able to get some sleep in between Madeline’s feedings last night!

Before Maddie was born, I had been reading a book called The Happiest Baby On The Block by Dr. Harvey Karp, MD. The book is full of different calming methods for newborns and one of them is using white noise from the television or radio to help calm baby down. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical at first, but now I’m a believer! Read on.

Madeline had one of her “crankfests” after being changed by Steve this morning while I was in the kitchen making breakfast. I could hear her crying and then suddenly it stopped. I thought maybe Steve had put her in her swing, but no. I came in to find that Steve had white noise coming through the t.v., he had been reading the book yesterday and figured he’d give it try, and hooray, it worked! Just another trick Mom and Dad can use to soothe our little ladybug

today has been a particularly trying day for our first full day home. we all got up around 9am and madeline ate. then she cried. then she ate some more (since that was the only thing that would stop her from crying). this cycle continued until about 1:30pm when she finally went down for a nap. 30 minutes later, the nurse comes to check on her. this wakes her up. she cries. she eats. she cries and cries and cries and cries. jennie is exhausted because she was up last night feeding her (i slept!). so i walk around the house with madeline trying to calm her down. i FINALLY get her to sleep around 4pm.

we let her sleep until around 7 and then woke her to eat again (she’d already eaten something like 10 times today!) when she’s asleep, it’s really tough to wake her up! we try all the tricks, unbundle her, undress her, etc etc. so she kinda sleeps and eats at the same time for a while, then i decide to change her. well, THAT woke her up! now she’s screaming again so jennie says “why don’t you try the swing?”

i had just put the swing together because dave and suzanne had asked if we had tried that yet to calm her down….and they bought it for us…and it had worked wonders for ben.

i was skeptical but willing to try it so i didn’t have to walk her around the house for 4 hours. literally 30 seconds after we put her in there she was quiet. about 10 minutes after we put her in there, she was asleep. this swing (the fisher-price aquarium take along swing) is quite literally a miracle worker! i love it with all of my heart and soul. if you are a new parent, and you do not have this, you must buy it. it is an essential part of the parenting arsenal! thank you to the geniuses at fisher-price and thank you dave and suzanne!

mitchell meets madeline for the first time.

we’re getting ready to be discharged now!!!! jenn just got her temp taken one last time and passed with flying colors!

AHOY!

the doctor was in this morning and jennie’s still doing great. no fevers in a couple days so we just have a few hours left. she said if all goes well they’ll be sending us home between 2-3:00pm! obviously we’re totally psyched to have this week behind us and get on with the rest of our lives as a family…i’m sure the moment we get home, though, we’ll wish we had a team of nurses to help us with maddie like we did here.

speaking of miss madeline, she is doing great, especially now that we took her off the bottle. she slept all afternoon yesterday and most of the night and is resting now as well.

so the next thing i post will most likely be about how the cats and the kid are getting along…should be interesting.

Hope everyone got their fair share of turkey and stuffing and all the favorites today and you’re all napping it off on the couch…Jenn’s folks were kind enough to bring over Thanksgiving dinner so we didn’t miss out on anything. It was really good! Best thing we’ve had all week by a long shot.

Now Jenn and Madeline are getting some rest before Maddie’s big meal! She really needs it…she was going nuts all day today. She finally fell asleep around 2pm which has been nice.

Now we’re watching the Cowboys-Buccaneers game. Jenn’s fever is still down, the doctor should be by at some point tonight so we can talk about the plan. We’re really hoping we get to go home tomorrow so our WHOLE family (mitchy and charles included) can be under one roof!

afebrile

SYLLABICATION: a·feb·rile

PRONUNCIATION: [ey-fee-bruhl, ey-feb-ruhl]

ADJECTIVE: Having no fever.

as of right now, jennie has been afebrile for more than 24 hours.

it was an eventful day yesterday. in the morning jennie went to have an ultrasound of her legs done to check for blood clots (Walk of the 5 Ws). everything was fine, so they wanted to do a CT scan! of course she couldn’t eat or drink before that, which was scheduled for 2pm. they came to finally get her at 3:30pm and then had to wait down there until around 5pm because there were so many emergencies coming in! of course, because of the injectable dye needed for the scan, she’s now unable to nurse (again!) until 5pm tonight!

on the other hand, her temp didn’t spike at all last night, which is awesome! it seems like we’re finally on the right path…hopefully we’ll be able to get out of here in the next couple days.

madeline has been just a treat today…she woke up to be fed at 3am and hasn’t really stopped since! cry, feed, cry, diaper, cry, feed, cry, cry, feed, diaper, cry. this girl has quite a set of lungs! unreal.

spending the day in a hospital was definitely not how we imagined our first thanksgiving as a family would be. but we do have a lot to be thankful for, despite the events of the last week. we have a beautiful, healthy (LOUD) baby, and we get to spend the day together as family. we’re also thankful for our family and friends who have been with us every step of the way through this whole thing and picked us up when we’ve felt down! thank you all for your love and support. and have a great thanksgiving!

love,
madeline, jenn and steve

p.s. i’ll try to get some pics of the little turkey today, in between her fits and fussing!

this is starting to get old…after having a great day yesterday, jennie was checked around 3am and had a 101.4 fever. the doctor was just in here and kind of outlined the possibilities and the ones that have already been eliminated. he startedd explaining something about the 5 Ws (wind, water, walking, something and something). i have a 6th W…whatever!

so jennie is going to go for another ultrasound/CT scan to check for blood clots in her legs or elsewhere that might be causing the fever to spike.

on a happier note, since the breast milk culture came back negative, she’s able to resume nursing which is great.

i think the most frustrating thing for both of us is the fact that jenn feels fine, the baby is fine, by nearly all appearances we don’t feel like we need to be here. but, i guess we do need to get this fever issue resolved before we go home just to make sure it doesn’t turn into something more serious.

hopefully we’ll have better news to report later today.