Xander, Emilie and Baby #3

Sat, Dec 30, 2006 9:13 PM

So much for me saying Xander was feeling better. He just lost his dinner all over the table. I guess I jinxed that one!

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Sat, Dec 30, 2006 4:41 PM

They're both sleeping for a few minutes so hopefully I'll get to actually add an update!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas because...well...we didn't. Friday Emilie got her 5 injected and 1 oral immunizations and she didn't like the shots one bit! Our poor angel just howled with every one of them! : ( But she did love the oral immunization--she sucked it down (granted, it was also bottle time so she was VERY hungry!). We were told to expect a low grade fever and body aches and that's exactly what she had Friday night and Saturday. She wailed in pain every time we tried to burp her and she ran about a 99F fever so Tylenol became her best friend.

Then Saturday night occurred. We all enjoyed a nice Christmas celebration at Momaw and Pawpaw Weitzel's house with the whole crew that afternoon then headed to church. I had just put her in the backseat after mass when she erupted! (What horrible memories of Xander being sick that brought back!) We got back to my parent's house, changed her, and she was starving again. That bottle didn't stay down longer than 15min before it ended up all over the kitchen floor. We changed her again and headed back to Chad's parent's house for the night. She kept down her next bottle but lost the next one all over both of us again. At about that time a horrible cough had settled in. We figured she was catching what Xander was slowly getting over and Chad was slowly catching. We ended up skipping all the Christmas Eve festivities and stayed in. In addition to Emilie feeling terrible, the Augmentin Xander was on was causing blowouts all over his jammies and pants. Taking care of those two sick babies was a handful!

Since it was Emilie's first Christmas, we decided to doll her up and venture out for the evening. Xander had a ball playing with Michelle and Brayden at Great Uncle Richard and Great Grandma Beatrice's while Emilie slept and coughed. That night, Emilie slept and hacked some more while Xander ran around with all the kids at Momaw Cindy's family Christmas. All was going well (she'd kept her formula down for nearly 43hrs) until Emilie lost yet another bottle all over Aunt Melinda's old bed. To make matters worse, we noticed that she was starting to wheeze. The first thing we thought was RSV all over again and at almost the same age.

The next morning we got up, called their pediatrician, and headed back to Indy to see Dr. McIntire. He got out some contraption to measure her oxygen saturation (89-90%), gave her a breathing treatment, and checked her again (up to 93%). That's when we were informed we were heading back to the hospital--only it would be the Riley Center for Children at Methodist (the pediatric ward at Clarian West was booked up with kids only from his practice!).

We checked her in and called Grandma/pa Minch to tell them the news and see if Xander could spend the night so he could still enjoy Christmas that afternoon. The first thing they did was shoot saline up her nose so they could get a sample for the RSV test. Unfortunately, it was positive. That night, Emilie had a bad spell and ended up on oxygen to get her oxygen saturation back into the normal range. She absolutely HATED the oxygen tube up her nose and ripped it off her face more than once. She continued having breathing treatments every 2hrs all night and woke up early the next morning for a chest x-ray. Finally that afternoon we found out the x-rays showed signs of pneumonia in her right lung. The only good news was that they were going to take her off the oxygen to see how she would do (good--she didn't need it again!).

Then Daddy headed back to the house to meet his family (they dropped off Xander, our stuff, and many Christmas presents) and Zeesa (she was coming to watch Xander during Emilie’s hospital stay). They came back to the room for a short visit, which ended with Xander tossing his cookies in the car. We later found out a stomach bug was passed around on Christmas night (18 people we know of caught it). Great. Just what we needed.

But Xander wasn't the only one to get sick that day--Emilie did with every bottle she took from Wednesday afternoon on. For whatever reason, neither the doctors nor the nursing staff seemed concerned by this. By Thursday morning, they backed off on the breathing treatments to every 4hrs. If she tolerated this well, they said she would be released. After getting sick a few more times, she was given the okay to go home. Chad came back to pick us up and her 3 prescriptions. She’s on Albuterol breathing treatments every 4hrs (like Xander was), Pulmicort (a steroid) breathing treatments twice a day, and Predthisone orally once a day for 5days. She did pretty well her first night home. She coughed a lot but kept everything down. Last night she lost her formula all over both of us and the couch. Hopefully that’s the last time she’ll have to go through that painful experience for awhile!

We were given conflicting recommendations about starting daycare (she was supposed to start on Tuesday). A hospital resident said to keep her out for a week; her doctor’s office said she could go as long as she didn’t have a fever. We’re not quite sure what we’re going to do yet. Wednesday she has a follow up appointment to check her progress. Hopefully we’ll be told she’s doing really well and will be able to discontinue the breathing treatments soon! Although she wouldn’t care if she had to keep having them—she sits there contently and usually falls asleep!

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Thu, Dec 21, 2006 9:59 PM

Tuesday started out bad and the rest of the week has just gotten worse. Xander had a fever of 102F when he woke up, a terribly runny nose, a horrible cough, and was just not himself (sleepy, grouchy, and not talkative). After some Motrin, his fever went down and he resumed his new found passion for singing Christmas songs. By lunch time, the hunger strike started. Yesterday he woke up with a much lower fever (less than 101F) but the hunger strike was even worse (he didn't eat a single meal all day) and so were all of his other symptoms. By late afternoon, he'd spiked his highest temp of the week (103F). We, of course, tried giving him some more over-the-counter medicine, thinking it was just a bad case of the cold that's going around. Let's just say he didn't like taking that Tylenol cold medicine and it and the few raisins (the only thing he would eat yesterday) came right back up all over himself but mainly on Daddy. Trust us--raisins aren't something you ever want to see a second time around! As if his afternoon wasn't bad enough, he had a horribly unrestful night due to all of the coughing that his prescription codeine cough medicine couldn't control. This morning he woke up with yet another fever so we figured this wasn't just a bad cold and made him a doctor's appointment.

There's nothing like getting the doc's diagnosis to make you feel like bad parents!! He has a sinus infection, a bad infection in his right ear and lesser one in his left ear, and pharyngitis that has caused him not to eat because his throat is so raw. She thought it looked so bad that she fought through clinched teeth and managed to swab him for strep throat. Luckily the test was negative. (The only good thing for him about that whole process was that he got a popsicle!) She said none of it would be this bad right now if it would have been treated sooner! : ( So he's now on Augmentin for the next 10days. He had to take it earlier this year and Chad and I both remember the twice daily struggle to get this chalky liquid into him.

What a fun holiday weekend this will be! Tomorrow Emilie gets FIVE shots at her well baby appointment! We're going to keep Tylenol in business for the next few days! : (

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Mon, Dec 18, 2006 11:58 PM

Sorry it's been so long since an update was added!! I should really be fired!

Here's what's been going on with Emilie's feeding regimen. We started out with the intention of breast feeding her, even though I had a rough time with Xander. The bad thing was that it was even worse this time around!! : ( In the hospital she only nursed for about 5-10min at each feeding before she fell asleep. She started nursing a little longer than that once we got home but not enough to help ease the engorgement I was suffering through or to ease our minds about her weight gain. We took her in for a weight check that Thursday (she was 5days old) and were delighted to see that she’d put on 6oz in the 3 days since she was discharged from the hospital. I thought that things were actually going to work out this time.

Then Friday came and I came down with case of mastitis #1--only 6 DAYS after she was born!! I woke up in between feedings with my right breast throbbing and hard. I figured it was just really bad engorgement so I massaged it/expressed some milk and went back to sleep. When I woke up the next time to feed her, I felt like I had been hit by a bus! My joints were ACHING, I was absolutely freezing and racked with chills that made my teeth chatter and my body shake, my pajamas were soaked with sweat, and my breast was in even more pain. It took all the energy and determination I had to just sit up. When I took my temperature I was shocked to see that it was 103F!!! (Let me also add that the symptoms of the infections were MUCH worse than I ever had with Xander.) Thank goodness Dr. Lee had the foresight to send me home with an antibiotic prescription and Chad was still at home to pick it up and help out with Emilie! By the next day I was feeling human again but starting to question how much longer breastfeeding was going to last.

The following Wednesday Emilie had her 1week appointment. We were surprised and worried to discover that she had lost 2.5oz in the 6days since her weight check. Dr. McIntire was also concerned because she was 11days old and still hadn’t returned to her birth weight. He told me to make sure she was being fed at least every 3hrs and to bring her in a week later for another weight check. Other than that, her first appt was pretty uneventful. Later that week I talked to my Mom and she suggested pumping to see how much milk I was producing because she had trouble nursing me (her second child). Thanks to the borrowed pump from Stacy, I learned I was only producing a total of 2oz, which meant she was only getting about 1oz after 20min of nursing. (That’s less than half of what I was producing with Xander at this point.) No wonder she wasn’t gaining any weight!! I was starving my poor baby and didn’t even know it!!

By Saturday I decided to pump exclusively again so that I could supplement with formula. I also finished the antibiotic. A whole 2 days later I came down with case #2! What made this bout even worse was that Chad wasn’t at home. That meant that I had to suffer through the whole day before Chad was able to pick up my prescription (we still have only one vehicle) and I didn’t have anyone to help out with Emilie. Luckily I remembered that I still had some remaining Vicadin (it was the only thing that made the breast pain go away) and Naproxen (it reduced my fever to 100F so I could function). : ( Needless to say, I decided I was going to give up bf’ing because it was just too painful!! Dr. Lee warned me to wean very slowly after I finished this round of antibiotics or I would keep getting mastitis over and over again. I didn’t even get that far! The absolutely stunning thing was that I came down with case #3 that Friday while I was still taking the antibiotics!! I maxed out at a whopping 103.5F fever that time!! I continued to pump through both infections but realized my milk supply was starting to decline even further—I was only pumping ½-1oz! Within just a few days I was completely dried up. Weaning was the easiest part of bf’ing this time around!!

By now Emilie was on formula only and her next weight check confirmed that she was finally gaining some weight—10oz in 8days!—but she was still only in the 10th percentile in weight. By her 2week appointment 6days later, she’d put on another 7oz and had made it up to the 25th percentile in weight. Woo hoo! The only problem was that the formula was giving her infrequent and solid BMs. Poor Emilie would scream in pain and grunt like crazy when she would have one! : ( Dr. McIntire suggested adding 1tsp of dark Karo syrup to every 2oz of formula. He said this would allow her to absorb all the calories but not all the water from the formula so that she’d have less trouble. We’re still trying to figure out how often she needs the syrup—too often means frequent, running BMs and not enough means she’s back to the original problem. At this appt he also noticed her extremely dry skin (her palms and soles of her feet were the only parts of her that weren’t pealing) and suggested using either Dove Sensitive Skin body wash or Cataphyll face wash to combat that problem. Luckily that solution has worked and her dry skin is completely gone! We also discussed the cyst under her tongue that ruptured on its own. He suggested keeping the appt with the Riley surgeon so that he could examine her and determine if anything further needs to be done.

To finally wrap this update up (that’s what you get after a 5week hiatus!), Emilie seems to be gaining weight consistently now. She has even grown out of some of her clothes!! She moved on from newborn clothes and diapers and started wearing 3mo clothes and size 1 diapers at about 5-6weeks. She even has cute chubby cheeks that strangers are beginning to comment about! She has also had trouble with painful gas (she'd wake up screaming in pain 2hrs after a bottle and make some routin' tootin' music) so we just changed her formula today to Enfamil GentleEase. Hopefully that will solve her one last feeding problem and we can get her off of the gas drops. She’s come a long way from her 1oz meals—she’s up to about 4oz now and will soon be moving on to big girl 8oz bottles!! : )

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