Julia and Emily's World

Emily had her check up with the pediatrician this morning. Her height is 48.5 cm and her weight is 2.96 kg (6.5 lbs)! She's gained one pound since her discharge last Sunday. Her feeding has been fantastic this past week. If she keeps up this pace she will be 57 lbs by her first birthday!

Julia met all her cousins and aunts and uncles (and Uncle Louis) from Daddy's side. Grandma and Papa already met her at the hospital. Emily has had a good first week at home. Tomorrow is her first check up with the doctor. Julia is still getting use to the idea of sharing Mommy with Emily. Julia understands but she still misses her time with Mommy.

I gave Emily her first bath at home today with Julia's help. Everything was going great until Emily pee'd in my lap when drying her off. Julia was quite amused. Emily got a nice hair-do after bath by Julia.

After 16 long days, Emily is finally well enough to come home. It has been a tiring and stressful experience but we are just glad to finally have Emily home. We are very lucky to have two Grandma's who could help us out when needed. They certainly made the whole ordeal much easier to manage. Julia and Grandma D decorated the house with a Welcome Home sign to greet Emily when we arrived. We gave Emily the quick tour of the house...bedroom, bathrooms, Julia's room, what not to touch in Julia's room (Baby with the Bib)...then she was right at home. We did learn today that Emily has an issue with one kidney. This was discovered in a pre-natal ultrasound and confirmed with an ultrasound on Friday. She has hydronephrosis (you can google it) which requires further tests, monitoring and on going antibiotics. The hope is that it will resolve itself over time. So although she is out of the hospital she still has a few hospital and doctors visits over the next 6 weeks for her ...

This evening I took Julia to the Brampton Santa Claus Parade. What were we thinking??? Julia and I sat in the cold rainy weather for 2 hours! We were so cold even though we were somewhat prepared (umbrellas, blankets, camping chairs, hot chocolate, snow suit, long underwear, hats, mittens). We were SOOOOO happy to see Santa so we could get outta there!! On the walk back to the car Julia says to me, "We should have watched this one on TV!" No pictures of course. Cameras don't like the rain and my hands were full.

Emily got over another hurdle on her way to being discharged from the hospital. She passed her mandatory 90 minute car seat test. All babies under 5.5 lbs are required to go through this test. What they check for are desaturation episodes. Of course we were concerned but she got through it without any episodes. Tomorrow she will be checked by the pediatrician on-call who will decide if she can be discharged. We are hoping tomorrow is the day!

Emily is doing well. She is now 5 lbs 6 oz. The doctor said that if she has no oxygen dips she could be home as soon as Saturday. We are crossing our fingers. Coincidentally, Saturday was her predicted due date. Julia came by for a visit this evening. She is always excited to hold her baby sister. Julia even helped Mommy change Emily's poopy diaper.

Poor Emily, just like Julia, she has Daddy's hair. The second picture is Julia at 7 days old. Bad hair but it's nice to see her face without tubes and tape on it. Emily is now 5 lbs 4 oz! Her feeding has been excellent. Her O2 levels have been steady since yesterday which is encouraging. We are really looking forward to having her home. Based on the doctor's assessment it could be soon or could be not so soon. They really like to sit on the fence at this hospital. Very frustrating to deal with!

Emily is now at day 9 of her stay at the hospital. It is getting very stressful because we don't know what is wrong and we feel the doctors should be doing more to find out what is wrong. She is now back on oxygen to keep her saturation levels up. The good news is that the echocardiogram did not reveal any heart defects. Now we are back to square one with regards to her desaturation problem. The really frustrating part is that the pediatricians do not talk to us regularly (once in 9 days!). I don't get it. I can't imagine myself being in the hospital without seeing a doctor all day. That seems to be what is happening. They seem to be just waiting for her condition to improve even though she has not shown any steady improvement to date. Some days are better than others. Today was a good day though. The good news is that her feeding continues to improve and she is gaining weight. She has now reached 5 lbs! We just wish she were at home. Julia visited on Saturday ...

Today Julia and I went to Jacob's birthday party. He is TWO! Mommy stayed at the hospital with Emily. All the kids had a great time as usual. It was funny watching them all play Wii, especially Jacob who wasn't even really playing. They all take it very seriously.

Today is Emily's 1st week birthday. Sadly it was at the hospital and not at home. Emily finally got her echocardiogram done. It took so long to get it. It was requested by the pediatrician shortly after her birth. It was finally scheduled for Thursday and then it got bumped at the last minute. It finally happened this afternoon (late of course...it was suppose to be in the morning). Now we won't get the results until after the weekend. In the meantime, Emily's feeding is getting better and better (she surpassed her birth weight today!). This has put an extra burden on Mommy because she needs to be there as much as possible. Mommy is VERY tired! Emily also cries to be held which makes it very tough to leave her there. She still has dips in her O2 saturation levels. It certainly makes us nervous although the doctors say it is at a safe level. I would feel better if I had some answers. It looks like Emily is still at least a few days from coming home. We have rec...

This morning Julia visited Emily before going to school. Julia was very excited to see her little sister again. She hadn't seen her for a few days. Julia is looking forward to having Emily home. Mommy stayed with Emily the whole day. The Special Care Nursery was unusually busy. It puts a lot of stress on the nurses and as a result the extra attentive care that we are use to goes out the window. Mommy wasn't comfortable leaving Emily alone. It was a good thing because Emily's O2 levels were dropping again. She had a few episodes starting late this afternoon. Finally after some prodding by me, a pediatrician came to see her (I had to use my "scary voice" with the nurse). The pediatrician instructed the nurse to give her a bit of O2 if necessary and assured us that the levels, although concerning, were not dangerous. He didn't see any signs of infection. Tomorrow is her scheduled echocardiogram so we'll find out for sure if she has any heart defec...

Emily had a great day. She is now out of the incubator and back into a regular bed. She also nursed twice today! At noon and at 6pm. We tried again at 9pm to see if she can handle back to back feedings but she was too tired. Breast feeding still takes a bit too much out of her. Tomorrow we will continue to try to alternate between nursing and tube. Emily is now off of the antibiotics. There as been no signs of infection. The IV will be coming off soon too. Her weight slightly dropped from yesterday which is not really a concern. Overall she looks much healthier than on Sunday. She is like a different baby. With the progress that she is making, we can anticipate that she will be home very soon.

Emily continues to get stronger. She has been off the oxygen supply since 9am this morning and has been sustaining normal levels since. At noon they started to give her real food (milk). She started with 6 mL to make sure she could tolerate it. She did so they have been gradually increasing it. Her 9pm feeding this evening was 15mL. We are excited by her progress. Emily is almost back to her birth weight. She is around 2175 grams (with her wires). Her birth weight was 2180. I'm sure as the feedings continue she will gain weight quickly. We are able to hold her for a short period. I was the lucky one tonight that got to hold her while she fed. She looked very peaceful and slept most of the time. Mommy was discharged today so tonight is the first night separated from Emily. It is tough but we know she is receiving excellent care.

With or without Mommy and Daddy, Halloween goes on for Julia. Julia's Halloween festivities started at school with a walk around Daddy's work and continued with in-class activities. I look forward to seeing Julia in her costume with her classmates and was sad to miss it this year. In the evening, Julia went trick or treating around Grandma's house while back at our house, Julia's other Grandma and Papa gave out the candies. Grandma and Papa stayed over for the whole weekend and just went home this afternoon. They were a BIG help. Julia enjoyed their stay. She especially enjoyed having Grandma sleep in her bed! I myself enjoyed having my grass cut, weeds picked and bushes trimmed by Papa. The neighbours think we're rich...a cleaning lady AND a gardener!

Emily continues to make us proud. Despite her weakened state it is clear she has a strong will. Early this morning they found that she was having trouble keeping her oxygen staturation levels up. As a result they have moved her to an incubator with oxygen rich air supply. They had her like this since 2am. Earlier this afternoon they let her breath normal air to see if she can sustain O2 levels on her own. She went around 2 hours but now she is back on the oxygen. They are holding off feeding her normally (formula and milk) for now because it adds stress to her system. She is on an IV feed. They don't know yet why she is having this trouble. They are giving her antibiotics in case it is an infection. Chest x-rays haven't revealed anything abnormal. Heart sounds healthy. Her blood work results will be in on Tuesday which may tell us more. It is heartbreaking seeing her like this and not being able to hold her or even touch her. We know she will gain her strength and ...

Well the blog now needs a new name. On Halloween night, Julia became a big sister to a tiny little sister. Little Emily came very quickly Halloween night. Sheryl was scheduled to be induced on November 1st but Emily couldn't wait. After mild labour pains during the day, they decided to induce a day earlier since things were already progressing. Once the real contractions started things moved very quickly. It wasn't even 30 minutes from the first serious contractions to the birth. In fact it happens so quick the doctor wasn't even present. Luckily there was a mid wife there so I didn't have to catch Emily myself. Sheryl did great. It was very fast so no time for an epidural. She is making a very speedy recovery. Little Emily is indeed LITTLE! At birth she was 4 lbs and 13 oz. Definitely small for a full term baby (37 weeks 5 days). This was the reason for the scheduled induction. This issue was discovered in an ultrasound on Oct 30. Aside from being tiny,...