Back to work

So I went back to work Sunday. The work is easy enough because even if I'm tired and adjusting my body still, somehow my hands and mouth somehow seem to remember what to do even when my brain hasn't caught up yet. Thank God for caffeine. I like working on a lower stress slower shift given the major life changes we've gone through, and it helps me keep my focus first on my family as I envisioned. The hard part is sleeping. I have enough opportunity during the day when Vivek is sleeping, but my body is still fighting it. It will get a bit easier after a week I'm sure, and after Tara is home then I'll have even more time to sleep or get stuff done since I won't be carving out several hours of outside care for him and travel to the hospital to see her. Vinnie is doing a great job and working out a schedule that works for him. Unfortunately Vivek seems to be fussy and gassy for a few hours late at night so that makes it tougher on him, but I help him catch up on sleep in the morning. I'm so proud of the job he is doing and we are making it work. It makes you love your husband so much more to see him being such a good father.

Sunday afternoon Vinnie took care of my stepdad and Vivek so I could bring my mother to see Tara finally. It was long overdue since her last memories of her were less than pleasant two weeks ago. She managed to hold back tears and held her for an hour.

Tara is doing fantastic. She is now down to 1L of oxygen on the nasal cannula! Only slightly more than room air, and on a low flow rather than fast flow. She got her last dose of steroids, and they moved the orogastric tube to her nose to prep her for bottlefeeding. That made her very happy because she hates tubes down her throat. When I saw her last night for the first time she seemed comfortable and like her old self, happy and adorable. She was not getting upset or agitated to get messed with and when she coughed she did not go into a coughing fit. She stared at me for an hour making cute little faces, and I'm pretty sure Maleka is her favorite nurse. The doctor called today and left me a message while I was sleeping, and said the occupational therapists gave her the first bottle feed. She did gulp as expected and they had to work on pacing her. We'll see where we go from here, but the residual effects of the pneumonia are abating.

Meanwhile Vivek decided to be a candy striper for the day and we visited my husband's cousin Preeti in the hospital. I had been to her baby shower the previous day, which had been moved to the Presbyterian Hospital of Plano cafeteria due to her medical issues in her pregnancy. Her baby is 3.4lbs and she is 32 weeks along, so I assured her she is in a great place and not to worry. I know how much it helps to see a baby that was as small or smaller than yours big and healthy, so glad I was able to do for her what my brother and sister-in-law did for me. Vivek showed off his 8lb frame and was a perfect angel as she held him. It lifted hers and her husband's spirits I'm sure as they wait the 1-4 weeks until their early delivery, and it was nice to donate most of his old preemie clothes to a good cause.

Day 39: 3 days and counting

Good day, though I was a little lazy and took a nap. Might as well sleep now right? The good news is that bottle feeding is getting easier, and Mom finally is able to consistently get down full bottles. I have also noticed Tara is definitely better at it, and I've also figured out her breathing pattern and how to watch it and ignore the monitors. I'm able to feed her now with no de-sats and no monitor watching, which was my goal to achieve before bringing her home.

I'm also proud of my developing Mommy skills. I had a suspicion today that Tara was still hungry after her bottle, and she typically has 3-5 mL left at the end of one. But today I saw cues that made me wonder after she polished off the entire thing. I mentioned it to Suvarna and she said she would put 35mL in each bottle instead of 30 from now on. Turns out next feed they took all 35 and when Mom and I fed them later it was 32 and 33. Score one for Mommy! I think I just may get the hang of this after all.

In other excellent news the Snuzas arrived today! They asked us to bring them in tomorrow to test them out for the day, so they are laid out and ready to go.

Vivek is back to his usual self and opening his eyes normally again. I have video proof.

He still cries, but the nurses tell me he has no qualms about crying when he is hungry so this is normal. Master Vivek will let you know if his royal highness is displeased, but Princess Tara will suffer in silence.


Tara says hats are overrated



Vivek after a crying fit of unknown origin



 

Day 34: Fit to be tied

 



















So as you can see, she has once again caught up and they are both 3lbs 11 oz. I'm betting by Friday they finally reach the 4 lb landmark, which will be about double Tara's size from when she was born!

News from the USA is that my husband is fine and will be discharged today around 10am. Thank goodness! He apparently felt well enough to post on my Facebook page that he is alright and appreciates everyone's concern. I miss him so much anyway, but now I'm missing him so much my heart's about to explode.

I solved a few problems to either buy time until Vinnie gets here or avoid him coming. The first is we made some corrections to the contract so that Vinnie will not need to come to Anand to re-sign it. The second is that Dr. Hitesh said it isn't essential that Vinnie come at all to the Delhi embassy from what he knows, but I'm waiting on an embassy email to confirm that. The last problem was getting more formula, because Vinnie was going to bring 6 extra cans of Similac Neosure. I asked if Hitesh's friend Uday still had the cans of formula my friend Michelle left, but he had already given them away to another family like mine. However I asked Dr. Kothiala and she said that by the time I'll be running out of preemie formula that they will need to switch to regular fomula anyway. She assured me the Indian fomula Farex is good, so for maybe two weeks we'll have to use it if Vinnie can't come, which is no big deal. If he does come I'll have him bring Earth's Best formula, which is my formula of choice anyway.

Mom and I met with Dr. Kothiala today and discussed discharge. She didn't want to say much until she saw the results of their blood test and saw how their hemoglobin levels were. I did not get to hear the results today, but will ask tomorrow. She did say the both of us have to be comfortable with bottle feeding, so while I am (with a monitor attached for right now), Mom still has a ways to go in getting confident and having Vivek finish a bottle. She suggested I feed Tara exclusively since she is more difficult. I've gotten pretty good so that is no problem. She assured us that in two weeks we will see a big difference in their sucking/swalllowing/breathing coordination...which was good to hear. She said 1-2 weeks until discharge, we'll have to wait and see. I'm having a harder time leaving them and missing them more. It seems like all I can think about is how much I want to bring them home as time goes on. She did not suggest traveling before 2 weeks.

I finally told Master Vik about the terrible news of his Daddy's hospitalization.

Vivek was initially distressed, but I patted his belly and calmed him down. He said he looks forward to meeting his Daddy and promises not to pee or urp on him for at least one day.

Day 26: Back in the saddle

I am twice as confident today bottle feeding as I was yesterday. Both Tara and Vivek desatted and bradied hard during bottle feeds today, but I handled it much better. I was decisive of when to give breaks and burps. I did learn a new trick...  Tara was sucking well and staying well oxygenated, which was odd because she isn't that good yet. It seemed like no milk was moving. Sure enough the tip was clogged. Now I know to watch for milk movement, bubbles coming up to show displacement, and milk eeking out the sides of the babies mouth to be sure it is flowing...otherwise you need to smoosh the tip between your fingers to clear it then tip it upside down to make sure droplets are coming out.

I have been captivated by the adorable crown my son has right at the front right of his forehead hairline. This will give him an adorable "Superman" curl for life and probably only give him one option for how he parts his hair.

I finally got to talk to my Mom tonight for two hours, right after I talked to my wonderful in-laws. I'm so excited about my mother-in-law coming I can hardly stand the wait! I enjoyed talking to both my Mom's tonight so much... I really needed it. I am very sad and disappointed though to learn that my mother cannot come to India anymore due to health concerns about how the trip could affect her by her doctor, as well as developments with my Stepdad's Alzheimer's. But she is going to help board our little dog Ralphie instead, make some of the finishing touches on getting my home ready, and arrange for the welcome wagon at the airport upon our return. I've been envisioning and planning for almost a year about what it would be like with my mother here, so trying to let go of that and re-envision how things will go is difficult. But I'm glad I had that to keep me going this whole time, because whether I show it or not it is really hard being here doing this by myself right now. With just my husband and my mother-in-law and myself it will be much more difficult to handle 2 babies on a 2 hr feeding schedule, so depending on how things go I may reconsider hiring a nanny for $10 a day.