First hospitalization since NBICU

This winter has been rough .... Elsie has had cold after cold after cold. Luckily, she has never had anything worse than a cold/cough, but it's still not fun. Elsie hasn't gained much if any weight for a month or two, because each time she gets a cold, her vomiting increases from excess mucus and coughing too hard. We are hoping that once cold and flu season is over, she will be able to gain some much needed weight. RSV is currently "very high" in our area, and other respiratory viruses are "high", so it looks like we might be skipping nursery for a few weeks to keep Elsie healthy.

On the morning of Monday, February 9, Elsie coughed up some phlegm that was bloody. It wasn't  really bad, but I know that it's not normal, so I called and left a message at her pediatrician's office. When they returned my call, they said that yes, they'd like to see Elsie, but they didn't have any openings until 5pm. I almost didn't take her. She seemed to be doing fine, and there had been no more blood. But luckily, I took her in anyway.

When we got to the ped's office, they put a pulse ox monitor on her foot (which she hated, by the way, it must have reminded her of when she had them on her feet 24/7). Her oxygen saturation levels were only in the high 80s. Occasionally it went up to 90 or 91, but never higher. Ideally, normal oxygen levels range from 92-100% saturated. The higher the number, the more oxygen your lungs are receiving. They gave her an albuterol breathing treatment, and then put the pulse ox back on. No change. Still in the mid- to high-80s. Given Elsie's medical history of prematurity, intubation, steroid treatment, and Chronic Lung Disease, they immediately hooked her up to an oxygen tank and sent us on our merry way to Primary Children's Hospital. The thing is, before we went to the Dr's office, I had no idea that her oxygen was low! I'm so glad I took her in to get checked out.

The breathing treatment, aka elephant nose, at the ped's office

By the time we got to the ER at Primary's, it was about 9pm. There were TONS of people in the waiting room. We got taken back to an exam room relatively quickly, and they took a culture from her nose to be tested to see if she had anything that could be identified. She was hooked up to their oxygen and a pulse ox, which had a monitor just like the one Elsie used to have in the NBICU. Oh, those dinging alarms are sounds I will never forget. Anyway, they hooked her up, took the swab from her nose, and then we waited. And waited. And waited. Various people came in intermittently, but for the most part, we were alone and bored. Because Elsie was hooked up to the oxygen and pulse ox, she only had about a 3 foot radius of where she could go. Entertaining a 2 year old in a small exam room with very little to play with for more than three hours left us very bored. There came a time when Elsie discovered the box of kleenex, and tore out every single one of them, and I didn't even care. Not one bit!

In the ER exam room, right before the kleenex started flying around the room

Because Elsie was being really wiggly and not holding still, the pulse ox was having a hard time reading her, and the alarms kept going off that she was desatting. Not a single person came in to check on her when the alarms went off. Having had experience with the pulse ox monitors in the NBICU and at home, I knew she wasn't really desatting, but what if she had been?? None of the nurses checked on her to make sure she was ok. I was pretty annoyed, but I know they were really busy, so I tried to be understanding. But I was annoyed because I had no idea what was going on or why were waiting for so long. No one was telling me anything. And I really had to pee.

Right around 12:30 in the morning, a nurse from the third floor came down to get us, and we were getting admitted to the hospital for the night. Apparently the ER nurses/transport people were too busy to bring us up, so they had to come get us. Up we went to the third floor, Children's Medical Unit. They brought us into our room, and right away, I knew there was a problem. There was only a hospital bed! No crib! Ok, I know Elsie is two, and most two year olds are not sleeping at cribs anymore, but guess what, I don't care. Elsie still sleeps in a crib, and I have no desire at this point to move her to a toddler bed. She has never once tried to climb out, unlike her big sister, who was climbing out/falling out regularly since she was about 16 months old. Anyway, I told the nurse that there was no way Elsie was going to sleep in that giant hospital bed all by herself, and that we were going to need a crib. Luckily, a crib was available.

So then, we had to be examined by our new nurse, then a 1st year resident, and later still, a third year resident. I had to give a lengthy medical history to the third year, and she and the nurse were of course very impressed with Elsie and her amazingness. After all of the examinations, explaining things, and more waiting, they finally left us to go to sleep at 2am. Elsie was exhausted, I was exhausted. Luckily she quickly went to sleep. Unluckily, the nurse had to come in at 4am to check vitals, and that of course woke the both of us up. Elsie had a hard time going back to sleep after that, and I was having a hard time sleeping as well, The nurse came in again to do vitals at 8am, which woke Elsie up for the rest of the morning, and she was pretty grouchy. But the good news is that the tests from her nose culture were all negative, so it was likely just a bad cold that settled in her chest. No scary RSV or influenza or other nasty viruses. She was doing great with her sats, so they turned off her oxygen at that time, and left her on room air to see how she would do.

The rest of the day, we sat around and played in a two foot radius. Elsie kept getting tangled up in all of the cords, and the wires from the leads that the nurse placed on her chest kept getting caught on Elsie's gtube. It was frustrating. Luckily, we had an awesome visitor come and hang out with us, and she also brought me lunch. Thanks, Auntie Mona!

Ooh, that reminds me, I almost forgot to talk about the food! Ok, so the pediatrician sent us straight to the hospital. I wasn't able to grab any of Elsie's food from home to bring with us. I didn't know what Primary's policy was on Blended Diets, but I had previously heard mixed reports from various tubie families around the country; some hospitals are pro-BD, some are not. I had sort of resigned myself to the fact that we'd probably just have to feed Elsie formula for the day. Imagine my surprise when the dietitian brought me an entire menu of foods I could choose from for the kitchen to blend up for us! It was great, because that means that BD is becoming more of a normal thing. Nobody blinked an eye when I told them Elsie was fed BD. It was fantastic!

This is Elsie not wanting to take a nap in the crib.

Alright, so this blog post is getting just about as long and boring as was our hospital stay! Let's wrap things up. Elsie had been on room air (no supplemental oxygen) all day. The doctors wanted Elsie to take a nap so that they could observe if she could maintain her oxygen levels while she slept. Elsie, however, did not want to take a nap. We finally got her to lay down, and just when I thought she was asleep, her little head pops up, looking for me, and she starts crying. Repeat multiple times. After trying to get her to sleep for what seemed like an hour, I sat with her and rocked her in the rocking chair, and she finally fell asleep.

At this point, it was just me and Elsie. The battery on my tablet died and I couldn't reach the charger without disturbing Elsie. I didn't have anything else within reach to entertain myself. So I simply watched her sleep. I saw the sticky marks left on her face from the tape the ped used to tape the cannula to her face. I saw her beautiful eyelashes laying against her cheeks. I stroked the curls at the back of her head. I watched her breathe. And suddenly I was reminded of this moment:

 The very first time I held my little baby. 

She nestled up against my chest, light as a feather. And her mouth gaped open, like a little baby bird, and that was her nickname for a while. Baby Bird.

And here we were, again in the hospital, tangled up in cords and wires just like the first time I held her. Her mouth gaped open as she slept, and she was my little Baby Bird once more.

After a nice long nap with great oxygen sats, the nurse came in with our discharge papers, and we were free to leave. Hopefully we won't have to experience a hospital admission again any time soon. We finally arrived home, were greeted joyfully by Clayton and Evje and were sweetly reminded that there's really no place like home.

2 years old!

Holy moly, Elsie is two years old!

It's so crazy to think that two years have already gone by since little "Thumbelina" came into our lives.

A lot has happened since Elsie turned one. When she was 12 months old, she had just begun sitting up, was scooting around backward, and learned how to transition from laying down to sitting up, and from sitting up to scooting.

One year later, Elsie is walking, jumping, climbing on and off of furniture, throwing balls, coloring on paper (and walls!), and so much more.

Elsie's expressive language has really improved since our appointment at the Neonatal Follow-up Clinic in October, where the language pathologist said that she was mildly delayed. She went from saying just a few words and animal noises to really communicating. She says more and more words each day. You can't imagine the feeling I had the other day when she crawled into my lap and in a sing-songy voice, kept saying "I love you! I love you!" It was so tender!

Elsie's oral eating skills are still coming along slowly. Some days are better than others. Occasionally she'll taste AND swallow a few bites of something like yogurt or ice cream. She's definitely more interested in food, and enjoys tasting it, chewing on foods, and then spitting them out. She knows where the snacks are kept in our house, and will ask for them. So, even though progress is slow, it is still progress.

We had a fun family birthday party for Elsie this weekend. It was a "Frozen" themed lunch, complete with "Troll balls", "Frozen hearts," and "Olaf noses", to name a few (meatballs, white chocolate-covered strawberries, and carrot sticks with dip). The blue slush recipe I got from Pinterest was a definite "Pinterest Fail"; in case anyone was wondering, frozen blue jello does not make a normal-textured slush. Besides the blue jello slush failure, the party was lots of fun! We decorated snowflake cookies and made snowmen with marshmallows. We loved having our family over to help us celebrate!

Elsie's two year Well-Child Check went well; our pediatrician continues to be very pleased with her progress. She's still just a smidge away from being on the weight chart, but with as many colds and coughs that she has had so far this winter, we are basically maintaining her weight right now and not gaining a ton, because of all the mucus-induced vomit. So hopefully, once we get over cold season, things will start picking up in the weight department. Elsie is right between 20 and 21 pounds, and is about 32 inches tall. We also had a check-up with the opthamologist a few days ago. Elsie is still slightly near-sighted, but not enough to warrant getting glasses again at this time. She'll go back again for another check-up in a year. Hooray!

You know, there's rarely a day that goes by that I don't watch this child in wonder, just with amazement at the obstacles that she has overcome. Our lives could be so, so different. She is truly such a blessing in our lives, and a constant reminder of the power of the priesthood, of faith and hope, and of miracles. We love you, Elsie! Happy second birthday!

23 Months!

Here's what has been going on this last month:

Not a whole heck of a lot!

We celebrated Thanksgiving (twice) and had so very much to be thankful for this year. We brought our blender along with us, and Elsie got her very own Thanksgiving dinner consisting of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and green beans. At our second Thanksgiving dinner, Elsie's blend was turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, spinach salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, and grape juice. Even tubies can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner!

Clayton was out of town for work before Thanksgiving, so it was just me and the girls for ten days on our own. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (but I did miss him exceedingly and never ever want to be a single parent all the time). The girls were pretty well-behaved for the most part, and we spent some time with friends and family, so I wasn't terribly lonely. But it sure was nice to have him home. Since he has been back, Elsie has been quite the Daddy's girl; she runs to greet him when he comes from work, and prefers to be with him over me. We definitely all missed him while he was gone.

Alrighty. I think that's really about all that has been going on. I told ya, not very much.

And apparently I have taken zero pictures of my kids since Halloween, so I snapped a few quick ones before taking Evje to preschool this morning.

And that's all, folks! See ya next month.

22 Months!

I know, I'm overdue for Elsie's latest monthly update. Here you go!

We've had a busy month! It started out with a modified barium swallow study.

This was done to make sure that Elsie doesn't have any anatomical abnormalities with her swallow, and to make sure that she doesn't aspirate (which is when food goes into your lungs instead of down to your stomach). She had a swallow study done while she was still in the NICU, but our feeding therapist wanted to have a more recent one to look at. So we did. Same procedure as the first one: Elsie swallowed liquid barium while being x-rayed, and the radiologist and our SLP watched the x-rays to make sure everything was good. And it was good. Mostly. Ok, well, they had me giving her the barium in a cup so that they could watch the x-ray. I got a little nervous, because as you know, Elsie doesn't exactly love swallowing stuff, especially unfamiliar liquids or really anything besides water. So they told me to pour some of the barium into her mouth, I was kinda nervous, and dumped like half the cup in her mouth. Which, understandably surprised poor unsuspecting Elsie, who choked on the sudden influx of unexpected liquid in her mouth, and she aspirated. Oops. BUT she immediately coughed, cleared her airway, and the radiologist could see that it was kind of an accidental choking. Ahh, I'm such a good mom. So while she did technically aspirate, they didn't count that as an aspiration, but saw it as more of how she protected her airway and was able to immediately clear the liquid. And after that, Elsie was understandably angry, didn't want us to give her any more barium, and threw up the little bit that we did get in her stomach. So we watched on the x-ray as she threw up, then swallowed it back down. Then threw it up, and swallowed it back down. Repeat several times. And the conclusion was, Elsie's swallow is normal and she does not aspirate.

The next day, we had an appointment at the Neonatal Follow-Up Clinic. Elsie was tested for cognition, had her hearing and speech evaluated, talked with the nutritionist, and chatted with the Developmental Pediatrician. Long story short: Elsie is doing great. Her cognition is right where it should be for her age. Passed the hearing tests. Her expressive language (speaking) is mildly delayed. The nutritionist was pleased with the blended diet recipes that I brought in, and is going to do an in depth analysis to make sure that Elsie is getting all of the nutrients that she needs, or if there is anything we need to improve or change in her diet. The Developmental Ped was very happy with Elsie's progress in her motor skills. When we were first seen at the NFC one year ago, Elsie couldn't sit up, roll over, crawl, anything. She had mildly low muscle tone.  Now she is walking, learning to talk, gesturing, climbing, going up and down stairs, etc. She's made huge progress in her motor skills. It's nice to have this resource available to us to make sure that Elsie is progressing as she should.

In other unrelated news, it seems that Elsie has a sensitivity to dairy, specifically, to the milk protein casein. When we first started the blended diet back in February/March, we tried whole cow milk and Elsie got really constipated, and the eczema on her arms and legs got worse. So we switched to goat milk, which has been great, it's very easily digested and Elsie had no more problems with constipation or eczema. The only downside to the goat milk is that it's quite expensive. Well, about a month ago, I started adding cow milk to her blends again, to see if she had outgrown her previous sensitivity. Consequently, for the last few weeks, Elsie has had runny stools, more unexplained vomiting than normal, increased irritability, and increased nasal mucous in the mornings with no sign of an illness or teething. So we took out the cow milk and the goat milk, and switched to coconut milk and almond milk. She has been on the dairy-free blends for three days now and already her poop has solidified, and has only thrown up once, when she choked on a frito. This is a pretty definite indication that she was having problems with the dairy. Now we know, and we can easily adjust her food to be dairy-free. I did, however, have to dump out a whole week's worth of Elsie's food that was in our freezer that contained dairy, and that was pretty heartbreaking. But hopefully, now that we have fixed the dairy problem, Elsie can continue to gain weight with less digestive problems.

PS, sorry if you are disturbed by the multiple mentions on this post about poop. Obviously, if you have issues with poop and vomit, this probably isn't the right blog for you to be reading :) Because I talk about it all the time!

In more unrelated news, we had an awesome feeding therapy session this month wherein Elsie fed herself some chocolate pudding!! Here's what happened: So we've been working with Elsie on trying different liquids other than water. She enjoys drinking water. Not so much any other kind of liquid. Water is great, but it doesn't have any calories. On this particular day, we were trying to get Elsie to drink chocolate milk (of course now she'll have to switch to chocolate almond milk, ha ha), and she was doing fairly well. She was playing with a straw, and dipped the straw into the milk, and then we showed her to dip the milky straw into her mouth. We did that a few times, and then Helene grabbed a spoon and did the same thing; dipped the spoon into the chocolate milk and then into Elsie's mouth. For whatever reason, Elsie was surprisingly accepting of this milky spoon going into her mouth, which is something that she usually NEVER allows. She did this a few times. I couldn't believe my eyes. So while we were on a roll, Helene grabbed a chocolate pudding and snuck the spoon into the pudding and then into Elsie's mouth, and Elsie let her put it in!! Honestly, I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but for Elsie, it was HUGE. We did that a few times and then Helene gave Elsie the spoon. There was much flinging of chocolate pudding all around the room, but there were multiple times where Elsie, completely on her own, dipped the spoon into the pudding and then brought it to her mouth. She only gagged once or twice, and no puking. Of course, the majority of the pudding was spit out after it entered her mouth, but she had to have swallowed some of it. Helene and I were both crying!! I never thought the day would come where Elsie would willingly feed herself, and especially with no throwing up. It.Was.Awesome.

So then of course I post all of Elsie's chocolatey-pudding-covered pictures on Facebook, and now everyone assumes that Elsie is completely eating on her own. Ohhh, how I wish that were the case :) Unfortunately, the chocolate pudding miracle has not been repeated. I don't know why. I don't know what magic it was that helped her to feel confident enough to do it at feeding therapy. We've tried to recreate the situation, but chocolate pudding is back to being the enemy. It's extremely frustrating. We are constantly taking one step forward, and three steps backwards. But I have faith that one day we will be taking giant leaps forward, and only baby steps backwards, and we won't even remember the days when we were struggling so hard.

Despite that lack of chocolate pudding eating, Elsie has made improvements with other foods. She often asks for tastes of foods that the rest of the family is eating, and will take tiny bites and then spit the food out. One time I was eating a granola bar with some peanut butter slathered on top, and Elsie asked for a taste. I offered it to her and she sucked off some peanut butter, and then one taste turned into several tastes! Again, she spit most of it out, but you know how peanut butter is so thick, she had to have processed quite a bit of it in her mouth and swallowed some of it down. I was so excited. She did the same thing a few days later with a piece of pizza; she would suck the sauce off my slice multiple times and actually spit out very little of it.This is huge progress! If only she were more consistent with her progress, then I'd be over the moon! But progress is progress, and I'll take it in any way.

Here's some pictures of the last month:

Tasting some KFC and loving it!

Mommy's chicken picatta with pasta is yummy!

Wonder Woman Elsie and Strawberry Shortcake Evje for Halloween

Trick or treating is hard work!

The amazing chocolate pudding moment.

Making a mess and eating some, too!

21 months!

Wow! The days are flying by. Little Miss Elsie is 21 months old!

Let's see, what has been happening lately?

Elsie went to nursery for the first time! I have been somewhat apprehensive about leaving her in nursery. It wasn't so much that I was worried about how she would do there; it was more of I was worried that she would choke on something and puke all over all the kids & toys and they would ask us not to come back. I also have some concerns about all of the germy kids during winter, but I'll deal with that later. But anyway, she did great! No crying, no puking, I kinda wish we would have taken her there sooner. So there you go, Elsie's in nursery.

Our three months of "physical therapy" at Baby Gym ended a few weeks ago, and then we had our one-year evaluation with DDI (Early Intervention) who we get our physical therapy services through. We did some tests and evaluations, and it turns out, Elsie no longer needs any DDI services! She probably hasn't for a while, but they only do evaluations every six months, and besides, going to Baby Gym was pretty fun. She is testing at 21 months or higher for all of the sections of the test (Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Receptive Language, Expressed Language, Cognition) except for Self-Help, which most of the questions for that section deal with self-feeding, so yeah, that one was only at 18 months. But that's still no big deal. No more physical therapy! Elsie is caught up to where she should be. Who would have ever imagined that we would get to this point?

This week is a busy week for Elsie; she has a swallow study on Wednesday and an appointment with the Neonatal Follow-up Clinic on Thursday. The swallow study is just to make sure that Elsie doesn't have any mechanical or anatomical problems with her swallow, since she hasn't had a swallow study since she was in the NICU. And as always, I'm excited to go to the Neonatal Follow-up Clinic, I love seeing how she is doing in so many areas at one time. And I'm particularly excited this time to talk to the dietician some more about Blended Diet.

Elsie is getting more and more independent, enjoys playing outside and having books read to her, loves horses and dogs, and is good at torturing her older sister. Sometimes they get along well and it's really cute, and then there's the other times when they fight like cats and dogs.

We went back to the NBICU at the University of Utah and got to visit with a few of Elsie's nurses! It was really weird to be there. So many memories, so much time that we spent there. It's sort of surreal that Elsie has been home from the hospital for well over a year. She is doing so well now, and we are ever thankful to have this special child in our family. She has been a blessing in so many ways, despite the challenges with eating. I don't know if it's possible to communicate to the many nurses, neonatologists, nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, and so many more who helped Elsie when she was a tiny baby, just how grateful we are.

Anyway, I shouldn't write these blog posts while simultaneously watching silly shows on Netflix. It ruins my concentration. Happy 21 months, Elsie!

Evje's birth story

I have never written down Evje's birth story. I probably should before I forget. Here's what happened. (warning, warning, this is going to be quite long!)

My pregnancy with Evje was uneventful and really one of the best times of my life. Honestly, I loved being pregnant. It took us 3 years to conceive Evje, so when I finally got pregnant, I was thrilled to the core. My main pregnancy symptom was being incredibly hungry at all times. I could eat a full meal and then be starving again in an hour. If I didn't eat, it made me feel sick, and then nothing looked good to eat because I felt sick, but I was so hungry that I absolutely had to eat. If you know me well, you know that even when I'm not pregnant, I get a little "testy" when I'm really hungry. When I'm pregnant and hungry, better watch out. I didn't really have any cravings, but when I was super hungry, a nice milkshake usually hit the spot. Other than my extreme hunger, I didn't have any other pregnancy symptoms; very little nausea, only threw up twice. Pregnancy was fun.

Evje's due date was May 4. On the morning of Saturday, April 30, I started having painless contractions. They didn't hurt at all, but I could feel my uterus contracting. It was pretty exciting, knowing that our long-awaited baby was finally on her way. We went about our day; among other things, we drove out to Rush Valley to check on the cows. I remember walking through the field, my imagination going a little crazy as I thought about what would happen if I had to deliver my baby in the cow field. Would the paramedics get there in time, or would Clayton have to deliver her, with our dogs watching? I know he's delivered plenty of calves, and Joel and Clayton teased me throughout calving season that they would pull out the calving chains and calf puller when I went into labor...hilarious, I know...but delivering a human baby is slightly different than delivering a calf. I figured that he and I together could probably get the job done.

We realized that the baby would probably be coming within the next day or two, but it was our first baby and we weren't entirely sure what to expect, and first babies typically take a long time to arrive. My contractions were still quite painless as the day went on, but I could definitely feel them. We watched a movie together that night, our last night as a two-member family. When we went to bed around 11:30pm, things were finally starting to get a bit painful. I tried to sleep, but was much too excited, and spent the next few hours timing contractions. Around 2:30am, painful contractions were coming every 3-4 minutes, so I woke up Clayton and told him that it was time to go! Before we left, I asked Clayton to give me a priesthood blessing, that I might have some comfort and reassurance during this nerve-wracking time.

We got checked into the Women's Center of the hospital, and got all hooked up to the monitors. I was dilated to 4cm and was having painful contractions every few minutes. My water still hadn't broken, so the nurses advised us to try to get some rest while my labor progressed. Easier said than done, but we tried to rest.

Having never had a baby before, I didn't know what labor would feel like, or what levels of pain I would be able to tolerate. I told the nurse that I wanted to labor on my own as long as I could before considering an epidural. I know that every woman experiences different things during labor, and some can handle pain better than others. For me, as the night went on, contractions got more and more painful, and I decided to stop being so silly and just get the dang epidural.

I think the anesthesiologist came in around 6am. I got the epidural, but told the anesthesiologist that I still wanted to be able to feel enough to push, so I asked for only a small dose of pain medication. An hour or two went by, and contractions were still quite painful. Having never had an epidural before, I didn't know what it was supposed to feel like, even with just a small dose of medication. When the doctor came in to break my water and realized that I could still feel what she was doing (ouch), she called the anesthesiologist back to our room. When he arrived, it was determined that only the right half of my body was numb. The left half was still painfully feeling everything. So, lucky me, I got to have a second epidural administered. Torture, let me tell you.

When the doctor broke my water, it was determined that there was meconium (fetus poop) in the fluids, and there was some worries that the baby would inhale some of the meconium and get an infection.

Still progressing through labor. It was pain-free for about an hour or two, but right before I started to push, the medication was beginning to wear off on my left side again. Good times. So I got to push being only halfway numb. It hurt. I pushed for an hour and a half with very little progress. I was exhausted. Pushing out a baby is hard work! Our doctor came in to evaluate my progress, which was not much, and determined that, with the risk of the baby having swallowed some of the meconium, things were taking too long and she would like to do a c-section to get baby out sooner. She told me that it was possible that my pelvic bones were too narrow to allow the baby through. I was crushed, and very scared to have surgery, but having been in labor already for 12 hours and pushing for an hour and half, I just wanted to get to get the baby out. We agreed to the c-section.

When we got to the operating room, the anesthesiologist gave me enough medication to knock out a horse. He wanted to be sure that I wouldn't feel any of the surgery, especially since we had trouble with the epidural before. Well, I guess the third time's the charm, because I was completely numb from the neck down. It was a really really weird feeling. When they lifted me onto the operating table, it seriously felt so strange, almost like I was falling. Anyway, the doctors did their thing, cut me open, and took the baby out. They held her up long enough for me to see her, and then the nurses took her to be cleaned, and to check her breathing. Fortunately, our sweet baby was fine. The nurses all commented on how strong she was, how lovely, and how loud her cry was. It was heaven to hear my baby cry for the first time. Evje Robin Sagers was born at 2:30pm on Sunday, May 1. She weighed 7lbs 6oz, and was 21 inches long. She was beautiful.

Most birth stories end after the baby is born, but mine keeps going! Ha ha. Later that evening, we're back in our recovery room, snuggling with baby and visiting with Clayton's parents. Suddenly, I don't feel very good and vomit into the garbage can. My head hurts pretty bad, and now my stitches hurt from the force of throwing up. It's not fun. Whenever I sit up, the pain in my head intensifies, but the pain diminishes when I lay down. I know that sounds really lame, "Oh I had such a painful headache, blah blah blah." But seriously, it was more painful than going through labor. Luckily, I had a good nurse who recognized the signs of what's called a spinal headache. Basically, sometime during one of my two epidurals that day, the epidural needle punctured a hole in the membrane that surrounds the spinal cord. Spinal fluid was now leaking out of my spinal cord, and the decrease in pressure was causing the immense headache. The nurse started an IV with caffeine, which can sometimes alleviate the headache, and called the anesthesiologist again.

The caffeine didn't help, so when the anesthesiologist came back, he administered what's called a blood patch. That's a super fun procedure where a small amount of blood is injected into the space over the puncture hole, in the hopes that a clot will form and seal the hole. So, yep, I get a third needle injected into my spine in less than 14 hours. It was awesome. I am then given very strict instructions to lay flat on my back for the rest of the night, in order to let the blood patch work. I am given lots and lots of pain medications, and besides the brief moment that the night nurse comes in to check  my vitals, it is the best night's sleep that I've had in a long, long time.

The next day, I feel so much better! I have lots of visitors, practice breastfeeding, and spend lots of time snuggling with my beautiful baby girl. The nurses are all so sweet and attentive, and it's just lovely having everything and anything brought to me with the push of a button.

Sometime either Monday night or Tuesday morning, I don't remember exactly when, my head started hurting again. It was deja-vu. This time, I knew what was happening, and we got that dang anesthesiologist back in to give me a second blood patch. That's the fourth needle that was injected into my spine. I spend most of the day Tuesday laying down, resting, and praying that the blood patch will work this time.

Wednesday morning, I felt great again! Today was our check-out day, and I prepared to take my baby girl home. I changed her clothes into our going home outfit (green and yellow, because I was a tiny bit paranoid when I packed that maybe the ultrasound tech had been wrong about the baby being a girl, and it would be sad if our baby boy had to go home in pink clothes), and then I glared at a technician who said what a cute little boy I had. Clayton had recently started a new job, and couldn't get work off to take us home, so his father came to the hospital that afternoon to pick us up.

We got home, it was great, we had a few visitors and some friends came who brought us dinner. My sister-in-law Sarah volunteered to come stay with us for a few days to help out. Well, I woke up Thursday morning after a restless night of getting up at every little whimper and squeak that Evje made, and the dreaded spinal headache was back. Nooooo! I spent all day Thursday in bed, determined that if I held still long enough, then the headache would go away. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that, and I still had the headache on Friday morning when I woke up, Unable to handle the pain any more, I had Sarah take me to the emergency room. I had to recline the car chair back as far as it would go during the drive, as I physically could not handle to pain of being upright. I hobbled into the ER, told them I had a spinal headache, and demanded a bed to lie down. Lucky for me, the ER was not very busy at this time, and there was a bed immediately available for me, which is good because if not, I would have just laid down on the floor. We waited around for a while for a doctor, Sarah changed Evje's diaper on a bed in the next room and Evje peed all over the bed, and I got a third blood patch. That's the fifth needle in my spine. Again, I was given very strict instructions to lay flat for the rest of the day and night.

Fortunately, luckily, thank heavens, the third blood patch worked and fixed the hole, stopping the leak of spinal fluid. It was the most miserable and painful five days of my life, and I hope to never have to go through a spinal headache again! Besides the misery of the headaches and five needles in my spine, we were blessed with a beautiful baby and our lives were forever changed. We were so grateful to finally have a child of our own.

Tubie love

The other day, I found myself at Target with a shirtless Elsie, looking for a new shirt for her to wear for the remainder of the day. We were in Salt Lake City for feeding therapy and visiting with family, so I couldn't run home and get a clean shirt. Elsie had thrown up on our way to feeding therapy, because she was angry and crying that her big sister wasn't sharing her toys with Elsie. Then at feeding therapy, while wearing the back-up clean clothes that I brought in the diaper bag, she spit out nearly all of the chocolate milk that we gave her and soaked her clean shirt. Lesson learned: carry more than one back-up outfit in the diaper bag at all times, and bring a bib for feeding therapy.

Anyway, I was at Target with my shirtless child, and I found myself holding her in a way that kept her feeding tube (button) hidden from view. I didn't want anyone to stare at her. Suddenly I thought to myself, "Why am I hiding her button? It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's nothing embarrassing. It's how she eats." So I set my shirtless child on the floor and let her walk around, button uncovered and exposed to whoever may see her. Sure, some people did a double take. I'm sure there was more than one person who wondered what her button was. But no one pointed at her, no one stared cruelly or laughed or drew any attention to it in any way. 

It made me realize that I've never posted a picture of Elsie with her button uncovered. We generally try to keep a shirt on her just so that the button doesn't get snagged on something and get pulled out, and so have taken very few pictures of her with her button showing. If anyone ever asks about it, I'm happy to explain what her button is and why she has it, but I've been somewhat hesitant to post pictures. Why? I'm not sure. Like I said, it's nothing to be ashamed of. It is simply how she eats. So I've decided that I myself need to not be embarrassed or ashamed of it, and am going to proudly post pictures of my little tubie with her button. It's (literally) a part of her. Someday, there will come a day when we look back at this time, and remember when Elsie had a feeding tube, and will need pictures to document what it was like. Because she won't always have it. She will overcome her oral aversion. 

This is my sweet tubie, proudly showing off her button. It's a part of who she is.