Saturday, December 03, 2005

Ramblings of the baby-crazed

SP has given me a break from the hospital by going in to be with J for a couple days while I stay home to bond with M and get organized. Another reason that it worked out this way is that J can't seem to get rid of high bilirubin levels in his blood (the thing that causes jaundice), so they're putting him on formula for 48 hours to test whether breastmilk is the culprit or whether it's something more serious. So SP can give him bottles and bond with him since J can't breastfeed right now anyway. It's not that the doctors think breastfeeding is bad; it's just that it can exacerbate this bilirubin problem because of some enzyme in breastmilk that the liver has to process (I think). If his bilirubin levels do not go down with formula, we would have to look into seeing whether his liver is working as it should. An endocrinologist has already looked at him and said he seems okay, but we have to make sure. This problem has gone on for a long time now.

Anyway, I'm really glad to have a break from the hospital even though I miss J a lot. I couldn't stop crying on late Thursday night and felt like I was losing my mind. I've been stretching myself so thin lately but not knowing how not to. I've felt like I can't be there for J in the hospital enough, and at the same time like I'm not bonding with M at home the way I'd like to. I even felt guilty because I felt I was preferring J over M, because J is not completely healthy yet and therefore is in more need of my attention right now. Having time to spend with M has been good because I can appreciate him and love him without being too rushed or sleepy.

M had his first doctor appointment yesterday and is doing well. He and his brother will have to go for hip sonograms, though, because they were cramped inside of me and it led to a little concern about their hip placement. It doesn't look like there's any severe misalignment, but there is a little bit of a click. So I guess if there was a problem they'd have to wear devices to help correct the hip placement for a while. I just can't worry about that right now, though. I have enough other things to worry about. If anything, it makes me feel less guilty that I couldn't keep them inside longer, since apparently they were already cramped at 34 weeks, poor things. I guess everything happens for a reason. I guess they knew what they were doing in trying to get out early.

Well, M is waking up, and it's time for another feed. I've been so exhausted that I've apparently been sleeping through my clock's alarm in the middle of the night, a true first for me. We're supposed to wake him up every 3 hours if he doesn't wake himself up to feed. This is because he is a low weight for his age due to him being a premie and needs more nourishment than the average baby right now. Generally he wakes up on his own. If he doesn't wake up, SP gets him and changes him, and then he's alert and ready to eat. But I just can't believe I'm sleeping through my alarm. SP has always been the deep sleeper, and I've always been the one to wake up at the drop of a pin. Now I only wake up if M cries, not for anything else. And the worst of it is, SP and I were so tired that we apparently both slept through the 5AM alarm this morning, as did M. He woke up screaming at 7:30AM, not having eaten for 5 hours. Oops. I truly think we need an industrial-strength alarm. Any suggestions?



1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I used to have a truly obnoxious one that talked and had multiple alarms so I could set them 15 or 20 minutes apart in case I slept through one. In my opinion, only clocks that plug in have truly strong enough alarms, but Wes thinks clocks that plug in give you brain cancer. We solve all of this by having separate clocks. Mine has to live in the closet, positioned roughly near our feet. We may get foot cancer, but thank heavens Wessie is watching out for my skull. Pfft.

2:23 PM  

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