micropreemie mommy

hi everyone!

for those just clicking over to this site, i thank you for taking a look… i started this blog to keep my friends and family informed throughout a lot of the process (although we did use a carepages at the very beginning)

if we can help one other family out there going through even a little bit of what we’ve gone through and provide them with some hope that others have gone through it and they can do it too, then i’m serving my purpose.  we had no idea how strong we could be.  feel free to reach out to me at any time!

here’s the article!

we are home and ms. molly is doing great.  she kind of looked around once we got into the house and looked at me and then gave me this big smile.  it made me happy but also sort of broke my heart.  i certainly hope we stay out of the hospital for a long time now… her heart catheterization went as well as it could… after the procedure, you would have had *no* idea that she had just been sedated and intubated.  when we went into the recovery room, there she was peering through the bars of the crib, munching on her cannula.  hello?  what are you doing?  then they told us she needed to lie “still and flat” (neither words are in her vocabulary) for a couple of hours… well *that* didn’t work.  pete climbed into the crib with her to try to get her to chill out, but then she took to trying to munch on his fleece snaps and zipper.  can you tell the girl is teething?  she now has just about three teeth on the bottom and almost four on top!  her and madeline are starting to look even more like each other.  i love it!

so, it looks like molly is going to be on oxygen long-term.  no big deal, we say.  that’s something *we* can handle.  we’re used to it (i mean, the big rocket launcher-looking tanks and twisting tubes and having to pick up two other bags (one backpack for the feeding pump and the o2 tank) when we pick her up is just sort of the way it is).  when i pick up my nephew and he’s sort of just free from all wires and tubes it’s kind of weird.  i know… but i have to say… i had better not hear anyone complain to me about their full-term baby (or babies for that matter)… you have no idea who you’re dealing with

growth and oxygen are molly’s friend as well as a course of sildenafil.  we started it last night and while we don’t see an immediate effect, we’re hopeful it will be helpful long-term.  that’s given three times a day, so between that and her medications given twice a day, and then one given four times a day and one given every other day… well, i’m organized, but it’s enough to drive someone batty!  i need to sit down and just make a schedule, but i didn’t get around to it today.  (and friends, you know me… i want to make it all pretty and creative-like with my 400 colors of sharpies so i need a day or two to get my act together…)

madeline is superwoman.  the girl has been off the vent since sunday (i still can’t believe it) and all of her tests are coming back awesome (meaning her blood gases, etc.)  we couldn’t be more excited and i cannot wait to have her home.

we got approved for some nursing hours for molly for the next couple of months, but the place is having a hard time filling the weekends… if any of you favorite former nicu people are reading this, please pass the word along (or get in touch if your interested).  i am so thankful we’ve been given this opportunity to get the house in army-tight medical fashion before madeline comes home and to help with everything molly has going on. 

i may be strong, but even strong people need a break.

people keep telling me how hard we’ve got it here over at the farrell four lately.  we must be spent, we must be exhausted…

sometimes i start to think i’m believing them…

and then i found this…

i was poking from blog to blog last night after a hard day and started reading a post or two.  an hour later i found myself sitting and sobbing… sweet jane’s story could have been my baby madeline’s… it was all so familiar, down to dr. boston (a double woot woot for that amazing guy)

and so i rocked my sweet madeline to sleep this evening for three hours… i can’t imagine a better way to spend a friday night (well, perhaps when we’re all home)

it could have been us… my blessings are becoming a bit frayed around the edges, but i continue to count and re-count…

i don’t know when it happened… when did i get so old and fall out of touch with all of this new darn-fangled technology!  i have spent a good part of my free time (so, at least 15 minutes) trying to figure out how to get from wp.com to wp.org.  i suppose if i had a single clue what the silly instructional manual was talking about, i’d be in much better shape… i am equally acronym(ly) challenged and it’s just like trying to navigate your way through a foreign country without a translator.

the good news… my blog is so pretty!  the bad news… my blogroll took to the hills and i somehow managed to blow out *all* of my previous posts with video… awesome.  *so,* look for this week to be rife with “this page under construction” images and cursing emanating from my little shore town.

we, as a family, had a great weekend.  it was quiet and slow, with a great many hours spent in pajamas (don’t you just love that?)  both girls have decided (within hours of each other) to start wreaking havoc of the physical kind.  i have found molly munching on madeline’s trach tubes, with madeline drinking molly’s bottle (ps… the girl doesn’t eat by mouth… it was a huge surprise!)… i have found madeline with her alarms ringing from the monitors to find her having pulled off her vent tubing and “blow drying” her amazingly wavy hair with a big smile on her face.  i have found molly with her little teeny bum stuck under the coffee table (i have no idea how she got there… did i fall asleep?  bad, bad mommy)

molly had a big, big doctor’s appointment at the end of last week and we’re about to embark on a little bit of a journey to get her all better and growing strong.  i’m too tired to write about it now and will update tomorrow.  everything will be fine, but i’m still weary of this nicu walk (over 425 days later!) with its’ two steps forward and one step back.  it’s really, really getting on my nerves, even if it is making me stronger. 

alrighty, i must will myself to bed before i get sucked into some late night sunday nothingness…