Well, we have had Elisabeth in our family for a month now. What a joy she has been. It's crazy...in a way it seems like it's gone by so fast and I can't believe that she's already a month old, but on the other hand it seems like we have known her forever and soooo much has happened in just one month.
Elisabeth ended up staying in the NICU just one week. She amazed everyone with a quick recovery. They thought it might take her a while to learn to suck, but they only had to leave the feeding tubes in for a few days. She was born with rolls of chub and I don't think that she wanted to lose them...she loves to eat!
After a few days at home Elisabeth started spitting up - tons!!! It was to the point that we thought her entire bottle was coming up after every feeding. The worst part about it for her was that it came out her nose too!!! Ouch! It got so bad that she was getting cold like symptoms that actually ended up being caused from all the spit up. She is now on medication that helps some....but we still have a fair amount of spit up. She also came down with thrush.....which I think bothered me more than her. Unfortunately it meant the end of nursing for her....now she is an Enfamil kid. But she is on medication for the thrush as well and it seems to be clearing up.
Elisabeth is a good baby! She rarely cries. To express herself she likes to grunt and starts acting anxious. Alexandra and Lorelai sometimes ask why she fusses so much and I remind them that she doesn't cry nearly as much as they do....and they are 3 and 5! At night Elisabeth is waking up once to eat, usually sometime between 2 and 3 and then she is good till morning!
At 10 days old we took her back to her neurosurgeon to get the stitches out of her head. It all healed up very well and very quickly. We also saw the scans of her head and were shocked to see how much fluid really was in there when she was born. Dr. Gruber said there was about 10 times the normal amount. He has her shunt on a low setting right now and it is slowly draining the CSF. He plans to turn it to a higher setting when she is 3 months old. Luckily her shunt seems to be working well, but we are constantly on the lookout for signs of it malfunctioning...as it is very common during the first year.
Elisabeth has now outgrown all of her newborn size clothes and comfortably fits into her 0-3 months outfits! I have been photographing her in each outfit so that I can put together an album titled 'Elisabeth's First Year Fashions'. It will be fun to see all her clothes and to see her grow. Elisabeth is definately our most photographed girl. She has had her portrait taken professionally 4 times already and I have taken hundreds upon hundreds of digital pictures. I just sit and snap the camera at her all day long. I love digital cameras and rechargable batteries.....no waste...just keep taking pictures and save the best of the best.
It has been a joyous month. Looking back over the past 1/2 a year it's just amazing that she is here and that we (the whole family) made it through the roller coaster ride that the pregnancy was. Elisabeth has proven to be a miracle and has completed our family in a beautiful way!
Elisabeth ended up staying in the NICU just one week. She amazed everyone with a quick recovery. They thought it might take her a while to learn to suck, but they only had to leave the feeding tubes in for a few days. She was born with rolls of chub and I don't think that she wanted to lose them...she loves to eat!
After a few days at home Elisabeth started spitting up - tons!!! It was to the point that we thought her entire bottle was coming up after every feeding. The worst part about it for her was that it came out her nose too!!! Ouch! It got so bad that she was getting cold like symptoms that actually ended up being caused from all the spit up. She is now on medication that helps some....but we still have a fair amount of spit up. She also came down with thrush.....which I think bothered me more than her. Unfortunately it meant the end of nursing for her....now she is an Enfamil kid. But she is on medication for the thrush as well and it seems to be clearing up.
Elisabeth is a good baby! She rarely cries. To express herself she likes to grunt and starts acting anxious. Alexandra and Lorelai sometimes ask why she fusses so much and I remind them that she doesn't cry nearly as much as they do....and they are 3 and 5! At night Elisabeth is waking up once to eat, usually sometime between 2 and 3 and then she is good till morning!
At 10 days old we took her back to her neurosurgeon to get the stitches out of her head. It all healed up very well and very quickly. We also saw the scans of her head and were shocked to see how much fluid really was in there when she was born. Dr. Gruber said there was about 10 times the normal amount. He has her shunt on a low setting right now and it is slowly draining the CSF. He plans to turn it to a higher setting when she is 3 months old. Luckily her shunt seems to be working well, but we are constantly on the lookout for signs of it malfunctioning...as it is very common during the first year.
Elisabeth has now outgrown all of her newborn size clothes and comfortably fits into her 0-3 months outfits! I have been photographing her in each outfit so that I can put together an album titled 'Elisabeth's First Year Fashions'. It will be fun to see all her clothes and to see her grow. Elisabeth is definately our most photographed girl. She has had her portrait taken professionally 4 times already and I have taken hundreds upon hundreds of digital pictures. I just sit and snap the camera at her all day long. I love digital cameras and rechargable batteries.....no waste...just keep taking pictures and save the best of the best.
It has been a joyous month. Looking back over the past 1/2 a year it's just amazing that she is here and that we (the whole family) made it through the roller coaster ride that the pregnancy was. Elisabeth has proven to be a miracle and has completed our family in a beautiful way!
