Adalines first week

1 Week

Sleeping during tummy time

So tiny!

Big Brother is SO proud

First bath

More tummy time naps

I have been working on the birth story to post, but it is taking a long time. I wanted to do a post about her first week, so I am taking a break from the birth story.
I cannot believe she has been with us for a week already.
I love being this girls mommy. It really does seem like this week flew by, but I guess you lose all concept of time when your life is planned around 3 hour intervals.
Adaline is doing SO well. We planned on spending weeks in the NICU after she was born even if she was on time, so the fact that she went home after 48 hours being one month pre-mature is SUCH a blessing. I am feeling great too. The most pain I have been in since we have been home has been from the whooping cough immunization they gave me in the hospital and I have enough energy to keep up with our breastfeed/ bottlefeed/pump schedule. This was not the case with my son (I don't remember much of his first month) and I am just so happy to be such a big part of this girls first few days.
When she is alert, she is very alert and looks around. She even likes to grab the pump tubes while I am trying to pump. However, when she asleep, she is asleep. This makes breastfeeding hard because if she is not awake, she will only take a bottle and even then it is hard to get down her sometimes. She is super stubborn, but I would expect nothing less from my children. We are trying to get her to do her 4 times a day of tummy time, but she will just sleep through most of it, but when you put her in her crib she will just lay there wide awake and looking around.
When you unswaddle her she makes the cutest little stretches and with it come squeeks and snorts. She and her daddy took a nap on the couch yesterday (while I supervised) and it was quite the choirs of snoring.
The last couple of days she has spent much more time awake and has even breastfed quite a bit, but since last night she has been pretty sleepy. Growth spurt?
We did have a bit of drama however. We somehow slipped through the cracks and did not have a carseat test like all babies under 5 pounds are supposed to have. On the way home she started to turn blue, so we pulled over, got her out of the seat, turned up the heat and waited for her color to get better. She was very alert and responsive the whole time, but it was scary for us. We put her back in her seat and did not tighten her down as much and then took the back roads the rest of the way home. The next day I called the pediatrician and told them I was concerned about getting her to her pediatrician appointment the following day and asked if there was an agency that does house calls. They said that they needed to see her and I should loosen the belt or go buy some aftermarket parts for the carseat to make her more comfortable (you will see in the birth story that we were very clearly instructed not to do this during the car seat class), so I pushed further and they gave me a phone number to call. I called the number and they gave me another number, then another number etc until I talked about 5 different people across the country. They said we could not loosen the belt (or use aftermarket parts). However there was a bed car seat for tiny babies that their hospital gives away and that ours might do the same or lend us one. So, I called our NICU to see if we could go pick this bed up. They said that they could not lend it without doing a test with her in it first. Then they said that if we brought her back in they would need to admit her and keep her for a week to evaluate her. I explained that she is doing great at any other time except when she was being choked by a car seat that didn't fit her. The lady on the phone basically said that we could not bring her in and not get the car seat or bring her in so they could keep her a week. I somewhat sarcastically asked her how the proposed I bring her in to be admitted and said she she would transfer me to the doctor. However, in addition to people skills, she is was also lacking in phone use skills because she disconnected me and I didn't bother to call her back. I did spend the rest of the day wondering if child protective services was going to come get her though. It just seems odd that I could choose between doing nothing and having her admitted for a week. I called the pediatrician office back to tell them what happened and they said that we needed to get her there......
So, we left an hour before our appointment for what should be 20 minute drive. I rode in the back with her and we did not tighten the belt enough to pass the pinch test. She did OK. I think she was getting herself worked up about being in the seat more than anything, so I just tried to talk to her and tell her she was OK. She got a good report from the pediatrician. She was back to her birth weight, however she had not pooped since we left the hospital, so I assume she was not quite back to her birth weight in reality. Her little belly was SO full that the doctor decided to do the Vaseline on a q-tip trick, it worked a little bit while we were there, but later that evening we had quite a show as we were changing her and every time I would turn around from throwing a wet wipe full of poop off of her changing table away, she would have another pile waiting. We did this about 5 times. Her cord also fell off while we were there. Our sons fell off quite quickly as well. The doctor also told us what we were expecting to hear in that she does indeed have downs syndrome. They are still waiting to see what type though.
Big brother is doing so much better adjusting than I thought he would. He keeps surprising me with the fact that he gets concepts I didn't think a 2.5 year old would understand and it makes me wonder if he is a lot smarter than I think he is, but just doesn't have the vocabulary to articulate it. To me, a big round belly turning into a baby seems like a hard concept to grasp, but he seems to understand completely. It came up to me the other day and said "Baby sister borned". He is such a good helper and will go get things for me that I need for the baby like burp clothes and such. The bad things he does are well intended, but he likes to climb on us while we are holding her and has come close to hitting or kicking her while doing so. He also tries to share his toys with her. He will put a metal truck right over her face and it makes me nervous that he will drop it on her. On Saturday he started having symptoms of a cold and it has been really hard to keep him out of her face and from coughing near her. Because of this and because I am trying to work with Adaline to get her do more breastfeeding and less bottle feeding, we sent Jamin to Grandmas for the next couple of days.
Early-On called today to schedule her evaluation. However, they don't do it until they are one month old for their adjusted age. Which means 2 months from now for her. Do any of you have any suggestions of things we can do with her at home before that? I would hate to lose 2 months of opportunity in getting her started.
Well, it is feeding time again, so I better wrap this up. This has been a fantastic week!