Happy 6th Birthday!

Elizabeth is 6 years old today. She is no different than any other 6 year old child. It is amazing and she is miracle to think how far she has come!

Happy Birthday and many more!

This kid is TROUBLE

Paraphrasing "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"...

"From the day she was born, she was trouble..."

For some time now, Wee Liz has been crawling around, going like stink, and getting into everything. She regularly goes through the paper recycling bin and dumps it. She pulls books and movies off shelves and tosses them. She steals toys from her big brother and pulls her big sister's hair. (sometimes even when she hasn't been abused) She screams like a banshee.

And now This!

We are in trouble now. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

One thing that's interesting is that Liz has become bipedal almost exactly halfway between the other two. Big Sister started at one and Little Dude at two, and Trouble (aka Miss Grabby-Grabs) is just a few days from 18 months.

BTW, The "Miss Grabby-Grabs" nickname comes from her secret power. When you aren't looking, her arms can double in length. Things that you thought were safely away end up in her hands, or in her mouth, or in your lap. I ended up with a full pint of Waterloo Dark dumped into my crotch once. Neither of the other kids did that.

Trouble, I tell ya, Trouble.

One Year

Elizabeth Marie is one year old.

In one way, I hardly think it possible that a year has passed. But generally I think that it has been a long, long year.

Mum and I have been counting down to this day since December. December is when things started to go bad with the pregnancy. Mum was in and out of the hospital repeatedly, and on strict bedrest for quite a while. Considering how little I get done at the best of times, I don't know how I managed, but I did. Every day, every week that went by with Liz still in the womb allowed her to get bigger and stronger. We were hoping for 30 weeks; we would have settled for 28; but at 26 weeks our waiting was over. They told us that it was going to get worse, not better, and the wee girl (as she would turn out to be) would be better off outside than in. I was very hesitant, I really didn't want it to happen that soon. But, they were right, it got worse, and she was hauled into the world just before midnight.

Not the most dignified start, really. Notice her "light bulb" shaped head. There was almost no amniotic fluid in there, and her head was squeezed into this shape.



But here she is now. Things could have turned out worse than this:



Here's another video of her in her jolly jumper.



Happy birthday, Wee Liz.

First Christmas and into a New Year

Elizabeth was largely a spectator to Christmas this year. She took it all in with aplomb.



That cold she had on the last post turned into a big, noisy cough with a lot of rumbling in her lungs. It was an awfully big cough for such a little girl. It was keeping me up at night. I'd lie there listening to her breathing and occasionally gagging and/or throwing up in her bed. It seemed to help for her to sleep face down on my chest. (And that, I didn't mind a bit)

The first cold left, seemingly only to be replaced by another, and then another.

For a while there, the coughing was bad enough that she'd end up barfing up anything she'd eaten, so we took to feeding her half-bottles so they'd stay down. This kept her going, but it didn't give her a chance to gain any weight. Lately, when we feed her she'll sometimes eat well, but then cough up her meal with a load of accumulated phlegm. Then we just feed her again and it usually stays.

A little while back, Mum took Wee Liz in to CHEO for a chest x-ray. They were there for a long time before they X-ray tech came back and said they could leave. Apparently it's not easy to distinguish between a bad X-ray and a good X-ray of bad lungs. :-( (sigh) Very soon thereafter, her pediatrician put her on a 2nd puffer for the winter. It seems to be helping, and she he seems to be throwing off the cold again. Hopefully she'll get a break before the next one.

(This post created in January but not published until March!)

A second stay at CHEO

Well, that nasty cold that the wee girl had acquired didn't improve over the weekend. It seemed like her cough was getting worse instead of better, and she had started wheezing a bit, so Mum took her to the doctor on Monday for a check. The doctor suggested she go to CHEO.

The concern was her breathing. With BPD you see the diaghram involved more in breathing, and you could tell from the way her stomach muscles were moving that she was working hard at it. If things were to take a turn for the worse we wouldn't want it to be at home in the middle of the night.

Once at CHEO, she got hooked up to an SPO2 monitor for the first time since she left the NICU. (Dad wants one of these for home - he kinda misses the 24hr monitoring - it was very reassuring). They also gave her a couple of doses of Ventalin via a mask. This apparently acts as a stimulant - Mum says she was booting non-stop for a while after this.

Her sats were not bad, which is good, but she ended up being admitted for observation. Mum of course stayed with her for what ended up being two nights. It was kinda back to old times for Dad and the two older kids.

They also tested her for RSV. RSV is a perpetual worry for little kids, and particularly for preemies (strike one) or kids with lung disease. (strike two) Fortunately, the RSV test came back negative. Interestingly, we're told RSV "season" is normally the winter months, but this year, the "season" didn't end in the summer. This is probably not a good sign.

So she ended up being diagnosed with bronchiolitis. It's halfway between (literally) bronchitis and pneumonia. What does this mean? It's a viral thing, so we treat the symptoms and keep a very close eye on her. It also means we keep washing our hands and yelling at Big Sister when she forgets to do so. Little Dude still doesn't bother much with her, though he signs and says "baby" when he sees her.

All the doctors and nurses thought she was adorable (they're right) and Mum had no problem getting a volunteer to sit with her when she needed a break. We're very glad CHEO is there for us when we need it, but it's good to be home again.

First Halloween

It is Elizabeth's first Halloween. She didn't go out trick-or-treating but Mum dressed her up a little.

Big Sister has always had a tempermental attachment to Eeyore; Big Brother was always a Tigger kind of guy, so it seemed natural that this one should get assigned to Piglet.

Who you callin' a piglet?

On another note, she seems to have picked up the cold the rest of us have had. She's breathing okay, but her cough sounds pretty nasty. We'll be keeping a very close eye on this.

At her doctor's appointment this week, she weighted in at 5kg exactly (11lbs).

No news is good news

We haven't posted much lately, but it's because things have been going well for the wee girl.

She successfully had her half-birthday on September 13th. Lizzie May didn't celebrate the way her big brother did - he barfed in his big sister's mouth. (A fine commemoration) Liz had already woofed in her sister's mouth some time ago, so I guess she didn't want to repeat herself. Her half-birthday was uneventful, as we recall.

She had her CHEO followup clinic appointment last week and she is doing fine. Her corrected age right now is 4 months and they assessed her development at that age, so she's doing fine. (her real age is 7 months)

One thing they're still keeping an eye on is a trace of ROP. I don't know if we've discussed this before. It is abnormal blood vessel growth on the retina, and apparently it may be related to being on oxygen early in development. Anyway, Liz had some areas of concern, and it's been improving, but there's still one little spot of concern. If it doesn't clear itself, they may want to zap it with a laser to prevent any damage to the retina.

She now weighs about 10.5 lbs. Weight gain has been slow but overall she is healthy.

Networking advice from the little one

I was having a chat with Wee Liz today, and to my surprise, she started telling me about what kind of home networking equipment we should be looking at.

See, I need to upgrade one of the computers. Our cable modem is pretty fast, but it tops out around 5Mbps or so. Given that, I've been thinking that a Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) on the motherboard would be good enough.

But she thinks it should be faster. She looked at me today and said "GigE, GigE". (e.g. Gigabit Ethernet, or 1000Mbps) She must be planning on some serious data transfers.

At least she didn't ask for OC-192. (It could be worse; Katie once told me "Da Da Da die die die!")

Another milestone!

Today, Elizabeth's weight was measured at 8lb 9oz. (3886g)

Why is this a milestone? Well, that was the exact weight of her big sister on the day she was born. And it's only taken four and a half months to get there.

Now Wee Liz can start to catch up to Kate.

A new tactic

Wee Liz was taking a long time to eat. She'd eat for a while, nod off, then wake up after a little while and want another snack. To head off the snacking, we've been making sure she's good and hungry for her feeds.
It's been working. She's eating better and faster, and sleeping more soundly. Burping still has to be done carefully, but it's still faster overall. Her weight gain is better too. (up to 7lb 13oz)

Kim is trying to nurse her almost every feed, and she's getting better at that all the time. It'll be good to be able to dispense with most of the bottle feeds. Babies are much more transportable when they can drink from the tap.

I've never watched so much TV

Wee Liz is eating well, but if we don't burp her carefully and often, we get to feed her twice. Consequently, feeding can take a while.

I often find myself doing the feed/burp/spitup cycle at night, and so I end up watching more TV than I've watched in years. The home improvement shows almost make me want to do something about the 50 sheets of drywall I've got stacked in the basement. Almost.

Here's a picture of the we girl just hangin' out in the world smallest hot tub. This bowl had potato salad in it just minutes before. Which reminds me of a tradition I need to uphold. Hmmm...

Giving it up for Canada Day

So as it turns out, "Dominion Day" was illegally renamed to "Canada Day" way back when. Oh well.

We haven't had a blog update in a while, as there wasn't much to report. Lack of excitement is a good thing.

However, there was one thing...

Wee Liz had gone 12 days without a poop. This was a new one on us. We didn't worry about it too much as she was eating well and her belly didn't seem tender or distended, and she seemed to not be in any discomfort. After a week, we took her to the Doctor who told us that she would poop when she was ready. Apparently kids can go through phases where they absorb everything.

So, we loaded her up on prune juice, and we realized why she was saving it up, as she finally pinched off a loaf on Canada Day. Then she really cut loose the next day, and all has been fairly regular since.

Last day of school

Big Sister Katie is finished with school. She is still tickled pink with her wee little sister.


The little guy, not so much, but at least he only occasionally tries to kill her.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

Today was Elizabeth's due day. Happy supposed-to-be-Birthday!

All the breastfeeding and pumping has been great for baby, but it's been good for Mum too. It looks to me that all that milkfat has been coming straight off her ass. But, apparently, there's no good way to say that.

Three kids? Whose idea was this anyway?

Sorry for the lack of updates; it has been busy.

Apart from the first night, I haven't been as nervous as I thought I might be. I've gotten used to the idea that the wee girl will keep breathing on her own now. I figure she's probably good to go for 100 years now. (but I still check from time to time; she's so little)

We've been coping. The little girl is supposed to be feeding every four hours or so, and this can take two hours to do. I find we have to be very careful and thorough about burping her. If we don't get all the bubbles, we will see part of her meal again. The other two were like this as well. Fortunately, my patented Miller Baby Burping technique is working. The "Don't Shake A Baby" people might not like it very much, but it works for me. :-)

Elizabeth seems to have settled in to her new environment. We thought that it might be too dark and quiet at home here (it is never really dark in the NICU), but this hasn't been a problem. She might even be appreciating the moments of quiet too.

You could see it in her eyes the first few days; if Kate or Duncan started wailing nearby, she'd open her eyes as if to say "What the hell is THAT?" but, she seems to be getting used to the commotion. She's learning that she has to compete for attention too. If we're immersed in some other crisis, she gets louder and louder as she gets more and more hungry. I figure it's good practice for her lungs, and if I'm otherwise occupied (say, chasing Duncan down the hallway to wipe his butt before he sits on something) I'll sometimes let her practice a bit.

Oh yes, and this week was Kate's dance recital, so we've had her to rehearsals every night. As I said, it's been busy.