The mind of a two-year-old, part II

I left Kezie at the table with a cup of applesauce the other day while I took Ivy into the other room for a diaper change. We came back out into the hallway, and found Kezie standing over Ivy's bathtub. She was dropping applesauce into it, one spoonful at a time. I have no idea what made her decide to do that, and when I asked her, she said "I drop it!" like she was proud.

Kezie seems to have decided that she mostly likes her baby sister. The other day she offered me a trade; her doll for the real baby. She told me it was "for you!" and then tried to grab Ivy out of my arms. It's funny that she wants to hold Ivy, because it usually lasts about two seconds. Kezie then announces, "she's poopy!" whether she is or not, and pulls her hands away.

So little

I stuck my baby in a cooler and took pictures of her. It's all I could think of to illustrate how small she is. The pediatrician suggested putting her in a shoe box, but I couldn't find one that wasn't falling apart and didn't smell like shoes. Any suggestions?

We had a little stuffed unicorn that Kezie picked out for Ivy to pose her with to illustrate her growth, but A NICU NURSE LOST IT! She sent Ivy's bedding with the laundry, and the unicorn went with it, never to be seen again. The hospital sends the laundry out, so there was no going to the laundry room and asking about it. Shawn tried to find another one, but they were sold out. It just makes me sick; that unicorn was Ivy's little buddy for five weeks. It was the one personal thing she had in the NICU, and it made me feel better that there was something from us with her all the time. We want to find a new one, but it really won't be the same.

Ivy pics

Welcome home Ivy

Ivy's home in the NICU

Ivy's last day in the NICU. They had removed the oxygen, but not the sticky things that attched it to her head.

Ready to go home!

Home and sleepy

Ivy is home, and we are all so glad, even Kezie. She hasn't yet shown any jealousy, and she really likes to hold the baby. I wanted to post some pictures of her homecoming, and a few of her last couple of days in the NICU.

The mind of a two-year old

I'm stumped. Sometimes I can come up with an explanation for what Kezie does. I can think of reasons for her fascination for putting foreign objects in the VCR, or why I find raw potatoes in my shoes, or why she has been walking around all day pretending to sneeze. This one has me baffled.

This is Kezie, asleep on the floor, with her feet in her dad's motorcycle helmet, and a piece of Thomas the Tank engine train track on her chest. I walked in the living room and found her this way. No idea.

Home!

Ivy is home! She came home last night at exactly four pounds. She has no monitors, no oxygen, nothing but a teeny tiny little girl. most of her preemie clothes are still way too big, and I can't find any socks to fit her even with her big feet.

Kezie is doing well. She says baby sister Ivy is cute, and wants to hold her. So far, no jealousy. We'll see how long that lasts.

I have pictures but will post them later as I am now going to try to get some sleep.

Big Girl Bed

They moved Ivy out of her isolette and into a crib a few days ago. She also got moved into another area of the NICU; she in the the patio suite, right next to the window. She can finally see outside! She doesn't seem to care yet, but it's nice when I go to visit to see daylight instead of the dull glow of flourescent. In the picture, she is tucked in with her unicorn in her new bed, very cosy.







Ivy can eat from a bottle at every feeding. She isn't always awake enough to do this; eating is hard work when you aren't quite three and a half pounds. Usually she gives out before finishing the last five cc's or so. On Sunday, Mom came with me to see her, and the nurses have relaxed the rule about parents being the only ones to hold her. She is getting big and old enough that my Mom got to hold her and feed her a bottle. She was a good girl for Grandma and gobbled it up.

The nurses predict that she will be home by Christmas. She needs to grow a little bit more, and get better at eating. When she can nurse or drink from a bottle at every feeding, she can come home!



I was talking to a nurse the other night who was there the night Ivy was born. I spoke to one a few days after, who said that she was amazed that Ivy was doing so well. She said it was a rocky start. I knew she couldn't breath on her own, and they had to start her heart. This nurse last night told me about trying to get her to breathe that morning. She said Ivy just refused to do it. She just looked at the nurses and respiratory therapist like, "What do you want from me? I'm sleepy." Her lungs seemed fine and she should have been able to breathe on her own. They finally called arond to find out if I had been given anything that would affect Ivy. It turns out that the ER doctor (the one who better hope we never meet in a dark alley because he's dead meat) gave me Mag (magnesium sulfate) to prevent seizures and didn't bother to tell anyone in Labor and Delivery. I know very well that this drug does very strange and unpleasant things to you because I was on it for a day or two after delivery. My girl had been affected by it, which made it harder for her to breathe. Six hours later it had worn off and she could breathe on her own. It's nice to know things about Ivy's birth and early minutes because I couldn't see them, even if they scare me to death.



I had never really met this nurse before, and she was chatty. She also told me that when they first saw Ivy, she looked at the other nurse and asked, "How old is she supposed to be?" She was so little that she didn't seem 31 weeks. They still call her, "peanut," which seems to be the term for all the babies under two or three pounds at birth in the NICU. It's a little less confusing that her first name, since it sounds like medical equipment. More than once, someone has confused Ivy with an I.V. I didn't think of this when Shawn and I chose the name. Hopefully her experiences with hospitals will be limited and it won't be confusing very often. Of course, if she decides to become a doctor or a nurse, she might have to change her name.

Ivy and her bottle

Ivy taking a break from her bottle.

On Thanksgiving, she reached three pounds. On Saturday the 29th, she weighed three pounds two ounces. She's up a whole pound from her birthweight!

Bottle time

I can't believe I hadn't posted this pic. it's my favorite because it shows just how tiny she was at first. She's still tiny, but she's bigger than this.

Ivy drinks from a bottle twice a day now because she is getting so good at it. The downside to this is that it tires her out and stresses her, so I can't hold her as often or as long before she gets upset. She also has an oxygen tube in her nose because when she is that worn out, she doesn't breath deeply enough.

This is a picture from Sunday, the sixteenth. I was holding Ivy during her feeding, and I tried to cuddle her closer. She had a short feeding tube, and it came right out of her nose. I felt horrible, especially as I watched them put the tube back in. I don't know if it hurt, but she definitely didn't like it. The nurse had to remind me to take a picture because I was so upset. This is my baby with no tubes, tapes, or probes on her face. This is just Ivy.

Growing up already

Ivy no longer needs the tanning lights so she isn't wearing the goggles anymore. We can see her pretty eyes, and she likes to look around while sucking her pacifier. She is also gaining weight, and her cheeks are filling out. She is starting to look more and more like a newborn.

On Saturday, she had her first bottle. She drank a whole 5 ccs. That's a little more than a teaspoon. It's a tiny little bit, but she only gets 18 ccs every three hours, so it's a relatively significant amount.

This news made us ecstatic, because when she learns to reliably drink from a bottle, she will be able to come home!

Ivy's bath time

I got to bathe Ivy on Sunday for the first time. She seemed even more tiny when I washed her; I was afraid she would break!

Kezie's first day of preschool

First day of school

Kezie started preschool Thursday November 13. The preschool at her dad's school is allowing her to come for a few weeks while Ivy is in the NICU. Kezie isn't potty trained like the other kids, so Shawn is on call for diaper duty. She didn't have any problem keeping up with the big kids though, and she got upset when I showed up half an hour early to take her home. I thought she might want a shorter day to ease into school; she thought differently.

tiny little bundle of joy

Ivy Amelia Averett

born November 1, 2008

3:36 am

2 pounds 2 ounces, 13 inches

Feisty and ready to face anything.

A two-pound halloween treat

Halloween night brought us an unexpected treat; our daughter, Ivy, two months early. The trauma of the experience is fading, and now we are just trying to enjoy her and can't wait until she can come home.

It's ironic that this entire pregnancy, we thought there was something wrong with the baby. Twice, I thought I was miscarrying. Her growth was behind from the very beginning, and by the time I was twenty four weeks along, she was three weeks behind in her growth and they were afraid she was going to stop growing. Then there was the possibility of a chromosomal disorder, and while they were investigating that possibility, the doctors thought they heard a problem with the unbilical chord. I was living with this new scary prospect when my midwife discovered that I had developed preeclampsia at 29 weeks.

Preeclampsia shouldn't develop that early, so when it worsened quickly, Karen, my midwife, put me in the hospital overnight. I was there October 28 and 29, and they decided that I could go home but I had to stay in bed to keep from getting worse. They also gave me the first of two steroid shots to help the baby's lungs develop, just in case she needed to be born early. This turned out to be a blessing and the best thing we could have done.

I was good. I really was; I hardly moved from the couch for two days. It was a really long two days, but I did try to rest and keep my blood pressure down. I wasn't too worried when my abdomen started to hurt on Halloween. I knew I wasn't having contractions. I called the office and talked to a nurse, who wasn't worried either. As the pain worsened, I called again and they sent me to have my blood pressure taken. It was high but still safe, so I went back to bed and tried to will it away. By eight o'clock at night, I couldn't lie still anymore; it hurt too much. By nine I really really hurt. At ten thirty I was in agony and called Karen. She told me to go to the ER. We started to get ready, and the pain got even worse. I started throwing up. At eleven, Shawn called an ambulance. We didn't think I could handle a car ride. They ran lights and sirens, which was when I really started to get scared. I hadn't thought there was reason for that.

A couple of very nice paramedics helped me outside and onto the stretcher, in full view of several of my neighbors. Shawn was going to follow in our car because he had to wake up Kezie and bring her to the hospital until one of my family members could come get her.

It probably only took ten minutes to get to the hospital but it felt like forever. I was strapped on my side, which hurt, and they couldn't give me anything for the pain because of the pregnancy. My BP was something like 180/130. One of the nice paramedics lost some of my good feeling when he missed the nice big vein on my hand that no one ever misses, and had to stab me again. I heard them talking to the hospital about whether to take me to the ER or to labor and delivery. They sent me to the ER because at this point no one realized this had anything to do with the pregnancy.

It was probably a good thing I was strapped down because I might have hit the cocky ambulance driver who informed me that he hadn't hit any red lights. He seemed to think I should congratulate him as they pulled me out of the ambulance, still gasping in pain. They wheeled me into a room and started running tests. Here everything gets blurry. Someone finally gave me some morphine, but it didn't do more than just reduce the pain a little. I did start to relax, which is why I don't remember things in sequence. Shawn came with Kezie. I hurt more than I remember ever hurting before, and cried, and was poked and prodded some more. They took me somewhere for an ultrasound, and took samples of various bodily fluids. I was still throwing up, and I wanted desperately to lie down, but I couldn't stay in any one position for very long. I needed Shawn in the room with me, but I hated that Kezie had to see her Mommy in pain and acting crazy. My sister Alli came, took one look at me, and whisked my daughter out of the room so she wouldn't have to see any more. Thank goodness. Poor Kezie was a little traumatized for a while; it was nearly a week before she wanted anything to do with me again.

Eventually, my third shot of morphine dulled most of the pain and I was mostly unconscious for a while. I woke up in a new room, surrounded by new people, and a woman was standing next to me, holding a disposable razor. I don't know who she was, but she asked me if anyone had told me that I was having a C-section now. Shawn was next to me, and we looked at each other in shock. No one had told him either. I got really really scared now. I was only 31 weeks along. I asked if the baby would be all right. She said that I wouldn't be all right if they didn't do the c-section. She handed Shawn something hospital-ly to put on and they kept prepping me for surgery.

Who would choose to have a C-Section? I don't understand why anyone would willingly choose to experience one. I thought it was awful. They put in the block and the pain in my middle finally went completely away. I have heard a lot of stories about epidurals and blocks not working well and people being able to feel half of their body during labor. I was so afraid it would happen to me and I would suddenly feel them cutting into me. I am sure the myriad of drugs in my system contributed to my paranoia about this.

When they had me on the table and numb, my midwife came in with another doctor from her practice. It was a relief to finally see a medical professional that I both knew and trusted. Karen is very good at calming me down when I'm worried, which she witnessed several times during this pregnancy. She didn't stop to chat much, because they were in a hurry to get the baby out. Thank goodness they let Shawn stay with me, too, because I couldn't have handled being in there on my own.

Dr Jula Johansson performed the surgery, and Karen was there to assist. I voiced my concern that I would be able to feel the surgery. The anesthesiologist laughed and told me they had already made an incision. He made it sound like my concern was unfounded, but we found out later that they were worried about the same thing. In fact, the reason the anethesiologist came so quickly and stayed so long was they were afraid it wouldn't work quickly enough and they would have to put me under entirely.

Shawn was next to me, sitting at my shoulder. He says he looked over the screen once to see what they were doing to me, and that was enough. He said later that had he known how serious the situation was, he would have been much more afraid. I was plenty afraid, but so drugged that I was feeling no pain or any other strong emotion. I could feel tugging and pressure on my belly. It was extremely unpleasant. After a minute, as I was starting to drift back into unconsciousness, someone said, "Look at your baby!" It was a good thing they said something, because we only got a brief glance at her before they whisked her off. I saw this unbelieveably teeny tiny little girl. She was beautiful and I was breathless, but I was also terrified because she was a frightening shade of grey and I didn't hear any crying. I lost consciousness again.

Mom was in my room by the time they wheeled me into it. I think she and Shawn left to see the baby, but since I wasn't really awake I'm not sure. I didn't really wake up until the next day. Ivy was fine. The NICU had sent a picture of her for me. I could barely see her through the equpiment they had strapped to her. Shawn had seen her, and so had my mom. Shawn said she was doing really well, and all the nurses said she was feisty. She had been born without a heartbeat and unable to breathe on her own. Once they got her heart started and connected her to a respirator, she did well. She was breathing on her own a few hours later. The steroid shots had been given with perfect timing, and her lungs were in great shape.

The pain in my middle was gone by the time I woke up. I learned that I had developed HELLP syndrome, which is a complication of pre-eclampsia. The terrible pain was from my liver; it had basically given up and started leaking enzymes into my abdominal cavity. My blood pressure had skyrocketed, and my platelet count had dropped dramatically. Lucky for me, they had gotten to me before my platelets dropped too much; I wouldn't have been able to clot after the surgery had it taken place much later. I was kept in bed for the whole day and most of the next, allowed out for nothing except a couple of brief trips to the NICU. I was hooked to a blood pressure cuff, oxygen monitor, pulse monitor, two devices designed to keep ciruculation going in my legs and prevent blood clots, a catheter, at least two medications dispensed through an IV in my arm, and oxygen. I couldn't stand up, and I couldn't move around in bed. My incision hurt and all the drugs were doing weird things to my head. By Sunday night, those drugs were doing really, really weird things to my head. I'm willing to bet there's a strong black market for some of those druges; their effects weren't pleasant, but they were very interesting. I saw things out of the corner of my eye that weren't there, I twitched constantly, and I heard voices. Not that kind of voices. I would hear voices of people that I knew, as if I were dreaming, but it would sound like they were really in the room with me. That's as close to crazy as I ever want to get.

I got to go see Ivy for the first time on Saturday night. The nurse wheeled me down to the NICU with my catheter bag and IV fluids in tow. I think I finally realized how sick I had been and still was when I realized that I wasn't up to staying long with her, and I definitely wasn't up to holding her. I never imagined that I would not want to hold my baby as soon as possible. I was too afraid I would drop her, and I wasn't even sure I had the strength to hold her. She was even smaller than I remembered. She was unbelievably tiny; I couldn't believe that she was real and would probably be all right. The ventilator was gone by then, but she was still attached to half a dozen wires and probes, and she was in a temperature-controlled isolette. Her diaper was tiny; it looked like a gauze bandage. Her weight had dipped below two pounds. The hair on her arms and shoulders hadn't had time to disappear, and I could almost see through her skin.

Modern medicine is amazing. I wonder what would have happened without it. I heard once that until a century or two ago, the cause of death for at least 33 percent of women was childbirth. Ivy certainly would not have lived without intervention, and I most likely would have died after days or weeks of terrible pain. She is our little miracle baby.

No pictures

I lost the cord that connects my camera to the computer, so I can't post any new pictures until it is found. I'm hoping to find it; I have the pictures from our trip to Snowbird and Kezie's birthday on there.

It's a girl!

Baby Averett the second is due January first 2009 and we found out today that it's probably a girl. My midwife is almost positive; it's a little early and she was a little shy for the camera, but most likey another girl is on the way. Yay, no spending money for more clothes, and Kezie will have a little sister. I might have been fun to have a boy this time, but I know what to do with a girl. I have no idea what to do with a boy.

Kez made her first phone call to 911 at her birthday party on Thursday. She used Aunt Alli's cell phone. They called and asked if everything was all right. They weren't at all surprised that it was a child; I'm sure it happens all the time. I've heard of kids doing that; I just didn't expect it to be my kid, especially so soon. How did she manage to dial those numbers in the right order?