Focks, Feet and Breasts

I was out with Tami Hodgkins last night. I introduced her to my babe and we saw Memoirs of a Geisha. Getting out of the house with a friend is a good thing. We were talking in the car and I said of my life, "This is hard." I said it as I would explain that learning Chinese was hard. As if it wouldn't have occurred to her. And in my own mind I really was thinking that this current life is merely the same as tackling Chinese. Tami laughed at me. In all honesty, I remember being more frustrated with the Chinese. Baffled. Chinese has no word for "no" or "yes."

And perhaps neither does this life.

As concepts, life and death are polar opposites. In reality, death is absolute and life is a whole spectrum. But Alicia is moving along toward the nicer end of that line. That is, if you still imagine things to be linear these days.

My dear Toby? He says, "Fock". It's been a mystery where this word came from. Today the mystery was solved when he came downstairs after Josh dressed him. Toby was wearing a shirt I've never seen before that came right out of his very own dresser. It's orange and has a fox sewn on the front. Josh asked Toby to tell me what he had on his shirt. Yes, his shirt has a "fock." So there you go. Josh and I have not yet taught our son how to swear. Maybe next week.

Today at Alicia's bedside I was excited. There were two nurses in the room who had had Alicia weeks ago and not since. I called them over. "Have you seen Alicia these days?" And they oohed and aahed. It's fun to show her off. I've rated her by the age of her feet. She was born with 80-year-old feet. You could see all of the bones clearly. Only a few days ago she had 30-year-old feet, just a thin covering of fat so that you could see no more bones. But today, behold! the coming of fat baby feet! She has those creases now where toe meets foot. Very good sign. Now to move on to the knees. Her knees still look huge because there isn't much fat on the legs yet. Today she is 2lbs 10oz! She has started to gain weight so much faster now. Her skin looks like a normal person's! Her oxygen needs have been staying the same, 30-35%. She's drinking 7.8ml an hour through her nose. The steroids have worn off and she has held steady.

Oh, her eyes. Preemies' retinas aren't fully developed yet. In some preemies, those retinas rebel and can begin to develop in some delinquent way. Most of it sounds correctable these days. The day of her first exam they just left me this information sheet about it and I didn't talk to a doctor at all. The next day when Josh talked to the doctor, she said that Alicia's retinas are close to stage 3. I think that was supposed to tell us that her retinas are almost finished developing, thus we are nearly in the clear.

Yeah, Alicia's doing great. I'm so proud of her. I used to feel so horrible that my daughter lives in a box. Okay, I still do. But so many times now I've held her, her stats get lower, we put her back and she stabilizes quickly. She's clearly thriving in her box. If you are ever babysitting her and she's fussy, I guess you need to blow air at her and put her in a box. A clear warm one with lots of oxygen though. If you have one of those.

Oh. There are all kinds of things I always forget to tell you. According to the nature of things you forget to tell people, I cannot now remember all of them. But here's one. I get to hold Alicia Grace every day now! Since Monday I have held her everyday for about an hour. Some days her oxygen saturation (sats) keeps dropping or she starts having AB spells and she has to go back early. But most days she does so well. If her sats are dropping I take a few deep breaths and then she starts breathing better too. Oh I love to hold her. I can't do anything else when I'm holding her. Yes, yes AB spells. That would be apnea-bradychardia. Apnea is to stop breathing and bradychardia is when the heart stops or slows significantly. They often happen together. For my dearest girl, it only takes a slouched back or too much gunk in her nose and throat to make it happen. I'm getting the hang of how to position her so that she can breathe the best.

This segment includes words like breast. Beware.
Alicia is 32 weeks gestation today. Breastfeeding might begin at 34. But I'm a die hard breastfeeder and rather impatient. The doctor told me a few weeks ago that the last thing for preemies to conquer was feeding. Oh I can picture why. Did you have breastfeeding issues? I would like to out-do you. Today I got permission to start to introduce Alicia to my breast. Not to give her milk, but just to let her hold it in her mouth, feel it, smell it. Yeah. I couldn't get her there and keep her breathing at the same time. Problems getting the babe to the breast? Yes, mine stops breathing. I'm laughing. Today. If I still can't figure out how to position her by the end of next week, I might not be laughing anymore. But by the time I'm allowed to actually start giving her milk from the breast, we all hope that she'll be breathing a bit better, a bit stronger anyway. Then I'll have a few more choices about positioning her. I hope.

Oh the road is long. I'd love to just close my eyes until we're there. And I know I'm not the only one who feels that way about life.

See you later my friends.