RSS feedIt’s Friday, and the beginning of the third week of this ongoing saga. Molly is now on 4th hourly feeds, just like a regular baby, and she’s had all of her cables and cords removed, even her feeding tube, which they now only put in at feeding time.
This week has been hard for Louise and I, dealing with regular day to day stuff, medical stuff and at the same time always visiting Molly to make sure she’s OK. We’re not getting enough sleep, but we know at least we know it, and have vowed to work on that over the next few days.
No disasters over the last few days, although my client’s server which I rebuilt last week has started having problems again, meaning I spent most of the day working on that. I think it’s now fixed, but we’ll see.
Every day in hospital is now just waiting on Molly to grow, and to get to where she can breast feed. We have no idea when that will be, we think up to three weeks, but it’s just going to be day by day at this point. So I’m going to slacken off the blogging, unless something amusing or interesting happens. Thanks for reading along. I will still be updating the photos every day however.
Oops, I forgot to mention that we finally got the cheap parking organised. Louise sorted it out yesterday, after having two visits each to both the payment office and the parking lady. We now have a $15 per week parking space, which is awesome, but is disappointing when I think about all the money and suffering I’d been through with the public car park, when we could have had this all along. When driving in to park today, I also noticed that it doubles as a public car park as well, which means even without the special rate, I could have been paying just $5 per day from the very start. 🙁
Regardless, that’s hopefully the end of the car parking saga.
Day 14 of our hospital ideal, and day 9 of Molly in the world. She’s now about 35 and a half weeks. The parents are coping, but exhausted. We still have two flat tyres to fix, everyone to start thanking, and a bunch of other stuff, but are experiencing a lot of different takeaway foods, and there is good news from the hospital today.
It just goes to show that Mum and Dad never know best. Molly was moved from her crib into a cot today at around 11am, because she can now regulate her temperature at around 36-37c. She’s wrapped snug as a bug most of the time, to make sure she’s coping. She’s now taking in 27mls of milk every two hours, which is huge compared to the 2mls every four hours she was having on day 2, And at 10pm tonight they finally took her off the monitor, so no more monitoring cables stuck to her foot. This leaves only the green feeding tube that you see in the photos. She’s still doing exceptionally well, so she must have inherited Louise’s good health.
Twice today and once yesterday, she decided to test the new parents by waiting until they’d removed her nappy, cleaned her up, and were just putting on the new nappy, before shitting and pissing everywhere, and making us have to change all her clothes, blankets and even her bed. I guess that’s the first time I’ve swore on here since the family have been regularly reading along. Sorry about that, but I’m sure you’ve all been through it. This cutie certainly has class.
We’re still enforcing a no visitors policy, because every day is a big step for her, and whenever we arrive at the hospital in the morning, we end up having to completely change our plans and run around like mad things all day. I know a lot of you want to come see her, but please be patient while she works her way through this critical period. We’ve updated the photos again, so hopefully they will tide you over until she’s ready to party on with new people.
And as I mentioned at the top, we haven’t even begun to even think about thanking people, so if you’ve sent kind wishes or presies, thank you heaps we appreciate it, and we will be in touch at some point. I was so tired today, I accidentally erased a bunch of SMS’, so if we don’t actually get back to you, please don’t think we’re being rude.
Tonight at the hospital they were talking about possibly moving Molly out of the incubator and into a cot, maybe tomorrow. Louise and I think it’s too soon, but we’ll see. They’re been gradually dropping the temperature of the incubator over the last 24 hours, and getting her used to wearing clothes. The question is, can she regulate her own temperature well enough.
Louise spent the day at the hospital with Molly, while I was off at a client satisfying my contractual obligations. Later tonight we both went up and did her midnight cares, which consists of: taking her temperature (it was 36.8c), changing her nappy, putting thrush cream on her bum, and changing which limb the heart rate monitor LED is on.
I got to the hospital at around 11am today, and the first thing Louise said was “they just said I can go home”. So as with every day, our plans go out the window before the day has even started. We spent the rest of the day doing Louise going home things, like empty her room, thanking all the awesome midwives in 6 East 3, and picking up Molly’s paperwork.
I’d walked to the hospital, so I had to walk home again to get the car. I figured this would finally be a good time to get the cheap parking offered by the hospital, because if you remember, there’s usually some kind of disaster which befalls me just as I’m about to do it. This time there was luckily no disaster.
The form which you fill in, has the patient details in the corner, and the form we had was for Louise. I told her that Louise was being discharged today, so did we need to get a new form with Molly’s name, or would the Louise one be fine. For once the answer was no problem, I could just use the form with Louise on it. Great I thought, having just been lured into a false sense of security. It was then that lady said, when you’ve paid here, take the receipt to the parking lady’s counter, but she’s not actually in today. The upshot was, in case there weren’t any car parking spots, she wanted to do both parts of the form on the same day. Great, prevented again.
We spent the afternoon tracking down a pump and sterilising that so that we could take Molly some express later in the evening. Louise felt like eating Indian, so we had some takeaway, and headed back to the hospital at 8:30pm. As we opened the door to the house, we were struck by a thunder storm. I kid you not, literally as we stepped out of our front door…
So after 12 days in hospital, when Louise thought she was just going in during lunch for a quick check up, we have one lady now back home. Only one little lady left to go, hopefully in about 2-3 weeks, they’re now just waiting for her to grow.
First up, we’ve been getting requests for photos, so we’ve uploaded all the ones we’ve taken. You can see them at www.kashum.com/molly but you’ll need a user and password to get at them. SMS me if you haven’t received a copy of the password yet. Note that the photos are quite down rezed, so if you want to print them out, let me know and I can send you the full rez ones.
Today Molly was moved from High Dependency to Special Care, which is the final step of three for monitored babies before they’re discharged. She had her drip and canular removed, and no longer has any ECG dots attached. She slept most of the afternoon and early evening with a smile on her face. She’s doing exceptionally well, and is the star of the whole nursery.
Mum is also doing well, her bloody pressure has dropped back down to normal Louise levels, and her expressing is going well. Neither of us are getting any sleep, we’re flat out just adapting to and keeping up with all the changes, and we haven’t even gone home from the hospital yet!
Yesterday they took out Molly’s drip, and now she’s taking 10mls of milk every hour. She’s still got her canular in, just in case, but they’re unlikely to use it again and may take it out later today. She’s had her day 4 screening tests, which all babies have on day 4, and her incubator temperature is now around 31.5c as she gets better at regulating her own temperature. Today will be her 5th day birthday. Last night the staff put a cute little pink singlet on her, and for once she looked like a little girl instead of a little Raggedy Ann doll.
Louise is doing OK. She had a spike in her blood pressure last night, which is a bit of a concern, and her liver function hasn’t completely returned to normal, but she’s in OK spirits now that she can visit Molly on her own now. We’re now thinking best case for her would be a Monday discharge, but more likely Wednesday.
Last night we had yet another car stolen from our street. I woke at 4:45am to the sound of someone trying to pop a lock, which I thought was just Phoebe trying to get into my office. When I heard a car door open and an engine start, I realised it was another theft, so I jumped up to make sure it wasn’t one of ours. Knowing my luck over the last few days, the odds were surely against me, but thankfully it wasn’t one of ours.
Oh, and Mark Webber qualified on the front row for the British GP, so… strange days indeed…
When you do a 32 hour straight server rebuild on day 3 of your baby’s premature birth, the world seems insane and surreal, and when the frustration subsides a little, and you see that cute little baby’s innocent face, you realise how pointless anger can be, and how much you love your new family member. Having spent the last few days pretty much in Molly’s face and ears (talking to her), I felt like I was letting her down by not being able to visit and comfort her, and I would have gladly swapped the rebuild for a dozen parking fines and flat tyres.
So I got to the end of Friday with most of the web site up and running, and I trudged off to the hospital full of pent up anger. Any parking ticket, flat tyre or crap from a parking officer would have resembled a scene from Falling Down, at least the middle action part anyway. And lucky there weren’t any of those smoker types hanging around the front entrance to the hospital, or emergency would have been busy tonight. You know the ones, those pathetic scum, many of whom are patients in hospital gowns and who are holding on to a drip, right next to the front door where there’s a sign which says “Hospital Grounds Are Smoke Free”. Don’t these selfish losers care that their second hand smoke to shortening the lives of everyone going in and out of the hospital? A hospital for God’s sake!
It took me an hour with Molly to calm down, then an hour with Louise to mellow a little, and then another hour with Molly to make me happy again. Today she did a big poo, which was great, and is now taking 2ml of food each hour. She’s the calmest and happiest baby in the nursery, and they reckon in a few days she’ll no longer need the canular. Mum is also doing excellently, with her blood pressure pretty much normal most of the time, she’s up and walking about, and learning heaps about breasts and pumps and stuff. I would have too, but I instead spent the day with vi and Apache, which is not a even substitute.
Hopefully early next week, both Louise and Molly will be up to having visitors. We’ll see.
For those of you not interested in my personal blog posts, you can filter my RSS feed to exclude them. Just click on customise… in the left menu. There’s only going to be a few more though, so it’s probably best just to deal with the remaining few.
Louise and Molly are both doing well. Louise’s blood pressure is normalising, and she’s now up and walking around some of the time, and she can even walk to the nursery now to see Molly. Speaking of whom, Molly’s drinking more and more, and her vitals are looking great. Mum and I had long cuddles yesterday, and I sat with her for several hours as well.
However, as mentioned earlier (not sure what the group noun for disasters is, probably “bloody heaps”) but disasters do all come at once with me. The previous night I managed to get to the special window which dispenses the really cheap car parking, but I got there at 5pm, when it closes at 3:30pm, so I had to pay another $20 dollars in parking.
The next day, yesterday, Louise was due to do her first breast feed at 3pm after a bit of a rest, so I headed off to the cheap parking window again at around 1pm, and was going to walk home (I’d walked to the hospital) and do an emergency shop because we’re out of necessities at home, like Phoebe’s food! So I got to the window and there’s a queue. I only had 2 hours to spare to get it and the shopping done before the first breast feed, so I was a little frustrated at having to wait 15 minutes for the rude nurse in front of me to organise parking for her shift change. Got to the window, and was told just fill in the form (which they’d already given us) and go to a different window. Grr… I started to fill in the form, but needed the license plate for Louise’s car, which through lack of sleep I couldn’t remember. So I figured I’ll check it when I get home and hand in the form at 3pm when I got back, just before the window closes at 3:30pm. Annoying, but doable.
As soon as I walked in the door at home, there was a message on the office phone that one of my clients’ server was down. I spent the next 4 hours sitting in the hosting providers control panel, waiting for them to do diagnostics. Yes, the one day of the year when I wanted to see mum and baby breast feed for the first time, this server had decided to shit itself. I missed the 3pm thing, I didn’t get the emergency shop, and I missed the 3:30pm cheap parking window, which means I’m up for yet another $20 in parking next time. The day was completely written off for me.
The diagnostics on the server ran until about 5am, indicated a drive failure, and I’m now waiting on them to tell me when I can start rebuilding the box. Yep, my entire Friday, day 4 of my baby’s birth, is now going to be spent rebuilding a web server. I also had a hair cut bleach and dye appointment today, which is also going to be missed, and I’m guessing it won’t be until much later tonight that I get back to the hospital.
I did manage to get out last night for about an hour during diagnostics to do the shopping and a very quick visit to Molly, but because I missed the cheap parking window, I also got an $81 parking fine. What else would you expect…
And that is today’s update. I’ll post again once I’m off work time and back into mum and baby time. Both are doing well, both miss me.
A couple of quick things from the last few days. When I drove to see Louise on Monday night before the birth, I parked outside of the car park. When I came back, one of the rear tyre was flat. What are the chances that I’d get two flats on two cars in two days? My spare is one of those little dicky wheels, and it was flat, so I had to walk to a servo to pump it up before changing it. First our two cars are locked up inside a car park, next thing two cars have flat tyres. Nice. He’s still an arse though.
On Tuesday I parked in the car park, because I was over it. On the way out, the car park guy asked if I’d had a baby today. Strange that over the five days he never asked, except the day when Molly was born. Weird. He also told me about the special visitor car park which is a token fee and really cheap, but I said I hadn’t had a chance to organise it yet. Louise had only just told me about it. When I left the car park today, he scolded me for yet again not using the cheaper car park. I’m starting to think he’s not an arse.