Emergency C-section and a 23 week old infant. Ugh.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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:frowning: Waaaaaaaaaaaaa! (That’s from Caileigh.)
:frowning: WAAAAAAAAAAAAA! (That’s from me.)

She’s still a crying, screaming fussing mess of a baby. Poor thing. She just can’t chill out - she’s either barely asleep and fussing, or awake and crying. She’s only had one alert and quiet spell since Tuesday morning.

She saw her pediatrician, who could find nothing wrong with her. She decided to call her eye doctor and have him come and examine her again. Luckily, he couldn’t find anything wrong. Unluckily, that means we have no idea why Caileigh hates the world right now.

She does have reflux, and is now on Zantac for it. She’s also only allowed small meals every two and a half hours, and has to be held upright for half an hour after each one. She does not want to eat, but after I literally pin her down and force her to eat 3/4 of the bottle, THEN she gets hungry and sucks well and wants more when it runs out. But she can’t have any more, or her reflux kicks it all back out. So then she’s hungry and mad and filled with grr. But her weight gain was not good, so doc is insistent that she get little meals to keep stuff down.

Perhaps it’s just the pain of the reflux that’s making her cranky, and when the Zantac kicks in (about 48 hours), she’ll feel better. It could be coincidental that the eye surgery happened just when her reflux got painful.

Poor thing. If she had been like this from the start, it would be one thing. She’d simply be a challenging baby and that’d be the end of it. But it’s the fact that this is such a huge personality change that has us watching her very anxiously.

Of course, I have lots of time to post here while I’m sitting with her in a front carrier to keep her upright and still after meals - but I’m getting NOTHING done around the house! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hang in there. It sounds hellish. Hopefully things’ll improve and soon.

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WhyNot, stay on your game. I’m sure things will improve soon and sending some good thoughts your way

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How are her poops?

Could she be teething? She’s the right age, except she’s a preemie, so maybe that changes things.

Could she have the dreaded bladder infection? That’s how Mr. Tink was before we discovered it.

What about pylorric stenosis? Is there a funny grape sized lump in her tummy meats?

I’m speculating wildly, so feel free to ignore me.

Otherwise, hugs. I know how frustrating a suddenly constantly-screaming baby can be. Here’s hoping it’s just a brief phase. Make sure you get to trade her off and get some alone-time when she gets too much.

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Wild speculation is fine.

She’s due for one - she poops only once every week to 10 days, which for her is normal. The stools are soft and green and liquidy when they come out, so the doctor said not to worry about it - some babies just don’t poop much.

:eek: I have no idea. She does NOT want to open her mouth, though, so I doubt it. My understanding is that most developmental things will be happening at her adjusted age (her age from her due date, which was Thursday) - at least muscloskeletal development and gross and fine motor skills. But I never asked about teeth. There’s a question for the pediatrician on Monday.

I thought of Tinkleberry. But no, her output is good and normal - 8-10 wet diapers in a day, nice barely yellow urine.

(“Pylorric stenosis” is one of my favorite sounding phrases, if you divorce it from it’s meaning.) Nope.

She was checked out very thoroughly by her pediatrician on Thursday, and she could find nothing physical wrong. (One of the things she looked for and didn’t find was a hair wrapped around a finger or toe, which often causes this kind of reaction.) There was no localization of pain - she doesn’t cry any more when you touch her in a certain place or anything.

I think (woo-woo alert!) that she’s emotionally processing something very deep, probably triggered by her very traumatic eye procedures of earlier this week. While I’m keeping a close watch on her phsyical body, this seems to be emotional, mental or spiritual in nature.

She’s a little better this morning, meaning she’s not crying the instant I set her down, it take a few seconds. And she actually ate fairly willingly, without me prying her jaw open to get a nipple inside. She even opened her eyes a teeny bit while I was burping her and gave me a little half-hearted smile as if to say, “Sorry I’m being a PITA, be back soon!” before clamping them shut and going away again.

WhyDad took baby duty last night, as I was simply exhausted from not sleeping more than an hour at a time since Monday. Really, he didn’t have much choice. I fell asleep on the couch and he couldn’t wake me up again! I woke up six hours later feeling much, much better and more able to cope with Caileigh.

Thanks, everyone, for your support and kind thoughts!

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Mamette was a 30 weeker, so not as worrying as Calleigh, but still …
I did the pumping (moooOOooo) and all, so I know where you are at.

(Sometimes there are good outcomes - she has just turned 8, is about 140 cm tall and happy, and bright enough to be going on with. But I’ll warn you now, any doctor or medical situation you encounter from now till oooh about 6 years old, say “premmie” as part of the medical history, and every flag goes up!)

Mamette had truly APPALLING reflux. Coupled with a general inability to sleep.
Frankly, the drugs didn’t help. Eventually she grew out of it - her aesophagus became long enough that the refux stopped.

What worked for us was:
a) tilting the head of her bed up by putting a folded blanket under the upper part of the mattress
b) strapping her into the baby carrier and having Mr Mame sleep in the reclining chair with Mamette on his chest/tummy.
Both kept her partly upright, which helped more than the drugs.

Out of a general sense of good-will I won’t mention how long her sleep problems lasted!
But if you want to talk to someone who went through some of what you are going through, you are welcome to ask TubaDiva for my email address. She is very kind about putting people in touch.

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Pita?

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Pain in the ass.

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Sending you and Caileigh tons of good vibes, WhyNot . It can be really tough having a preemie, just as much after they get out of the hospital.

I don’t know if other preemie parents have noticed this in their kids, but coming out early really seemed to discombobulate my daughter’s nervous system. She didn’t end up with cerebral palsy or anything like that; it was more a matter of appearing totally frazzled for about her first 3 months or so of life. I mention this since Caileigh seems that way right now (even though it may actually be her surgery only that caused it).

Somehow I thought it would be okay after we got my daughter home – she would be like a normal newborn, especially after she attained her gestational age. But she wasn’t, really. More problems, more fussiness, insufficient weight gain, just more everything.

Hang in there. It’s tough to watch your kid feel miserable and frazzled, and it’s exhausting dealing with a baby who perhaps doesn’t even want to be demanding and hard to live with, but has ended up that way.

For me and my daughter, things smoothed out after a while. I hope Caileigh’s frazzled-ness is temporary, but even if it persists for a while, she’ll get better.

Mrs. Furthur

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I just wanted to sympathise - not got any constructive advice, but I feel for you.

My second boy came out at 36 weeks, so not premie (he was born a day after the premie limit!) but it was an extremely traumatic birth, and he kind of shut down after it.

He just whimpered and twitched, kept his eyes tight screwed shut and was all hunched over for weeks after his birth. The dr said some babies react like that after a trauma - like a kind of “I’m not here! Put me back inside!” reaction. The advice was to do what you are doing - lots of body contact, a calm environment, gentle humming and cuddling and a gradual enabling of the baby to unfold and feel that he could cope in this scary world.

Your poor little sausage has had so much to deal with; perhaps the surgery on her eyes was the final straw for her, emotionally.

I am sure that all your love IS being communicated to her, and she will gradually relax and become the baby you know again.

Good luck, and hugs to you all…

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FYI, part of the problem with Tink was his urine was so dilute, they told us it couldn’t possibly be just a bacterial infection and we had to fast him for 7 hours for it to concentrate it enough for them to find it. :rolleyes:

I don’t think that’s woo-woo at all. It’s bloody traumatic to enter into this world and be on machines and hurt and poked for 4 months solid. Of course you’d finally scream once things settled down and you felt safe.

After most of the hospital visits, TInk would whimper in his sleep for days, and wake up screaming like he was scared for no reason, and be clingy during the day. I have no doubt the hospital traumatized him and this is how he showed it. Hopefully your little one will work through this soon and be her old silly bee self.

hugs

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I remember, poor thing. But her urine’s not clear, as in colorless, which would have rung some Tinkleberry warning bells.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, because SHE’S BACK! :smiley:

I don’t know where she went, but now she’s back. Over the course of the morning, she was progressively calmer, and just an hour ago she opened her eyes and yawned and then kept her eyes open for the first time in four days. She even nursed for about 10 minutes. WhyDad earned first happy bottle priveleges.

She’d bopping her head around and looking at everything and just as happy and calm as she ever was, even through a diaper change and tickle session.

Hallelujah. I don’t think I’ve been this relieved since she passed that critical 72 hour mark four months ago!

Of course, she goes back to the doc on Monday, and the eye doc on Tuesday and the hearing screen on Wednesday. :smack: So I fully intend to enjoy her tomorrow, lest she freak out again next week!

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Oh ! I’m so relieved your sweet heart is feeling better! You got me so into your cute baby and your trials and triumphs, I feel like learning to knit and knittin her some booties.

Well, maybe go to the store and buy her some. The knitting is my warm, fuzzy idea, but it just wouldn’t really happen.

Wishing your family all giggles and smiles from now on, forever and ever.

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WhyNot- it’s been three weeks! Update please!

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Forgive the sentimental bump of this years old thread…but…

She turns 10 years old today. A decade of fears and joys and all the good and bad parts of parenting…

She’s starting to get into tween girl dramas at school - tears and stomachaches resolve in hours into best friends and back to enemies, and round and round…

She’s a straight A student, top of her class…

She loves to read, loves to write, loves to live…

She got her first pair of eyeglasses (which she’s been begging for for 5 years, even though she didn’t need them) a few months ago. She doesn’t wear them…

She got first place at the science fair…

I am so incredibly grateful that there’s been nothing, absolutely nothing, to update in 9 years relating to her dramatic entry into the world. Everything is utterly, delightfully, boringly normal.

We are so lucky.

She still has beautiful hands.

Imgur

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Oh, WhyNot, thank you so much for updating this. I wasn’t around for the beginning, but am truly touched. She really is lovely.

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Hurrah for thriving preemies!!! And yours was preemy-er than most. I’m so glad she’s done so beautifully. And bless her heart, that’s a cello, right? Well done child with beautiful hands! :smiley:

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It’s an upright bass that just happened to be sitting in the corner of the photographer’s living room. The photographer plays it, but it wasn’t meant to be part of the shoot. When I saw it, though, I had to have a shot with it. Caileigh’s favorite song this year, of course, was “All About That Bass”. :smiley:

It wasn’t until we got the picture that I noticed the Death’s Head on top. And that makes me love it even more. The spectre of Death stood over her that first year, and has slowly but surely retreated. Now…she’s playing Him with those beautiful hands that so captivated me from the start. He will never go away entirely, of course, but…

And now she wants to learn how to play the bass for real.

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This has to rank as one of my all time favorite posts on this board. I am so truly very glad she’s doing so well!

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++++ !