One Little, Two Little Trips to the Hospital

These first few weeks have been more adventure packed than we had hoped for, but things have settled down and we have our routine back.  At least, most of it anyway.  I am glad for that because I need routine as much as Melia does.  Despite all the craziness of the first weeks home with a newborn, we are all still alive, happy and in love with our little family.  So I guess I'll let you in on what happened!

Week 1:

Week one was, like Melia, the easy week.  Sure we didn't get as much sleep as we would have liked and we were still trying to get Melia used to her sister, and help her get over her fear of us leaving her alone while we were at the hospital, but we were alive.  A little back story: I was positive for Group B Strep at my very first appointment after we found out we were pregnant with Ellie.  Because of that, I needed to have antibiotics running through an IV while I was in labor so the risk of complications at delivery were lowered.  Also, because of the Group B Strep, Ellie had to be monitored by the hospital for 48 hours after delivery to make sure she was healthy.  So, rather than spending one night at the hospital like we had hoped, we spent two nights at the hospital.  Melia did well while she was at home with my parents, but when we got back from the hospital, Melia seemed really nervous to go to bed and kept asking for us to come check on her, or to stay in her room.  So, even though we had spent weeks and weeks explaining to Melia that she would need to sleep over with Grandma and Opa while we were at the hospital, the actual event stressed her out.  We came home Wednesday afternoon and by Saturday she seemed to be ok again and realized that we were really there to stay, like we said we were.  (This is all important in a little bit, I promise)

Aside from the fact that Melia was nervous about us not being there in the morning after she woke up, she could not get enough of Ellie.  She was constantly asking to hold her and kiss her and show her all sorts of things.  Every opportunity she got, Melia would try and give Ellie her fox that I made.  Ellie has been the most content baby on the planet.  She slept so much this first week, enough that I
actually got concerned about the amount of time she slept.  Ellie woke up to eat and that was really it.  Doesn't seem horribly uncommon for a newborn, but I still felt like it was weird.  Melia wanted Ellie to be awake more so she could hold her and talk to her.  Oh, how Melia loves her sister.  She is already very protective of her and whenever someone takes Ellie out of her arms before she is ready to let go, Melia is just not happy about it.  She wants to hold her until she is done and no one else is allowed to take her until that time is up.

The nursing has been really pretty easy for me again, which I feel incredibly blessed to say that because I know it can be very difficult for some women.  I love nursing and Ellie eats like a bear.  She has an incredible internal clock and eats pretty much every two hours.  At night, we've been getting 3-5 hours between feedings, which is marvelous!! Aside from being sore the day my milk came in, the rest of me feels really good.  I haven't really had any of the aches and pains I had after I delivered Melia and I feel like I am recovering well.  Which is new for me.  By the end of the first week, I was able to get back into pre-pregnancy clothes and am only 7 pounds shy of pre-pregnancy weight.  I know this will plateau for another few weeks until I am approved to work out again, which I am very excited for, but I am so pleased with myself and this accomplishment!

Week 2:

Monday May 9th, Ellie's one week birthday, the morning went well enough.  Kara and Alex came in for a few days to visit and I was so excited to see Kara because I hadn't seen her since before her gastric bypass surgery a year ago.  Like every other morning, Scott got up and gave Melia her breakfast, got ready for work and on his way out, took Melia upstairs to play with my mom so I could get an extra two hours of sleep.  When Ellie woke up for her morning feeding, I got ready for the day and after my shower, I picked Ellie up and she felt warm to me.  I took her out of her clothes and blanket and brought her into the bedroom while I finished getting dressed.  I changed her diaper and she still felt warm after being undressed for 10 minutes.  I decided to take her temperature and she got a reading of 101.4.  In our take home booklet, it mentions that a fever over 100.4 should be called in immediately.  I text Scott and told him that she had a reading of 101.4 and called our pediatrician. I took another reading and it was at 100.3 or something.  At this point it's around 11:00am and I still
haven't been upstairs.  I also let my mom know that Ellie had a fever and that I was on hold for the nurses line at the pediatricians office.  After a 20 minute hold, I explained to the nurse what was going on.  Ellie has been in nothing but a diaper for 30 minutes now and that I had a reading of 101.4 about twenty minutes before she picked up.  She asked me to take another reading and it was lower, at 99.8, but she told me to take her into the office because she did get a high reading.  We set an appointment up for 1:50pm.  I relayed the information to Scott and he was excused from work, even though he had planned to stay until I updated him.  I was glad his coworkers let him come home.  We got to the doctor, Ellie's fever wasn't as high again, but because she was only a week old, they needed to make sure everything was ok.  Fevers in babies under 3 months is a serious issue and can be very bad.  The pediatrician explained to us that they needed to do some tests and that Ellie would be admitted to the hospital for at least 36 hours while these tests were monitored.  They would do a full fluids test, which meant that they did a spinal tap on her, blood work, and a urine test.  Let me tell you, knowing your 7 day old baby is in the next room getting a spinal tap done is the most stressful thing you can experience.  I cried, pretty good and long.  I didn't know what was wrong and I didn't want my baby girl to be sick, but she was.  The doctor said that Ellie did really well with the spinal tap and that after the initial poke, she actually fell back asleep for the rest of it.  Remember that I mentioned I felt that Ellie slept too much?  This whole trip to the doctor just confirmed my worries of her sleeping too much.

Through this entire process, Ellie was a champ.  She had to be poked 5 times to try and get an IV in and even though she cried, she calmed right down after each one.  I was right there holding her tiny little hand while the nurses would try and get the IV in and she seemed to take it better while I was there.  I did surprisingly well, too.  I thought I wouldn't be able to be in the room while they kept poking her, but I wasn't even crying while they did it.  Doesn't mean I didn't cry, because I did.  Every time the nurses left the room the first day at the hospital, I started crying and I cried every night we were at the hospital.  We were admitted Monday evening around 4:00pm and stayed until Wednesday afternoon.  Dallin came by the hospital Monday night to help Scott give Ellie a blessing, which was very comforting to me, too.

Notice how yellow Ellie is; Tuesday (high bilirubin levels)

Being at the hospital wasn't easy.  I cried because Ellie was sick, I cried because Melia had to stay at home at night, I cried because I was separated between my two girls, I cried because I was tired.  Melia came over Tuesday and we were able to spend most of that day with her.  That was nice.  She napped with me on the hospital bed, watched a movie with Scott, and even got to play with the doctor's stethoscope which she loved!  When the nurses came in to check Ellie's vitals and get her antibiotics going, Melia got really protective of her.  "That's my sister!  She's sick!" Scott and I had to explain that these were the doctors and they were here to help Ellie.  The protectiveness then turned into comforting Ellie.  "It's okay, Ellie.  Don't cry.  They're our friends."  And when Melia wanted to watch the nurses help Ellie, she noticed the stethoscope and asked to see it.  She can actually say the word too, so when she pointed out and said, "stethoscope" all the nurses went nuts!  "How old is she?!" "Oh my gosh, she knows what a stethoscope is? Does she know how to use it?"  Melia put the stethoscope in her ears and put it on Scott's chest to listen to his heart.  The nurses melted over her, it was really cute.

What they found during our stay is that Ellie's white blood cell count was high, which meant she had some sort of infection, but what exactly it was had to wait for cultures to come back.  Her temperature was in the normal range rather than the "higher end of normal" by Tuesday afternoon and at that point, we were just waiting for the cultures to come back.  We had been told Tuesday morning that Ellie's bilirubin (or jaundice) levels were a little high, but not quite high enough for concern.  If her levels didn't go down by the end of Tuesday, they would do more to help it.  Her bilirubin levels went down and finally things seemed to be calming down. Wednesday morning, the pediatrician came in and told us that her cultures looked good and that we would likely be discharged that afternoon.  He explained that Ellie likely had a viral infection since her white blood cell count was high, but her cultures were clean.  This was the best case scenario.  Ellie would be kept on her antibiotics for one more round and her cultures would be checked one more time and if all still looked good, we had the okay to go home.  My neighbor, Jeri, works at the hospital and came to visit us this morning as well.  Oh was that nice to see a familiar face.  She told me that when she came in for her shift (way early Tuesday morning), she saw Ellie's name on this list and a few hours later (around 4:00am) she realized that it was Scott and I.  I was grateful just knowing that Jeri was in the same hospital, honestly.  My stress went way down when she came to visit us, though brief, and just have her explain a little more why they do all these big tests for little babes.  It was also nice to hear Jeri say that the nurses on the floor were saying we would be leaving that day, too.  It was all coming to a close and I was ready for it to be done.  Unfortunately, Kara and Alex were set to leave before we were to be discharged.  I was so frustrated and sad about it because I saw her for a grand total of 2 hours the entire time she was here.  She came by the hospital with my mom Wednesday and cried.  We missed each other and didn't get any of the time we wanted together and she didn't get any time with her new niece.  She will be back in a couple months, though; it will be good to see her again.  We went home Wednesday around one and we tried our best to get back into our routine as quickly as possible.  Melia went back to not trusting us at night and we had to repeat the constant checking in on her for a few more days, but I was just glad to be home with both my girls.

Ellie is way less yellow here; Wednesday morning

I was so sleep deprived that I honestly don't remember much of what happened that weekend and just prepared for our follow-up appointment/Ellie's two week appointment on Friday.  I was looking forward to this appointment because it was with Todd, our actual pediatrician and old neighbor.  Upon entering the room, Todd gave me this look that just said, "I am so sorry you had to go through that."  He stated, "Sounds like you had quite the adventure this week."  Haha, yes, more than we had hoped for.  He apologized that we had to go through that and said he had made the connection the day we were discharged that it was Scott and I in the room.  I told him that Jeri came to visit and I had hoped that she or he would because I wanted a familiar face.  We went on with the rest of the appointment and Ellie is as healthy as can be now.  At her appointment, she was 9lbs (83%), 21 inches (91%) and her head circumference is in the 95% at 36.8cm.  Nice and healthy. I asked Todd if I needed to be careful about taking her out and he told me I was really ok to do every day things.  We celebrated by going to Scott's work for lunch.  It was nice to hear that all was well and to then get out of the house for the first time since Ellie was born.

The rest of the weekend was spent catching up on sleep.  My parents, being as wonderful as they are, took Melia in the morning Saturday and let Scott and I sleep and they took her to church (not really new) and Scott and I slept some more.  It was very good and much needed.  Donna and Ted were going to be in town Monday and Tuesday and we were getting ready for their visit and Ellie's blessing.

Week 3:

Donna and Ted came in Monday morning from California.  Scott's Uncle Adrian was baptized and they flew out to be there for it.  On their way home, they came to see us.  Monday afternoon Donna, Ted and Dallin came by and stayed all day.  That was nice.  Company and play mates for Melia.  Melia loved all the attention and I loved the help and interaction.  We just played with Melia and admired Ellie.  Monday also happened to be Donna's birthday, so we went to dinner with the family that night, too.  We went down to Outback and had the room to ourselves most of the dinner.  I will admit to being a little more paranoid about Ellie and people touching her because of our hospital stay, so having a big party room to ourselves for the majority of our dinner was very comforting.  The dinner was fun and it was the first time I got to wear "real clothes."  I live in sweats and baggy shirts for the first while after delivery because there's just no point to getting dressed while nursing.  So I looked forward to the opportunity to wear clothes.  And I wore JEANS!  Pre-pregnancy jeans!!  So exciting! =]

On Tuesday Donna, Ted and Dallin came over again to play and be with Ellie.  We spent most of the day together again and in the afternoon, they went home to get changed for Ellie's blessing.  Because we knew Donna and Ted were going to be here for such a short time, we planned Ellie's blessing to be on the Tuesday they were here.  It was very small.  Scott and I, Bishop Smith, Dallin, my parents, Scott's parents, G&G Tarbox, Diane, Gma and Pops and Grandpa Christensen.  Tyler and Hannah came too, but Tyler had an interview with his bishop and our bishop needed to leave before they could make it.  The timing was so dang close, too.  As Tyler and Hannah were pulling up, our bishop was pulling out.  I was still glad that they came though.  It was a beautiful day for a blessing.  After we blessed Ellie, we went outside for a few pictures and a very clear, double rainbow appeared.  Our Ellie babe is certainly being looked after.  

    

The rest of the week was just a normal week, really.  I am still waking up at least twice a night to feed Ellie, but she is really doing so good at night.  It's pretty half and half on who wakes who.  Sometimes I wake up because I have to feed her and sometimes she wakes us up.  We're getting between 3-5 hours consistently at night, and anymore, it's closer to 4-5 hours.  My mom is the greatest and still takes Melia in the morning so I can get an extra hour or two of sleep.  Melia is doing really well.  She still asks to hold Ellie constantly and loves to come over and give her kisses all the time.  Melia wants Ellie to be more interactive.  Whenever we do tummy time with Ellie, I tell Melia it's to teach Ellie how to crawl and Melia will then start crawling around and say, "See Ellie!  It's like this!  You crawl like this!" Melia is very eager to help Ellie learn and grow and it is so fun to see how much she really wants to be with her little sister.



Week 4:

This week has flown by.  I was sitting on our bedroom floor watching Scott and Ellie snuggle and I realized that tomorrow (Monday) is Ellie's 4 week birthday.  My best friend, Sophie, and her boyfriend Joe, flew in from Alaska this weekend.  I love when they come visit!  Soph and Joe came over on Tuesday and we hung out most of the day.  Melia slept for most of the time they were here and when she did wake up, it took her a few minutes to open up.  All week Melia has been saying, "My friend is coming to see me!  It's Sophie.  Sophie is coming to see me."  Haha.  I have a few pictures of Sophie and I around the house and she kept pointing her out to us as she would tell us that Sophie was coming.  Once Melia woke up a little more, she wanted Sophie all to herself.  Melia showed her all her toys and her play tent and her cards, I mean everything.  Scott came home from work and we planned to do a lunch date the next day.  Everyone always tells you that it will take you twice as long to get ready with a second child in tow.  It's definitely true.  I started getting ready at like 10:00am and we weren't ready to leave until just on time at 12:00.  Haha, oh boy, that will take some getting used to for sure.  For lunch, we went to a BBQ place called R&R in South Jordan.  It was really good.  Though it was a short visit, it was still fun.

On Friday, we had a couple things planned.  We went to a family party at my Aunt Heidi's and after we got home from that Sophie, Courtney and Joe came over for pizza, video games and The King and I.  There's a good story behind it, too.  In high school Soph, Court and I were in A Cappella choir together.  Our friendship really sparked on choir tour in California and I could honestly write an entire post on the night we got together haha.  But, after tour, we (as a choir) got in trouble because we hadn't qualified for state and Mama J was not happy about it.  So our punishment was a quiz based off the musical, The King and I.  Well, during the class period we were supposed to watch it, no one watched it.  I mean, come on, high school kids paying attention to a musical in class?  So Sophie, Court and I planned to watch it ourselves at my house so we could actually take the quiz.  We ordered pizza, had Jones soda's and watched the movie.  The night was absolutely chaotic and crazy and filled will all sorts of jokes we will carry with us for the rest of forever.  Ever since then, when the three of us get together, we get pizza, Jones soda's and watch the King and I.  We never really watch it, of course, and just make fun of ourselves and relive the year we became best friends.  It was so much fun having them all over.  Scott and Joe took the second TV and set up in a different room to play video games while us three girls just talked and laughed away.  It has been a long time since I've laughed that hard and I am so glad to have friends like those two.  There is never a dull moment with the three of us together.  Haha.  Oh man.

Saturday, Scott worked all day on a new kitchen table.  We found a table at DI for $40 and he took the finish off, sanded it down and is now painting it.  It looks really good and it will be so nice to have a bigger table.  While Scott worked, I had Ellie inside with me and Melia was in and out all day doing as she pleased.  It was a good day.  It was a long day.  But it was productive and we should have a new table by tomorrow!!  YAY!
As I am writing this now, Scott and Ellie are asleep on the luvsac, Melia is playing and just finished "watching" Tangled.  She has come over to sit by me and has been coloring next to me, telling me stories and singing me songs.

Ellie is really starting to wake up more and find her voice some more.  She has been a very quiet baby.  When she does cry, it is generally short lived and not very loud at all.  However, Ellie is very squirmy.  She moves constantly; she will be quick to mobility, I think.  Already I have noticed that she can roll herself side to side while laying on her back.  Ellie loves to snuggle on my chest and loves when Scott talks to her.  Ellie and Melia have a strong bond already and Ellie loves hearing Melia talk to her.  Ellie does so well on tummy time it's almost not productive.  She is so calm on her tummy and only gets upset I think because she isn't being entertained for so long.  Ellie does seem to have a hard time with gas after she eats.  She gets really fussy when she has to burp or pass gas and will get wiggly and whiny as the bubbles pass.  I am hopeful that this will start to go away as she gets older and better at burping.  We are getting the hang of this Family of Four thing.  I have been torn every which way emotionally, especially while Ellie was back in the hospital, but I have an amazing husband who listens to me and comforts me.  I have a beautiful 2 year old who wants to do nothing but help me and Ellie, and I have a strong newborn who is content as can be.  Our routine is still finding itself and Scott and I are tired, but we are still so in love.  The days are long, but the weeks are short and I love every moment I have with my family.  I am excited for Ellie to get a little bigger and start going out with the family again.  I am excited to Keep Moving Forward with my happy little family.  

Picture Credit at Ellie's birth: Calluna Bella Photography