As yet unnamed!

First day on our own

and I can't believe I used to think I got nothing done. Now I know the true meaning of getting nothing done. As I did the middle of the night wake up, Kirk did the morning one before he left for the office. She woke again around 9:30 and ate, I changed her (we can't change her before a meal as she gets too hysterical so we usually do it halfway through the bottle or right after) then she slept on me, screamed when put in her moses basket, slept on me, ate a snack, slept on me, screamed when put down, slept on me, screamed... then we walked around, I put her in her cot bed and she spat up all over it, so I had to change her and then she slept on me, and I didn't even try to put her down. She then woke up at 1-ish, hungry, so I fed her, she fell asleep halfway through her bottle but I'll be damned if I am going to have her then want more food in an hour so I decided to change her nappy as that would wake her up and she then looked hungry so I gave her the bottle again to which she made a face but I insisted and won and she had the rest of the bottle, passed out on me so I quickly put her down in her moses basket and ran out of the room. She is now sleeping. Thank god. I thought I might have to suck done some breastmilk out of her bottle as I was starving. Just had lunch and am going to get some birth announcements done before the next round of fun and games.

How long does this stage last?

Thinking I should've hired a full time nanny.

People who have more than 1 kid... why? Is it select amnesia or just too lazy to use birth control? Or does this stage pass pretty quickly?

Kirk, we miss you, tell work to shove it and come home instead. Please?

Really, it's not that bad. Bit weird not to have all the time to myself but she is pretty darn cute so it's just about worth it. If I was sleep deprived I might feel differently but I got about 8 hours overall last night with a break at 4am. Not bad and I can always nap this afternoon. Maybe.

Belated bday celebrations

It was my Dad's birthday last Sunday (the day we brought Noemie home) and then mine yesterday so we had a belated celebration lunch today with my folks for a few hours. They were impressed by the change in Noemie since the last time they saw her which was day 2 in the hospital when she was in an incubator with all sorts of monitors on her and an IV. My Dad was so sweet as he liked looking at her and talking to her but was too scared to touch her or hold her and said "I'll wait until she is a bit bigger". I finally managed to get him to sit on the couch and hold her for a few photos and then he was ready to hand her back to me. He kept getting up during lunch though to look at her everytime she made a noise. My Mom insisted she was taking Noemie home and we told her she was welcome to have her from around midnight to 8am each day ::grin::. After lunch when my Mom was holding her, Noemie made a very unlady like sound from her lower body region so it was off for a quick nappy change. Luckily Kirk took care of it as it sounded like it might be a messy one. What will I do tomorrow when I am home alone with her? Maybe hold her out the window sans diaper? Hold her over the toilet? Hope she just holds it in until he is home?

While I was trying to get a bottle ready for her, Noemie decided to try sucking on Kirk's arm in the hopes of some milk coming out. It was the funniest thing as she was properly trying to latch on, complete with sucking sounds and was getting frustrated nothing was happening. She worked her way down his arm and just started crying when I came up with the bottle and saved the day. Surely she knows the difference between the real milk truck and a wannabe? We've all agreed Kirk would be the PERFECT Dad if he had boobs with milk. Glad he doesn't though as it's the one thing I can do for her that he can't!

If she could speak...

she would probably say "is my Mommy a camera?" I constantly am taking photos of her as you never know what funny face she might pull next. This one looks like she is just fed up of having a camera in her face. I know it looks like Kirk is choking her but honest, he's not. He was just burping her after some milk and that's one of the attractive looks she gets on her face. She looks like a worried old man. I love that you can see her dark blue eyes... hope they aren't getting darker and end up brown though. For some reason her hair looks reddish in photos but in real life it's more like Kirk's haircolour. Nothing against red hair but it doesn't run in our family so am not sure where it would be coming from.

Just a quick one...

We had mentioned to my MIL tonight that we had taken a cute photo of Kirk and Noémie taking a little snooze together so I thought I would upload it now. Hope to take more photos tomorrow.

Photos of the day

Noémie gets a very distinct look on her face when she is ready to be fed and last night I captured the look when we were all up at around 3am. She did this in the hospital as well when she was in her incubator. Anytime a nurse walked by with a bottle for another baby (or even when they walked by without a bottle) she would turn and open her mouth. They all found it really cute. In fact she latches onto Kirk's shirts when he holds her so he has spit stains all over him. I know the picture of her crying looks like we waited until she started just to take a picture but that's not the case. She goes from looking around with her mouth wide open to screaming in about 15 seconds. We fed her right after this photo and the last one shows her when she is happy on a full tummy :)

Kirk bought her a bouncy chair yesterday so we tried it out this morning to see if she likes it and she seemed to think it was kinda cool. It reminded me of a photo of myself as a baby in my bouncy chair and I've uploaded the LO of it to see if we look alike or not. Can't find my back up discs to find the larger image so hopefully it's not too tiny. I was about 4 months old or so in the LO compared to her at 16 days. It's amazing how alert she is for such a young baby, even the health visitor and the nurses at the hospital commented on how wide open her eyes are and how strong her neck is as she can pretty much hold her head up already. Of course this is most likely totally normal but we are mesmerised at how fast she is growing! Everyone also seems to be shocked by how long she was at birth. I wonder if she has grown at all in length? She certainly has in weight, she is now just about 8lbs. When she next wakes we will feed her and then take her out for a while in the Bugaboo. Maybe some fresh air and change of atmosphere will do us all some good!

More Pics and Heart Update

Few more pics of Noemie (can't work out how to do the accent on a PC) taken yesterday at 2 weeks old. Good job she is cute or else I would never share pics where I look as fat and crap as I do lately! In some ways it's hard to believe she is already 2 weeks old as we have only had her at home for 4 nights. On the other hand, it's hard to believe she is ONLY 2 weeks old with the amount of stuff she has had to go through.

She did well the night before but last night she would only sleep if held and we finally got her in her basket at 2am or so. Her breathing seemed heavy and congested so I was worried and stayed up until around 4am when it normalised again. We have our health visitor coming this afternoon so I'll have to ask. I don't think it's an issue as she is not going blue and we saw the cardiac specialist yesterday at the Brompton Hospital who listened to her breathing and lungs and didn't seem concerned. She is going to have her heart surgery in the next 2-3 weeks, we have another follow up next Wednesday to determine an exact date. The surgery willl take half a day by the time they get her ready then it's the ICU for 4-5 days and then recovery ward for around 10 days before she comes home assumming all goes well. I go back and forth between being positive and strong and negative and weak. They will give us accommodation so I can stay at the hospital though we are so close I may sleep there at night but go back and forth for a break as I would go insane inside a hospital non stop for 2 weeks.

Good news is she is gaining weight and feeds well and poops and pees like a pro. Wish she would add sleeping at night as part of her repertoire. She is 2 weeks old afterall. Shouldn't she be potty trained and walking by now?

3:30pm in the Baby Noémie Household

What we'd like to know is why doesn't Noémie do this at night? I think they gave us the wrong baby to bring home as the one we had in the hospital slept through the night. This one? Seems to think midnight-4am is party time. Another long night last night where she was unsettled. We're both sleepy today but still not zombies. I'm going to go take a nap now before she wakes up again.

Noémie's home part 2

Feeling slightly more human today though not sure Kirk feels the same. She didn't do too badly but was up from about 2am-4:30am. Kirk dealt with it as I had done the night before and was so sleepy I couldn't really function. Think the stress and everything caught up to me all at once. I was up at 7am for a change and feed and she went back down at 7:45 and is still asleep nearly 4 hours later. Generally during the day she wakes every 4 hours or so, so hopefully I can sleep when she sleeps and get stuff done as well. Am sure that now I've said that she will wake constantly.

On Saturday, Noémie had her first bath. For some reason we never were shown at our ante natal classes so it's a good thing one of the NICU nurses was more than happy to show us. We had Kirk learn how as I figured I wouldn't really remember much (sieve brain and all). She cried for about 30 seconds and then stopped once she realised she actually quite liked the warm water and then just relaxed. So relaxed in fact, as soon as we took her out and put her in a towel on her cot she peed all over the place. Will have to remember that for the next bath sometime this week. It seemed to settle her, that is until a nurse came to do the discharge examination which woke her up again. This picture was taken in the rooming in room on Sunday while we were waiting for the discharge papers. They took their sweet old time doing them, I think to piss us off. It was the person who didn't think we should go who was doing it so I just went and nagged from time to time. What happened was a consultant said it was fine Saturday for us to leave Sunday provided things went well on our overnight stay. It all went well... she ate, slept, and we didn't once need to go ask for assistance. So Sunday, someone else said she spoke to the same consultant moments ago who "changed his mind". It didn't make sense so we asked to speak to him on the phone and she said "let me see if we have his number"... um, if you just spoke to him and he is a consultant in the NICU surely you have his number? She then came back to say he was due in momentarily and would have him come see us. Yep, we called her bluff. No idea why she felt she should lie. The issue was we hadn't taken an Infant CPR class but have signed up for one this afternoon at the hospital. The consultant was fine with that as Noémie never crashed or anything while in the NICU and after 10 days of monitoring he felt that she would be fine. She has a heart defect but her risk of stopping breathing is no greater. Anyway, he just told us what to look out for and what to do in various scenarios.

So we got home and finally the big moment: Mimi meets Noémie. We first put her carseat on the floor and Mimi was pretty much freaked out and belly crawled over to take a look then backed away and took a different approach. I think Noémie's little sounds kinda freak out the poor kitty not to mention all the new smells and stuff. Just wait until Noémie produces another one of her stinky diapers and Mimi will be running for the hills. Last night baby cried so darn loud at one point, Mimi hid under the bed. Shame there isn't enough space for Kirk and I under there. Mimi tried at one point to jump into the Moses basket with baby but we said no and she hasn't tried since. Will just keep an eye on them both but I'm sure it will be fine. We're trying to give Mimi loads of attention as well so she doesn't feel left out.
Last but not least... Kirk and Noémie had a little surprise for me when we got home.I think it's in the US, they have a thing called a "push gift". Like giving birth push. We always joked that I didn't qualify as I had no plans of pushing and besides, I didn't really think it was necessary to get a gift for giving birth. I guess a few weeks ago Kirk had picked up a little package for me from Tiffany's and when I opened it I found a gorgeous pink sapphire and blue sapphire flower necklace on a platinum chain. He said that it wasn't a push gift but a "carry" gift for having carried Noémie around for 10 months. It's so sweet and delicate and I absolutely love it! Just have to be careful that baby doesn't grab it and break it by accident!

So that's my update for now. We are heading back for our CPR class in a couple of hours and for baby to have the standard hearing test they give to all babies (they forgot and actually it was something else they tried to keep her there longer for until I told them it was their problem they forgot to do it in the 10 days she was in there and they had to agree).

Can't believe this entry took me 2-1/2 hours to do. Have managed breakfast and another feed in between but still the day is zooming past. I guess we need to get used to napping at weird hours, cold coffee and food and pretty much operating on Noémie's schedule at least for a little while.

Oh and Diana... she was indeed 57cm at birth. Long baby :)

She's Home!

Finally, we got to bring Noémie home this afternoon. We had to do one night of rooming in before they would let us take her and even today one person tried to tell us we couldn't go home until tomorrow. Needless to say we argued with them and spoke to someone with more authority who told us we could go home. So we packed everything up, strapped her into her carseat and took a black cab home. The cab driver must've thought we were tourists when I took photos in the cab. Kirk then decided he wanted to take a pic of Noémie and I in front of the house. Please excuse my dishevelled appearance, I barely slept last night as it was our first night with her in the same room and she made all sorts of noises I never heard before as the special care room was really noisy in general!

I have a few more pics to share but have to admit I'm barely able to keep my eyes open so they will have to wait until tomorrow when I've hopefully gotten a bit of sleep. Stay tuned! The pics are of her first bath and her first encounter with Mimi!

Guess who is allowed to come home!?!

A few more photos taken today when I opened the blinds and let in some light. Noémie cooperated and even opened her eyes for us. She is quite alert more often now and really is a Daddy's little girl. Kirk also adores her, in fact, I'm not sure who adores who more! I'm hoping that Kirk will take some more pics of her and I together soon! The little pink hat is one I knitted for her yesterday but it was a bit warm in the NICU so she wasn't too keen on wearing it for long. She fed like a champ today and all the nurses adore her and say she is such a good easy baby. She was screaming her head off when we first arrived today but it was only because she was hungry and she settled as soon as she was fed. Such a sweetheart :)

We got the good news tonight that Noémie can come home this weekend. As to what day, it's a matter of figuring out if we want to room in or not before we bring her home. They offer us the option to room in with her for a night or two in the ward in a little room so that if we panic or anything in the middle of the night we are still in the NICU and a nurse can calm us down. Or, worst case something happens that would make being in the hospital a good thing. At the moment the two rooms they have are full though one may be empty tomorrow night but we're not sure yet and we don't want to make her spend more time in the hospital than she already has considering she has to go back in for heart surgery sometime soon. We have a follow up appointment next week at the Brompton and we're a bit nervous that they will say she is doing so well that they should go ahead and do the surgery right away as that will mean another couple of weeks without her at home again. Hope to get a few weeks at least before she has to go back in for more poking and prodding. I guess as we are less than a 5 minute car ride from the hospital is a good thing and as things have been fine while she was in the NICU, there is no indication that anything would go wrong when we get her home. Doubt they would release her if there was any risk. Besides, there is always a risk of something happening even if the baby is completely healthy. Shit happens. We certainly learned that recently.

We thought she was going to have 2 surgeries but now it's *just* the heart. All in all a good prognosis and the heart condition she has apparently has a high recovery and success rate so long as there are no other defects (there aren't). Of course we're still worried and nervous as it is major surgery but things could be so much worse and she is the "best case scenario" in this scenario. Fingers crossed it stays this way.

Better get some more laundry done now and tidy up a bit in case we do bring her home with us tomorrow night! Kirk's back at the hospital doing his evening visit where he pretty much just gazes at her for an hour before he comes home as she is often fast asleep. She is due to be fed at 10pm though so hopefully he gets to do that as I asked the night nurse to wait for him to arrive and feed her.