Meeting Grandma and Grandpa

Fred and Josie made a trip down to visit and to meet Cassidy last weekend! We spent most of our time at the house relaxing and finding ways to sooth Cassidy, who had several really grumpy days in a row. Here are some great pictures with grandma and grandpa.

Go LSU!

Thanks, Becky and Jessica!

Weighing In

Cassidy had her appointment with the Pediatric Orthopedic yesterday to look at her foot. (Her right foot was very crooked at birth because of the lack of space due to the fibroids and our pediatrician recommended that we see an orthopedic doctor.) Over the past 5 weeks, her foot has straightened out considerably, and we were hopeful that it was a positional problem rather than something actually being wrong developmentally. Our hopes were confirmed at the doctor's visit, where he checked out her foot and did an ultrasound of her hips (apparently being a first born, breech, female with a crooked foot puts her in a high risk category for hip problems). We got the "all clear" on both. He wasn't at all concerned about her foot and said we should continue massaging it, straightening it into the proper position and it will be just fine; and her hip ultrasounds looked great!

We asked them to weigh her while we were there.... she weighed in at 8lbs 14oz!!!!!!

She's growing so fast!!!!

Meanwhile, I'm pleasantly surprised with my post pregnancy weight progress. I had gained 31 pounds from my 8 week appointment throughout pregnancy (and I was up a few following christmas and mardi gras when I found out I was pregnant). Now, 5 weeks post pregnancy, I'm down 35 pounds. I'm sure being sick in the hospital is responsible for a few of those pounds, but I have to say I'm relieved anyway, as I was pretty worried about the pregnancy weight gain and tried really hard to keep it to a minium -- quite a challenge when not allowed to exercise for the better portion of the pregnancy and craving only carbs!

On Monday I had another CT Scan and they removed the drainage tube from my abdomen! The area being drained was completely clear. There is still a small abscess in another area, but the doctor was confident that it would resolve itself now that any infection should be gone as a result of the antibiotics. So I'm on my way to healing completely!

Returning to Mom

Last night Cassidy didn't want to go to sleep after her 9:30 feeding.

I held, rocked, and sang to her until she fell asleep.

I'm starting to feel like her mom again.

In this picture, she's sleeping on Jeff's belly

(3 weeks, 6 days old)

Cheering Up

Thank you, Sandy.

They're beautiful.

Thank you, Haas Lab.

Love the birds of paradise in here!

Return to the Living.

I'm back.

I'm home, and extremely happy to be here.

I've just returned from another stay in the hospital, this one because of some major complications from the c section that came up last week. After a trip to the ER on wednesday night due to a fever of 103.8 in spite of antibiotics and acetominophen, I was admitted. By thursday night I was hooked up to an IV with several types of antibiotics pumping into me and having ultrasounds and CT scans to locate the problem(s). By friday or saturday (the days tend to blend together when alternating between crying, sleeping, and being stuck like a pin cusion every 5 minutes) I had a tube coming out of my abdomen draining blood and nastiness into a bag which clips to my clothes.

The diagnosis: infection of my uterus, an abscess in my abdomen thought to be caused by a fibroid continuing to bleed after the c-section, and a surface infection on my abdomen near the incision site. (This diagnosis tends to change daily depending on whether speaking to my OB/gyn, my infectious diseases doctor, or the radiologist--- who knew I'd have so many doctors?) What a mess.

I'm home for now, and afraid to be too optomistic. I still have the drainage bag attached and a tube leading into my stomach. I have home health care coming here to change my bandages for my surface infection, and I'm on major doses of oral antibiotics. The next few days will bring more visits to my doctor and hopefully only one more CT scan.

In the mean time, I've given up breast feeding because of all the chemicals pumped into me that wouldn't be good for Cassidy. In addition, I decided that waking up every 2-3 hours to pump to maintain my milk supply would be rather counter productive to trying to fight off infection and actually heal. Cassidy seems to be doing fine on formula, still gaining weight.

Jeff, my mom, and dad are my heroes. They are not only taking care of Cassidy, but are now taking care of me as well. They are amazing and have been wonderful through all of this, visiting me in the hospital, listening to me cry, bringing me food which most of the time I didn't eat more than a few bites of, and just being supportive.

Since I can barely hold Cassidy for more than a few minutes because of the tube in my stomach, I'm pretty much useless as a mother right now. This is not what I expected the first month to be like. But at least I'm alive.

Jeff figured out that I've spent 11 of the last 26 days in the hospital. Crazy.

I'll try to post some more pictures of Cassidy soon.