We came home with a little nugget of a boy, barely 6 lbs 5 oz after losing almost a pound in the hospital, and struggled through a lot of November to put him back to his birth weight. We struggled with breast milk jaundice, which was a huge slap in the face since this time around I had milk aplenty to feed the boy. This basically kept the boy jaundiced (not extremely so), kept him sleepy, and it was such a challenge to wake him up and feed him. I did all sorts of tricks to try to overcome it, and it worked pretty good but not great, and I was mentally and physically exhausted from everything.
Then there was a hole in the heart scare that started with a murmur and a chest x-ray and escalated to an immediate trip to Children's to rule out what the technician thought he/she saw. God bless the wonderful African-born cardiologist with her familiar accent who walked into the room after the echocardiogram and said "First off I wish to say I bring NO BAD NEWS". Until that moment, I didn't realize P and I had been holding out breath. Henry lay lazily against my chest, stressed out and exhausted from the traumatic ordeal of having his heart ultrasound.
We started supplementing a simple 2-4 oz a day and finally countered the damn jaundice and Henry woke up and started eating like there was no tomorrow, gaining 13 oz in a single week once he stopped being so damn tired from the excess bilirubin that just refused to break down and go away.
We had a few people over for Thanksgiving, and then we had visits from P's parents and my father and step mother that were nice and exhausting all in the same visits. It was difficult to convey to them what we needed, how we could be helped and it amazed me how they would stand there and await instructions on what to do with their granddaughter, or stare at dishes and not wash them. I had never been so glad to have them gone, because it was like taking care of a multitude of people, and it just was so damn exhausting just taking care of Henry.
Trying to get ready for Christmas was insane. We managed to get the tree, decorate the tree, pull out the decorations, shop and truth be told, it's all a blur. The girl had a fantastic time, and so did the boy, but all Christmas felt to me was the endpoint, for it was the week after Christmas that I was due back to work.
Sweet Girl With her Dolly
Sweet Boy with his Reindeer Rattle
This past week was my first week back to work, and it was a great time to go back because almost 95% of my team was out on vacation. I managed to get my bearings and get over my frustrations out about things that just fell apart. But I was grateful the lab was in one piece--it's really all that I could ask for.
Pumping has been going pretty well. But most people were gone this past week, so I could relax and let it happen. When everyone is back, knocking on my door, demanding my attention, we will see how it goes.
There is more to say, about how the hole in the heart scare really shook me to my core, and how all of this has segued into the shit month of January. The highs of the girl's birthday in less than a week and the lows of Ronan's 4 year anniversary.
I can't get my head around the fact that it's been four years. Jesus, where does the time go?
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