Stuff and Other Stuff

My husband and I came home yesterday, and are taking it easy this weekend. I made a big pot of chicken and dumplings today, and we pigged out. It was good to eat something besides hospital food. We got soooo tired of that stuff. I also went and bought some new glasses. The frames I was wearing was driving me crazy because they never fit right. I took a pair of frames I had worn before and liked, and they had them ready in an hour.
The baby is now going over her last hurdle, getting off the oxygen. She's doing great with weaning from it so far. She's eating well, gaining weight, and may get her pic line out soon. I really expect my daughter to be bringing her home soon. I won't get to see her much when she goes home, until my daughter can get out and come here. They have four cats, and cats give me asthma attacks. I will miss the baby so much! I'm so attached to her already. I am going back next week each morning, to the hospital, and drive back home at night. It's about an hour and a half each way, but we've been staying with one of my daughter's friends and I feel like we've imposed enough.
I read a couple of books while I was sitting at the hospital. One was "The Road", the Oprah bookclub one, and the other was "Magic in Ordinary Time." Both were good. Those are the first books I've finished in awhile.
Tomorrow I have to do a ton of laundry. I think everything we own is dirty. I spent most of the day today working on baby bibs and receiving blankets out of some flannel and fleece I had stored in my fabric stash, so I can take them down there on Monday.
I am so tired tonight, nothing is on tv, nothing on our TIVO. When I was a teenager, I hated sitting home on Saturday night, and sometimes I still do.

Cutie!

The baby is doing great. She is drinking breast milk from a bottle now, and they are thinking about moving her to a "transitional nursery" and out of the NICU. I have been able to hold her and feed her.

I think we will probably stay until Friday and then go home once my son-in-law is off work and can stay with my daughter at the hospital.

I really LOVE being a granny. Everyone told me how great it was, but it's better than I imagined.

Claire is OFF the Ventilator!

She is now just on oxygen in the little cannula around her face. She's doing great! She is now in a big girl crib and loves her new mobile and aquarium, but these were taken before the vent was taken out.

Hello World!

We had quite a scare today with the baby. She started having trouble breathing and her blood gases were coming back worse as the day went on. The doctors said there was a slight chance it could be the tube they used to intubate her, but they were apprehensive about changing it because they had such a time getting it in to begin with. But they decided around noon that they had to change it because she was doing so badly. They took out the old one, and sure enough, it was clogged. Poor baby couldn't breathe because of the tube and nothing was coming out of the tube! They got a new one in, and said by the time that sort of thing could happen to this one, it will be out of her anyway. Now she's doing great. They turned the vent way down, and she's awake and looking around and feeling much better. Here's one with her eyes open. They are going to try to wean her off the ventilator this weekend.
We came home but plan to go back on Monday morning. We needed to retrieve our puppies from the boarding place for a bit, get some laundry done, get mail, etc. But we feel so out of it being here and the baby being there! I can't wait to get back down there to see her. Her grandpa feels the same way.

Surgery Update

The baby had surgery last night, and it took from 6:15 PM until 10:20. They were able to do it laproscopically, which was a good sign (that she withstood that like a trooper.) She is swollen quite a bit from the fluids. They did not have to use a patch for the repair, but were able to use her own tissue, which "grows" with her, unlike a patch. The doctor said her diaphragm was very thin, more like a membrane than a muscle, but the muscle around it gave her enough to work with for the repair.

She said our next step is to let her rest a few days and then start weaning from the ventilator. That process takes about a week, if it goes perfectly. Then she plans to begin feeding by mouth, which also takes another week, if it goes perfectly. She said she will be in the hospital then, a minimum of two more weeks.

Thanks for all your prayers. Keep them up!

Baby's Surgery Tomorrow

Our granddaughter is doing so well, they plan to do her surgery tomorrow afternoon (Wed). She got one of the best pediatric surgeons for this type of surgery, and so we were very relieved to get this one. They said the surgery will take about two hours, and then they will keep her in the surgical suite for a couple of hours before bringing her back up to the NICU. Keep praying, as we are all concerned.
She was resting better, but today has been arching her little back and holding her breath, trying to cry. Of course, with the ventilator, there is no sound. It is the most pitiful thing you've ever seen. My daughter cries, I cry. It's like she's mad at all the tubes and wires and not being held. We feel very helpless. The nurses are very compassionate and keep her sedated as well as they can, but I guess there will be times like this no matter what they do. The good thing is, after she gets over being mad and calms down, her levels all go back to normal without much intervention. After the surgery, they will try to wean her from the vent slowly, and then attempt to feed her by mouth rather than the IV stuff she gets now.
We are tired, but very happy she's doing so well. I'll keep writing as I can.
I've gotten so many nice comments lately on the blog, on new entries as well as old. I just want you to know I appreciate all the comments and well-wishes from new friends and old.

Baby is Here

My granddaughter was born on Thursday night. She is in the NICU for a diaphragmatic hernia but is doing very good. They plan to do her corrective surgery on Wed afternoon. My daughter is doing well but still has quite a bit of swelling, especially in her feet, especially after sitting all day in the NICU with the baby, but there's not way we are getting her out of there!
She's the prettiest baby I've ever seen. Yes, I know all Grandma's say that, but she really is! :-)
I am staying near the hospital and will be here probably for some time, but will update my blog as I can.
Please continue your prayers for her.
She weighed 5 lbs 8 oz and was 19 inches long. She's a cutie! I'll try to post a picture on this site soon.

Baby's Coming

My daughter saw her OB today and her blood pressure is "through the roof," she said. They said she has pre-eclampsia. They want her to be admitted now and will try to induce this afternoon. She has been having a LOT of swelling but Tuesday of last week, her BP was fine. Things change quickly. We are on our way down there. I will keep you updated and take my laptop to the hospital. Keep them in your prayers.

Don't Go Into Labor, I'm Sewing

It was another lazy weekend. My husband and I went shopping awhile on Saturday. Yesterday he watched tv while I played a free online lottery game.I'm trying to win a gift card and I'm half-way there after two days, which tells you how bored I must be to spend all day playing a computer game.
I told my daughter she can't go into labor until I get some jeans made, so I start on those today. She said she would do her best. ha. I need some new jeans to take down there so I won't have to do laundry as often.
My biopsy came back normal. I figured it would as my doctor overreacts to everything. But it was glad to hear anyway.
I've been doing a lot of secret shops lately as a famous fast food restaurant that starts with a Mc.....and have noticed I've gained two pounds, which I sure don't need. So this weekend I took my husband with me, and then we dropped the food off at my friend's house. Her kids loved it. So that worked out better than me eating it. See, I don't like the grilled chicken. When I go, I want the Big Mac. I know, I know. It's loaded with fat. But it's still good.
I'm trying to convince my husband that our eating out is as cheap as eating in, if we use coupons. He's not completely sold on the idea but did say he didn't care if I just made soup and sandwiches or hot dogs or something simple instead of a full-fledged meal every night. I guess tonight's menu is tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. That's one of my favorites.
Geez, this whole blog is about food, but since I haven't had breakfast yet, I guess that explains it.
I bought some sock puppets to make at the hospital when I go with my daughter. It says you have to hot glue them, but I didn't realize that when I bought them. I think I could probably hand sew them instead, but haven't quite figured out if that would work or not. I may just end up taking some magazines and forgetting the crafty thing. Reading makes me so sleepy though, especially if I am just sitting.
Saturday night my middle son, the one who just graduated and moved into his own apartment came over for dinner and brought Vacancy for us to watch. It was the spookiest movie since The Hitcher. The previews made it look terrible, but it was much better than the previews.
Well I have to go get started sewing. My daughter can only hang on so long.....

The Fabric Stores Love Me

It's getting really close to time for the baby to come. I have canceled appointments so I am free for most of June and July. I am both anxious and excited. I'm sure my daughter is too. On one hand, we want to get the baby here. On the other hand, we worry about how she will do. My daughter writes to a lady who's son was at the NICU when we toured there. He also has CDH and had been in there for some time. My daughter wrote her to get an update and found out he had died. But he was one of the worse cases they had seen.

Right now, I'm on a sewing kick. I made a pillow today, and I think it turned out well. I was happy with it. The new sewing machine sews great. The old one that I just had tuned up was sewing good at first, then started getting threads all bound up in the bobbin area. I tried everything I knew but nothing worked. I just switched to the new machine, and finished it on there.

I made that duvet cover and still need to make a bed skirt, curtains, and pillows for our bedroom. All in time.

I'm up at 130 in the morning because for some reason, I just can't sleep tonight. My brain won't shut up. ha. Some days are like that. My mind jumps from one thing to the next. I feel like I have to be doing something every minute of the day. I'm either on the computer or watching tv (usually both of those at once), or cleaning, or sewing, or calling my friend, Dawn. I am terrified of just sitting and doing nothing. I've been shopping way too much lately, and we can't afford what I've been buying, so I'm trying to make up for it with my secret shopping and writing. I've submitted fifteen articles in May for Associated Content on everything from Mormons to choosing a refrigerator. Pretty much anything I see on tv that gives me an idea I research and write about.

Between my secret shopping, writing, and my clothes at the consignment shop, I should be able to pay down my credit cards, which I have cut up to stop the spending. It called for drastic measures. I wonder why people shop compulsively. I shop compulsively, eat compulsively, and also obsess abut whatever my current interest is, and for right now it's sewing. Before I went through phases on studying the Dulcimer, making jewelry, scrap booking, collecting books, studying different religions, whatever my latest kick happens to be. I pick something, think about it all the time, collect everything I can to read on the subject, buy everything I need to have to do it with, and then quickly move on to something else. I don't know why I do it. A psychic friend said I am in an information gathering stage in my life. All I know is it doesn't feel normal.

My therapist told me a few weeks ago that there are actually "some
people who do nothing and never are bored." I just stared at her. She repeated it. I still stared. I still don't get that. I think if I'm not busy, I'd go stir-crazy.
I love being holed up in this house, only going out when I absolutely have to, and otherwise just isolating here. It's comfortable to me.

It seems like there has been a wide range of bad luck this year. If I knew anything about horoscopes I would figure it's got to have something to do with that. First my friend's divorce, my daughter's baby's birth defect, her husbands business problems, now her best friend got laid off this week, her brother in law is having problems that affect them, the list goes on and on. I really feel like I desperately need a cruise, badly, or at least a weekend at a retreat somewhere. But oh well....Maybe later.