Mira Bella Lindskog was born on May 29th at 4:02pm. Her birth story is long and complicated and too much for me to write now (I am sacrificing my two precious hours of sleep to write this). She came 9 weeks early (the day after Memorial Day). Why I went into labor so early is still a mystery. She spent 6 weeks in the NICU. Walking out of the hospital without her was the hardest thing to do. For the 6 weeks she was in the NICU, Gregg and I were effectively a single parent household. Mira had one parent in the hospital with her while Asha had the other. The best part of our days were holding her in the NICU and the worst ones were when she would stop breathing (usually during feeding) and go limp and blue. Gregg and I got so good at bringing her out of it that the nurses would simply come and stand quietly behind us when her alarms went off.
Mira came home on July 9th on a heart monitor. They diagnosed her with severe GERD which they conjectured was causing her to stop breathing. Our schedule is easier now that we are not frantically driving back and forth from the hospital. Mira does have a lot of issues - low red and white blood cell counts, GERD, apnea etc. We are swamped with doctor's appointments - to a pulmonologist, a hematologist, an opthamologist and a GI. Oh and her regular pediatrician too!!! She is not really allowed out of the house except for these appointments due to her compromised immune system and susceptability to germs. Life inside the house is made more difficult by the fact that she has to be near an outlet at all times to keep her monitor plugged in. This limits our mobility and makes simple things like cooking and diaper changes difficult. In addition, she eats about 2oz every 2 hours, day and night, and so Gregg and I average about 3-4 hours sleep every 24 hour period. Our oldest, however, is sleeping 9:30pm-5:30am - problem is, we have been up most of the night when she gets up and her nap is a total of 30 minutes. The last couple of nights Mira has eaten 3oz every 3 hours and we hope this trend continues.
Asha has adjusted to Mira fabulously. She wakes up excited to see the "baby". Any noise from the baby and she runs to inform her parents. She kisses and hugs her. We have to watch out for over-enthusiasm - she tries to share food with her by stuffing it in her mouth, tries to give her the pacifier and pick her up. There is a 19 month age gap between the two. Asha also LOVES Gymboree and we have been trying to take her there every day. Her language is coming along well. I will write her 2-year update in a few weeks.
The new semester is coming up. Asha will go to daycare for 5 hour/day. Gregg and I coordinated our schedules so we can hand Mira back and forth. This is when I am to apply for tenure. How I will do that, I do not know. The file is due November 1st. So...a lot of stress. But all said and done, we are just hoping and praying that Mira continues on the mend and that slowly we can get rid of the monitor and the 5 meds she is on for GERD.
What a summer!!!!!
Mira came home on July 9th on a heart monitor. They diagnosed her with severe GERD which they conjectured was causing her to stop breathing. Our schedule is easier now that we are not frantically driving back and forth from the hospital. Mira does have a lot of issues - low red and white blood cell counts, GERD, apnea etc. We are swamped with doctor's appointments - to a pulmonologist, a hematologist, an opthamologist and a GI. Oh and her regular pediatrician too!!! She is not really allowed out of the house except for these appointments due to her compromised immune system and susceptability to germs. Life inside the house is made more difficult by the fact that she has to be near an outlet at all times to keep her monitor plugged in. This limits our mobility and makes simple things like cooking and diaper changes difficult. In addition, she eats about 2oz every 2 hours, day and night, and so Gregg and I average about 3-4 hours sleep every 24 hour period. Our oldest, however, is sleeping 9:30pm-5:30am - problem is, we have been up most of the night when she gets up and her nap is a total of 30 minutes. The last couple of nights Mira has eaten 3oz every 3 hours and we hope this trend continues.
Asha has adjusted to Mira fabulously. She wakes up excited to see the "baby". Any noise from the baby and she runs to inform her parents. She kisses and hugs her. We have to watch out for over-enthusiasm - she tries to share food with her by stuffing it in her mouth, tries to give her the pacifier and pick her up. There is a 19 month age gap between the two. Asha also LOVES Gymboree and we have been trying to take her there every day. Her language is coming along well. I will write her 2-year update in a few weeks.
The new semester is coming up. Asha will go to daycare for 5 hour/day. Gregg and I coordinated our schedules so we can hand Mira back and forth. This is when I am to apply for tenure. How I will do that, I do not know. The file is due November 1st. So...a lot of stress. But all said and done, we are just hoping and praying that Mira continues on the mend and that slowly we can get rid of the monitor and the 5 meds she is on for GERD.
What a summer!!!!!
3 comments:
I cannot believe all you have been through...and now you have to apply for tenure?! You are a champ! hang in there, hun. I want more pictures of both girls!! But I know spare time is tough - I can't imagine having your schedule :)
What a summer you have had Nitu - Mira and your whole family will be in my thoughts and prayers and I hope she continues to do better and better. As for tenure, maybe someone in your dept. will share their file with you to look at? - this helped me a lot. I wish you a healthy and as restful as possible remainder of the summer!
Lots of hugs and kisses to all of you. Am thinking about you!
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