Smile!

I'm smiling right now because miss ellie is actually taking a nap in her bassinet. We've been having a difficult time getting her to sleep, getting her to sleep in her bassinet, and getting her to sleep more than 1-2 hours at a time. A friend from church let me borrow the book "secrets of the baby whisperer" and just from what I read this morning I feel encouraged. Now ellie finally fell asleep in her bassinet on the 3rd try, but I'll take it. I also bought another type of Enfamil formula, thinking that maybe she's not staying full long enough during the night. So I'm hoping mixing the 2 types of formula (one non-milk based, hypoallergenic, proten-broken down kind and the milk-based, partially broken down protein kind) will help her sleep longer. Pray for her and us.
Since yesterday was Fast Sunday at church I decided to fast for Ellie to feel better (reflux, thrush), but also for greater patience and ability to care for her when she is being fussy. It sure helps to pray for that in addition for her to be less fussy!
But boy we sure love our fussy lady

Blessing day

In the LDS church we do not baptize infants. Children however have the opportunity to receive a blessing that pronounces upon them what their name will be and then the voice of the blessing (ususally the father) gives the baby a blessing as he feels guided by the Spirit. Yesterday Ellinor was blessed by her dad at church, with her Papa (Nate's dad Dan) and uncle Brandon standing in the circle. It was a sweet blessing. In addition to Nate's parents, many of my family were able to come for the blessing. Thank you all for your support of our little lady.

One month old!

just because she's beautiful!

so Ellie just about threw herself off of Nate's chest. Fortunately, Nate has cat like reflexes and caught her.

new toy

okay so it's not a toy, but i'm still enjoying it. this wrap has let me get some stuff done while keeping ellie happy. still trying to master the technique but for the most part she seems to enjoy it too.

I have "de what?"

I finally went to the MD on Thursday to discuss my wrists. Apparently I am not suffering from carpal tunnel currently, though I did have it during pregnancy. Now my problem is called "De Quervain's tenosynovitis," which is this: the sheath of the tendons on the thumb side of your wrist becomes inflamed or swollen, restricting the tendons' movement. The result with de Quervain's tenosynovitis is discomfort and pain every time you turn your wrist, grasp anything or make a fist.
So, now I'm wearing bilateral thumb spica splints to restrict my thumb movement. What is that you may be asking yourself. Here, I'll give you a visual


As you can see, even holding Ellinor is difficult. What a nuisance. Hopefully I won't have to wear them too long before my problem is resolved.

what kind of thumbs do you have?

I just had to post this because Abby's thumbs make me laugh (I love you Abby!). She calls them her hitch hiker thumbs. she said it hurts to try to make them straighten out. What do your thumbs look like?

the many faces of ellinor

nate thought it'd be funny to give her an "80's" look, thus the "sweatband"

my 2nd favorite place

my recliner. #1 is still my bed. pretty much every day i bring ellinor downstairs, we plop into the recliner, feed her and then we both go back to sleep for a couple hours.


photography by nate

darn wrists

so my carpal tunnel in my wrists is NOT getting better. in fact it's gotten worse in my left wrist. there's times when i can't even pick ellie up cuz my joint gives out. i'm going to the MD tomorrow to see what options i have. i'm hoping some physical therapy will do the trick. i definitely don't want to have to go more invasive, but also there's no way i could work with my wrists like they are now. so something will have to be done. let's hope i can avoid surgery.

first night alone

nate had to work last night and boy was she a stinker! i was almost at the point of letting her cry herself to sleep, but finally after 2 hours of messing with her she fell asleep. i've got to find a smoother way of taking her from sleeping on my chest to putting her down in the bassinet, it always wakes her up.

Great Grandma meets Ellie

We were able to spend last Saturday afternoon with Grandma LaRoy. Ellie slept the whole time and Grandma loved holding her.

answers

it was nice for all 3 of us to come home today! ellie had a couple tests done yesterday and today. the barium swallow showed normal physical structure, but did show that she has esophageal reflux. the swallow study done today by the speech pathologist showed that ellie has a super strong suck but also immature in that she takes in quite a bit of air and doesn't take enough breaks for breathing, which adds to the reflux problem. the speech pathologist gave us some guidelines for feeding ellie now on her side to slow down her sucking and improve her swallowing. ellie doesn't seem to mind it which is good. we also have to keep her upright for her feedings and 30 minutes afterwards. we put her bassinet up on blocks so that she will sleep on an incline. the MD prescribed zantac to help with her reflux and said to give maalox and tylenol as needed for pain if we see she's having a lot of pain with feedings. the MD will follow up with ellie on monday and said most likely this is what her problem has been. ellie has done well with the new feeding position and hasn't had any vomiting incidents since last night.
i know it probably sounds silly to some that we spent 3 days in the hospital to get a diagnosis of reflux but we don't regret taking her in at all. with her starting out having lost 10% of her body weight and with the 3 days of feeding problems we needed to get help quickly. doing outpatient office visits would have taken a lot longer to diagnose and they wouldn't have been as thorough. so we're grateful for the peace of mind going to the hospital brought.

nate's blunder

while ellie and i were in the hospital (the first time just after her birth) nate was standing in line at safeway with a big boquet of flowers for his ladies (with minimal sleep he wants me to add) and the cashier asked something like "are you going to get me flowers next time." nate responded saying "yeah, if you have my baby." then once he realized how bad that sounded he clarified by saying "but that won't happen." i guess the lady behind nate in line got a kick out of the exchange. when nate told me i had a great laugh.

first hospital experience

sunday night i finally decided to take ellie to the ER. after more than 3 days of being really fussy, some throwing up, and not eating well we thought it best. at first i thought changing up the formula she was eating might solve it, but 2 different formulas didn't change anything. nate had to go to work sunday night and i just didn't think i could do another night like the last 3, especially alone. so anyways, we went to Cardon Children's. they drew blood and urine and initially found some bacteria in her urine so they wanted to rule out meningitis. i guess being irritable and decreased feeding is one of the first signs of infection. fortunately, the result for meningitis was also negative, but they still admitted her due to the initial concerns and because of her age/size. she saw the pediatrician monday morning and we were really impressed with her. the MD didn't seem too concerned about infection and my main concern was never infection, but rather that she has something wrong with her GI tract/system. so the MD is having speech pathology evaluate her suck/swallow to see if she just doesn't have the proper technique; also going to do an upper GI study to eval for reflux and also a barrium swallow which will look for structural concerns.
sounds like we will most likely be going home tomorrow and hopefully with answers.
i am looking forward to taking our baby home. i love her so much.

more vomit

it's amazing how vomiting up everything you've eaten in the last 24+ hours can make you feel so much better, to the point of being able to sleep soundly. that seems to be what happened to Ellie. we've had quite the week of trying to figure out what is ailing her. it's been obvious that it's something with her digestive tract. at first we thought she was just getting too much from those "non slow flow nipples," so we found better nipples. however her fussing and crying when eating continued so then we thought she was just constipated and switched formula brands at the suggestion of the NP at the peds office (this was the night that nate had to find a walmart open past midnight and we all finally got to bed at 3am). even after a couple soft bowel movements though, she still continued to cry. she would act very hungry, take the bottle for a few sips and then spit it out upset. she was burping fine and passing A LOT of smelly gas, but still seemed upset. then this morning she had another one of her vomitting episodes. this was just after we had prayed to know how to help her. so my first thought was maybe it's a milk issue and we just haven't found the right formula, maybe she has a milk sensitivity. so i got online this morning and while "they" say it's not common for infants to have a true lactose allergy i still think it might be her issue. so nate broke the sabbath day for us and bought yet another can of formula, this time a soy based one. she's had one bottle so far and is now sleeping well. i'm going to lay down on the couch now and try to get a nap too while dad is at church. i made nate sleep in the other room last night since he has to work tonight. he got about 10 hours of really good sleep...i'm just a little jealous. but, then i don't have to go to work tonight and get to hold our sweet baby. i'll take the less amount of sleep over work.
anyone have any suggestions? similar experiences with the formula stuff?

What a sleeper!

All this sleeping gives me time to catch up posting her beautiful face on here. My sister Wendy came over today and I was able to take a 40 minute nap before I had to get up to pump. It was lovely. Ellie slept the entire time Wendy was holding her. Nate went and ran some errands, like find a "real" slow flow nipple to avoid future vomiting experiences(see pictures below) and got some groceries. We went for a quick walk outside. That sure was nice to be outside and the weather was perfect. So today was: up at 11:30 (up for the day that is after all the other times we got up in the night),shower, pump, eat breakfast, bathe baby, pump again, start laundry, take short nap, pump, go for walk, eat dinner, pump, have FHE while pumping (that is multitasking at its best!), eat dessert, update blog, now it's time to pump! So, in between all that Ellie was fed, diapered, held, sniffed (i love her smell) I wish I had a crystal ball telling me that yes this pumping will all be worth it or no just bag it and convert to formula. I guess time will tell. At 6 am this morning, Ellie was wide awake and so we had a lovely time gazing at eachother. I think that was my favorite part of today.



This is my "those 'slow flow' nipples are NOT slow flow" smile. Ellie lost her lunch and probably breakfast and every other meal too. Fortunately it was already on my to do list of giving her a bath today!


It even got in her ear!



"I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin" Sure wish we knew what she was thinking!






Heading home!

feelings...

it has been an emotional night and day today. we had to supplement ellie's feedings starting last night because after multiple attempts, she refused to suck at the breast. i guess my milk is taking longer than she wants to come in. our first visit at the pediatrician's office today was a blessing, i think i have a new grandma! the NP that checked ellie out could obviously (by my crying) tell that i was struggling with this whole nursing thing and gave us a referral to a lactation consultant. after talking the the LC i feel a lot better about the situation. and i have to continue to remind myself that whether or not breastfeeding works out it's not THAT important in the big scheme of things. i was looking at ellie today and (probably stemming over from the whole days emotions) starting bawling. i had to let nate know that it wasn't because of the nursing issue, but rather how amazed i am that we were entrusted with such a big gift from God that has no health issues. to me this is huge because of all the suppressed thoughts i had multiple times that she could have any number of serious health problems. just another reminder in the power of priesthood blessings. somewhere near the beg. to middle of pregnancy i got a blessing and was told to have peace about the pregnancy and the baby. from that time i really did have peace about the success of all this.
so anyways, ellie has been sleeping most of the afternoon after she got her first shot. nate is up napping. i laid down too but had too many thoughts in the head to keep lying there.
well, baby is stirring! weird to say that :)