2 Months Later

We passed the 2 month mark for Natalie on March 20th. I cannot believe it has been 2 months, but at the same time, I feel like she has been a part of our family a lot longer. She is loving her open crib and so are we since we can touch her so much easier. She is becoming a pacifier pro and tries to hold it in place with her little hand, but only manages to keep it for a couple of minutes before it inevitably pops out. 

She has lost all her puffiness and lost the water weight like she was supposed to. However, she continued to lose and after the fourth day in a row of weight loss, they were concerned because too much was being outputted into her bag. On the last day she was outputting as much as her feeds were and it was all liquid. So the surgeon was right all those weeks ago because she had started dumping her food because of how high in her intestines her disconnect is located. So they put her back on IV nutrition and lowered her feeds to try to find a happy medium because they need her to keep growing. Yesterday did not make much of a change and she still lost weight, but today her bag contents were much less and much better, so hopefully they found the magic combination. They weigh her during night shift, so we will find out later tonight if she lost or gained.

As for us, Jimmy is plowing through tax season at his job and preparing for his final CFA exam in June while visiting Natalie every night. So far he has not had a (major) meltdown and is keeping up a decent balance, but I know it is very hard on him. Tomorrow, I go back to work until she comes home. My work has been very helpful and supportive throughout the past couple of months and have worked with me to figure out what will work best. It will be hard for many reasons, but my main concern is that the weekly attending doctor is only there until four every day and I will not be there in the morning when they do rounds. I have always been there for the majority of each day so I was able to give good feedback or answer different questions the medical staff had so they did not have to go searching through records. I went down on my weekly hours, but am maintaining full time so I will be able to get out by three each day. Then I will rush there, check in with the doctor, do kangaroo (which we do for three hours) and then hopefully get home between 8-9 at night. I am pretty sure I will be exhausted, but I keep reminding myself, this will give me over three months to be with her when she comes home which is crucial. I will be very happy I made this decision then (I am going to be repeating this to myself a lot in the coming weeks).

Otherwise, her surgery schedule is still on with the ligation this week and her reconnection two weeks later, so we will have a busy few weeks and I am able to take off work for her surgeries. I am excited that soon these issues that have been hanging over us will be resolved and she can just work on growing and getting ready to come home.

A special dose of Natalie Rose today with some beautiful pictures taken by my friend, Kathleen, when she visited this past weekend.