I Have Hands!

This sure didn’t take long – Brigitta has discovered that she has these cool new tools, one right and one left, that are great for knocking pacifiers out of your mouth, keeping people from dressing you in some new outfit, or better yet, people from taking off the nice warm outfit you currently wearing. She has waved her hands before, but now she has pretty good control over them now – especially the knocking pacifiers out of her mouth. The record so far is three feet (one meter), which she did last night just to show me how upset she was that I changed her diapers. I am checking to see what the Olympic record is just in case.

Another neat observation – she laughs in her dreams. She can’t even smile right now when she is awake, which is natural. However, when she dreams, she goes through all these facial expressions. One is a full out giggle – with dimple, thank you very much. I thought I was imagining this but I have seen this a few times now. This all brings up two questions. First question is whether laughing is a hardwired ability? It seems kind of strange that she obviously knows how to laugh from what she shows in her dreams, but she won’t develop this as a cognitive ability for about 6 to 18 weeks. Second question is what the heck is she dreaming about when she is laughing? Ah – the important things you contemplate at 3am in the morning when you are holding a baby who only wants to sleep while you hold them.


Brigitta Nurilham preparing for one of her dreams. I will see if I can catch one of her giggling sessions on video tape one of these days.


I found out that Brigitta really likes certain music videos - actually listens more to the voice. She has very specific tastes though. So far, she likes Willie Nelson, Lou Reed, and David Bowie. She is so so about Ray Charles and Frank Zappa. She doesn’t like the Beatles or New Order. Interesting taste that girl. This picture is of me playing different songs on youtube for her. Ah… the new generation … weblogs, youtube, etc, … and only 9 days old.


Rimau trying to figure out what this little bed and wiggling occupant is all about. She was getting closer until Brigitta began to cry … at which point Rimau decided it was more expedient to run away.


This is the corner of our bedroom for Brigitta. We are letting her sleep here for a while before we see if she likes her nursery. This is her co-sleeper next to MY side of the bed. Behind is the rocking chair and above is the new shelf I put in for the humidifier (in black) and the monitoring camera (in white).

Haniza is having a rough time still. She is having an allergic reaction to one of the medications she is on it seems. But with all the hormones changing as well as being on multiple medications, it’s really hard to know who the culprit is. Poor girl has welts all over her body and she really itches at night – so much, that it is hard for her to sleep. The doctors gave her a new pain medication in case that is the issue, but just to make sure, Haniza is going off all her pain medications and toughing out the pain. I just wish there was something more I could do for her. I just hope whatever is causing the allergic reaction goes away soon.


Poor Haniza has this rash all over her body. We are hoping once she quits taking her pain medications, these things will begin to go away – the big question is just how long it will take for this allergic reaction to flush out of her system. But I really respect that she is willing to endure the pain of the operation by going off her meds in order to get rid of the hives.

Haniza with ‘Love Bug’. She got the nickname from one of her outfits that has Love Bug written on the front. So when she is happy we call her ‘Love Bug’; but when she is not so happy, we call her ‘Mad Bug’. I know, its kind of corny, but hey, this our first one together.

I missed my Saturday night music selection as I fell asleep at the computer last night. So it is now a Sunday night music selection. This evening I will leave you with one the greatest of them all and one of my favorite song by him. Jimi was one unique musician using a right hand strat (guitar) turned upside down and restrung (since he was left-handed), which gave a pretty distinctive sound as well. This is dedicated to Brigitta’s dreams – enjoy.

Later Folks,

Kevin

Two Depart, Three Return

HOME!!!! Finally we made it back home. We took a little detour from the trip we had planned, but in the end, we have our daughter back home and she is doing well.

Let me fill you in on day four, the trip home. We got the final report from the doctor on Brigitta's condition Tuesday morning and he signed her release form. Blood sugars holding stable without having to go to formula so that worked out well from our point of view since we didn't want her having any formula to get 'hooked' on.

Then Haniza's doctor gave the final release authority for her. She is still fighting a low grade infection with antibiotics but nothing they have to do with an IV - so good to go. The only other problem was she was starting to have a rash - not sure if it is a reaction to meds or hormone related but will follow up with doctors later this week.

This is me and Brigitta as we are waiting for the release papers to be signed. Since the last two days, there were not that many babies in the nursury, they lent us a rocking chair. I used it a lot since Brigitta would not sleep or even stop crying at night unless I was holding her. Spoiled from day four.


Brigitta preparing for the trip home - I suspect she is making a list of all the ways to manipulate us - but I don't have any solid proof yet.


View of the hospital post partum room as we were packing up.


This is a picture of the courtyard outside our sliding glass door to our room. We had really hoped to spend a little time out here but poor Haniza's complications kept her in bed most of the time.


Brigitta in her car seat as we were leaving the hospital.


Haniza and Brigitta in our bed at home resting.


Brigitta doing her 'arms in the air' routine - prelude to crying.


Me and Brigitta resting in bed . As you can see, there was a lot of resting going on once we were back. There is a lot to be said for being in your own place without the worry of others coming in. It was a lot like the feeling you get when you click your two ruby red slippers together and repeat 'there is no place like home'. Suddenly you realize you are home and the previous four days seem almost like a dream. (I was going to do a Lao Tze anology, but Wizard of Oz won my heart over at the last moment).

Latest Update: Routine? Did I really title my last post as the Routine Begins? Uhhh, that was a little off base. The only thing I can totally depend on right now is that there is legally, morally, eithically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably - NO ROUTINE. (Sorry folks, you got me going on the Wizard of Oz line of thought).

She eats for five minutes, sleeps for 20, crys for 9, etc. If you would like to know what the last two days have been like, I can suggest a little game to play that will show you.

Group One:
Eat
Cry
Diaper change
Sleep
Being Held
Spitting up
Awake looking around
Awake looking at your face

Group Two:
5 min
10 min
15 min
30 min
45 min
one hour

Now, randomly pick one item from Group One and one item from Group Two. Keep doing this until you fill up 24-hours. Now start again.

Well, you get the idea.

The biggest thing we worked on today was keeping Brigitta awake during the day as much as we could so that she will start to sleep a little at night. Right now, night time is the time when she has decided is her awake period. Set her down - crying. Pick her up - happy as lark looking around investigating everything and making cute baby sounds. So here are the results from today's battle to keep her awake during the day:

Brigitta awake on the way to her doctor's appointment.


Brigitta awake after returning from the doctor.


Brigitta awake in her bed while we play with her.

With success like this, I am sure we are in for a very peaceful evening.

That's the latest from our little space in the world. Next post - politics - too many things going on in the world so you will just have to suffer my humbled opinion.

Kevin

The Routine Sets In

And so it begins…. (uhhhh, no, not Lord of the Rings) the feedings every three hours. You always hear about it, but it is not quite what you expect. I had visions of the baby crying, Haniza and I bouncing out of bed full of energy all ready to go, and baby eagerly cooperating. Day three has put an end to that vision.

Instead we get calls from the ICU rather than sounds of the baby crying. We look at each other half asleep and say ‘I guess we have to go over there’. And when we get there, Brigitta seems intent on doing everything but eating. But usually, with lots of prodding and cajoling, things go smoothly.

Now, I am not a math major, but this seems to be a losing battle. You start out with 3 hours between feedings. The phone rings and it takes about 15 min to get up and get ready to head over to NICU. Then it takes about 10 min to get the feeding area screened off from others. Brigitta takes about 10 min to get herself ready to begin eating. From there, its about 30-40 min to get the feeding done. Last we discuss Brigitta’s progress with the nursing crew and head back to the room – another 15min. Back in the room, need to get Haniza situated in bed another 10 min. That adds up to 100 min. That leaves us with a whole 80 min to do whatever we need to do before repeating – oh that includes sleeping.

I am sure there are a lot of laughing parents out there right now saying ‘you haven’t seen nothing yet’, which is probably true. But I just thought it was a little funny how one’s expectations (even after reading everything and talking to everyone) just never match up to the real thing in your mind no matter how hard you try.

Now the updates:

Brigitta is doing much better. Sometimes problems actually turn out for the best – in her case, her IVs keep blowing out. Her poor little veins were just too weak to sustain one. They tried on both feet, her head, both arms, etc., but they got to the point they would only last about a few hours. Finally, the head nurse called up the doctor and let her know she was done trying the IV route. Normally that wouldn’t have been so bad, but until late yesterday, Brigitta was getting all her nourishment from the IV and refused to eat by mouth. We the only way to get off the IV was to begin eating, and now that she couldn’t handle the IV and refused to eat, we were afraid her blood sugars would collapse again and we would be back at square one. But they put a feeding tube down her nose and now we could feed her by pushing milk directly to her tummy.

This is Brigitta sleeping with the IV on her foot. They then had to try the other foot, one arm, the other arm, etc. They eventually realized she wasn’t going to hold the IV anymore so the took it out and replaced it with a tube from the nose to her tummy.

Alhamdulillah, the tube feeding was keeping her sugars up – and now she feels hungry when her tummy is empty, so has been eagerly breastfeeding. We still supplement every feeding with formula down the feeding tube, but at least we are at a stable situation where baby is off the IV and most the monitors and feeds on schedule. So what we thought was going to be a step backward has actually sped up the healing process – the mystery of life. We are learning that a few prayers and a lot of patience is a powerful formula. So, if all goes well, we should have her in our room today or tomorrow.

Haniza is doing fine - mainly just sore. But she is pretty active since she insists on walking back and forth to the NICU. Being active is good for her recovery but it really wears her out too. Right now she is on bed rest between feedings.

This is Haniza enjoying her bed rest. She doesn’t know I took this picture so I am sure I will pay for it later – but I think she is cute too.

Lastly, for all of you who have wanted to come visit, thanks for you patience. We have just not had the time for visitors since what little free time we have we have used for updating people, cleaning up or sleeping. If we get in a better position for visits in the next few days, I will let everyone know.

Even Later Update:
Brigitta is now in the room with us, hooray! We are now doing all the work but it is worth it. Haniza has developed an infection, booo! Luckily we have caught it early and they are getting her on antibiotics now. Although she feels a bit weaker, she is hanging in there making sure everything gets done (translation: making sure I do everything on time and do it right). The only constant is change.

Me holding Brigitta. She was staring at my face – pretty intense father daughter moment.

Haniza holding Brigitta like a football. Of course we had one of the playoff games on TV so I don’t know if that inspired her. That is American style football for all you International types.

Brigitta down for the night (or least 2 hours) dressed in the latest fashion style sweeping the post partum ward.

New trick we have learned – eat your meals very fast :-)
That’s it for today – Cheers


Kevin

The Roller Coaster Slows Down

This has been a good day. As of around 11pm last night everything started to stabilize and there have been no more surprises. Brigitta started stabilizing her oxygen intake and sugar levels and Haniza finally got rid of her extreme nasea while her bleeding stopped. Other than that little 30 minute session Haniza had with Brigitta right after the cesarean, mother and baby have been completely separated. I have been the go between telling Brigitta that mommy would soon be here and letting Haniza know what is going on with Brigitta – but it was hard knowing that they could not be together or even see each other than the pictures I was taking.

This is Brigitta in the ICU under oxygen. The wanted to make sure there was no congenital heart condition so they sent in a specialist who did an echocardiogram of here heart. Luckily they found only a small PDA (where the separation between the vein and artery has not closed) but they suspect that will heal on its own. That was the first good news of the day. The next good news soon followed when Brigitta’s breathing settled down and she finally started getting all the oxygen she needed on her own. So they took her off the oxygen hood at 11:00pm. That meant that she could now be touched, moved, and cuddled.

Since Haniza was finally given the green light to get out of bed and go to the nursery at that time, off we went, in wheel chair, IV in hand to the nursery. The following pictures are of the reunion of mother and baby for the ‘real’ first time where both were not stressed and could find out who each other is.

Haniza reaching out to touch Brigitta. It was a very touching moment for me – Brigitta not knowing who she was and Haniza tentative to pick her up – the two innocents.

But once Haniza held her for a few minutes, Brigitta calmed right down and realized she was in the arms of mom.

A closeup of Brigitta totally content in mommy’s arms.

A tender moment where two tired young ladies contemplate the life ahead of them.

After burping Brigitta, she falls asleep on mommy’s shoulder.

It was hard to let her go, but eventually Haniza and I had to return to the room for her care. This is one last hug before heading out of the ICU ward.

Latest update:
Haniza is off the IV and can move around on her own – rather slowly at this point.
Brigitta is more active and looking at everything. We just discovered that she has blue/gray eyes. That was unexpected … but I am pretty happy.

Thanks for listening to me ramble.
Kevin

Brigitta Nurilham Schlosser

This amazing girl came into Haniza’s and my life (in person that is) at 8:16am this January 9th morning. One healthy young girl at 9lbs 2oz (4.14kg) and 19inches (48.3cm).

Mother and baby are doing fine. Haniza is recovering well and currently resting in the postpartum room. It is really nice since it is a single person room and they have a chair that makes into a bed for me to hang out there with her.

Brigitta Nurilham is having a little problem with blood sugar. Since she was such a big girl, her blood sugar count was low and dropping so eventually they had to put her on an IV and she has to stay in the nursery for now. This makes a little more difficult since Haniza now has to go to the nursery to nurse Brigitta.
For those of you interested in the beginning to end story, here it goes. We left home at 5:00am and it was really foggy driving to the hospital – started out more like a scary movie than a happy day. But we made it through the fog to the hospital.

This is Haniza getting ready before the cesarean. She was so calm and I was the one who was all stressed out. Everyone kept asking me if I am OK, so it must have looked bad. It was tough … no spreadsheets, no project plans, no emergency emails … I was not sure how to handle this.

This is Brigitta making her triumphant arrival in the world. That is Haniza’s OB/GYN doctor delivering the baby. It all happened so fast – nothing like a natural child birth with labor taking hours. I am glad I was quick with the camera, although I am sure Brigitta will hate this photo later :-)

This is Brigitta just a few minutes old. I think she is wondering why everything is so bright. You can definitely see she has Haniza'a nose and red lips.

Finally I get to hold her for the first time. Once I picked her up and she heard my voice, she just looked at me and stopped crying. I am sure she recognized my voice because if I said anything, she would look at me. I was really surprised because she could lift her head a bit right after birth.

Haniza gets to see her beautiful daughter for the first time. That is me bringing her over. She could recognize Haniza’s voice too even though Haniza’s poor voice was getting horse from a cough the day before. When Haniza talked, Brigitta would open her eyes a little and turn her head.

I took Brigitta to the Nursery where they weighed and measured her. Since she was also a bigger baby, they checked for her blood sugar count, which was low. This was also the first time I could take off my gown and mask so that Brigitta could see my face and hear my voice clearly. So I got close to her little face, recited the Adhan (the call to prayer) and went on to talk to her about everything I could think of to talk about – she is a really good listener.

We tried to feed Brigitta a little formula to get her blood sugar count back up. This is her being burped by the nurse. Unfortunately, this didn’t work and the poor little girl had to have an IV hooked up to her along with all the monitors. So now she is in the nursery intensive care with all these wires (monitors) hooked up to her and an IV in her little foot. Luckily, it seems that this is only a temporary solution and other than this, she is a perfectly healthy little girl.

Brigitta Holding my finger. We intentionally did not have them bathe Brigitta since we wanted her to go to Haniza like this. Evidently, there are hormones that this triggers between mother and baby, which are good for the bonding and stimulates the breastfeeding.

Mother and baby re-united. Before Brigitta had to get an IV, we were able to bring her out to be with Haniza for a little while. Brigitta really was comfortable with Haniza. I was sad the time was so short … only about 50 min before she had to go to the NICU (nursery intensive care unit).

Haniza is having pretty strong nauseating feelings from the anesthesia and can’t keep anything down right now so I am staying with her helping her out. Brigitta is sleeping in the NICU and will stay there thru the night. Hopefully, in the morning, Haniza will regain enough strength and Brigitta will have her sugar counts up enough to get everyone back together in one room. I have my hands full right now, but I know all of you are praying and thinking about us and that makes a big difference.

So long from the hospital – more pics and updates soon.

Kevin

Big Baby

We have just come back from the final ultrasound and our doctor's concerns were confirmed ... she is pretty big and they are worried about a natural birth - projected weight if went full term would be just under 10 pounds (4.5kg). Based on all the issues at hand, we are following our doctor's very strong advice and will be having a scheduled cesarean birth this Friday. So I will let everyone know how it goes and have pictures available Friday afternoon our time.

So now we are excited, scared, nervous, and, did I say excited? Too many different feelings to express clearly right now. Sorry I don't have more time to write right now, but there are many last minute things I need to be doing today and tomorrow. I will probably get one or two more posts up before Friday though.

Kevin

Saturday Night Music

For all you late night surfers ... a little Lou Reed to close the night out with. Not really a video - just the lyrics (since this was originally recorded in 1972) - but the music is as good as ever. Enjoy.