Thanks to all of you who guessed that maybe we were expecting another Noodle. That would be a huge blessing and we hope someday to add more Noodles, but that’s not the big change this week! My sister is expecting a little one, though, which makes me happy enough that I’ll soon have a niece or nephew to spoil rotten smother with love. 🙂
Some of you guessed correctly what’s been going on. As you may have read in my profile, I had a traumatic delivery and that led for many issues for Noodle. VERY long story short, I had an undiagnosed vasa previa (which means her umbilical cord grew over my cervix). When I went into labor, it burst. Big blessing #1: I was in the hospital being induced, so I was able to have a STAT C-section and she was out within about 15 minutes. Big blessing #2: we live near a big city that has a new treatment called head cooling which slows/ stops brain damage. Big blessing #3: her doctors and nurses are angels– literally sent by God, I believe– and they each did the right thing at the right time to save her life.
She was very, very sick. I won’t go into details, but just about everything except her heart and lungs were affected. Amazingly, after 2 months in the NICU she came home with just an NG tube. It’s a feeding tube that goes into her nose and down to her belly. She has horrible reflux and food aversions as a result of her birth injuries and hospital stay. There is no quick fix for feeding issues. Typically you just make sure the baby is getting enough nutrition (usually through a tube) and work with her on feeding. It’s a process that takes years.
Last week we were given the green light to take out her tube, which means my whole life for the forseeable future will be to shove as many calories into that little body as possible, sans tube.
So that’s one of the reasons I’ve been a blog slacker this week. And I may continue to be a bit of a blog slacker, but I do promise to keep it real and post as much as I can! Hopefully from here on out they’ll be much more of a focus on saving money here at Making Lemonade, and less on Noodle’s issues! I just wanted to let you know why I haven’t been focusing on my blog’s mission recently.
I’ll try to keep up with the comments, too. I appreciate them so much and can’t wait to check out all your blogs! Hopefully here at Making Lemonade we’ll start to be less Noodle-centric and more focused on tips, tricks, and ideas for saving money and living a lovely life! But I can’t resist just one more photo:
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YAY! Best. Post. Ever!!!
P.S. How do you teach them how to drink from a straw? My mom’s friend who is a speech therapist is all militant about how sippy-cups ruin kids’ speech because they strengthen all the wrong muscles blah blah blah. So I’m like, well then what am I supposed to do because I can’t hold this cup for her for the rest of my life. Cute as it is to watch her spill water all over the place.
I am new to your blog. I just wanted to say congrats!! That is such great news! She is such a sweet looking little girl!
Thanks, Angela! She is a very sweet little one. I’m super lucky! {and welcome to the blog!}
Jenny, every OT and feeding person I talked to has been SUPER CRAZY about NOT using sippy cups! Which is funny because just about every single child uses them, and they aren’t delayed!
As for straw drinking, here’s what we did. Put the straw (Dunkin’ Donuts has good ones, cut it in half or thirds so it’s not so long) in water. Plug the top with your finger, and take it out of the water. Put it up to O’s little lips and see if she’ll suck the water out. I usually put it in her mouth horizontally so it won’t all come out at once. Abby picked right up on it that way! It keeps her busy when we go out to eat, to say the least.
If the above description sounds confusing, basically this sums it up: you know how you can drink stuff from a straw by siphoning it up and then dripping it in your mouth– something that was really fun when you were like 7? (okay, I still do this sometimes). Do that for the baby.
Instead of sippy cups get the ones with straws. She might just learn that way… some babies do. And knowing O, she’ll TOTALLY get it right away. She’s genius like that.
Thanks so much for the tips Carrie! Sounds easy enough. Can’t wait to give it a try!
What wonderful news! Congratulations to you and your Noodle – I know you’re thrilled to have made this milestone!
What wonderful news (Noodles and your sisters!) Congratulations to ALL OF YOU!
Hi! I’m visiting from SITS and new to your blog! Thanks for stopping by & introducing me to yours! Noodle is a sweetie & best of luck to your family! Luv those curls! I have 2 grandkids, 1 and 3. Looking forward to your tips when you have time!
God, she was just gorgeous from day 1. She even makes a feeding tube look good.