Milestone wise, she continues to excel. Preemies are evaluated based on their adjusted age -- not their actual age in weeks, but the amount of weeks they are past their due date. At 12 weeks old, Juliet is only 3 weeks old adjusted. So when we watch her develop and grow, we base her achievements on the adjusted age. Luckily for us, she is not only meeting her adjusted age milestones, but most of the milestones for a 2 month old baby. She is holding her head up well and starting to gurgle and coo. She sleeps awesome at night, usually waking up once in about a 10 hr period, if we can get her in a comfortable reclined position. She does great on her Boppy and on her stomach, but of course those are not safe sleep positions. She also has a love for snuggling in between mommy and daddy - another problem because we don't feel like we could safely bed share with her. For now we co-sleep ( she in an Arms Reach Co-sleeper attached to our bed) with the hope someday she will be able to lay down in her bed without being in pain due to her reflux.
After her traumatic birth, Juliet's only issue has been feeding. Due to a tongue and lip tie, Juliet could never make a good seal around a bottle and could not latch onto the breast. As a result, she leaked tons of milk while eating, took in big gulps of air, choked easily, vomited constantly, and suffered from terrible cramps and gas. We can never lay her down on her back -- ever. She can be dead asleep, hits a flat surface, and starts screaming and vomiting.
On June 3 we met with Dr. Gregory Notestine, DDS of Beaver Creek Ohio and had both of her ties released. The procedure has absolutely been a miracle.
First of all, if you live in the tri-state area and have a child with lip and tongue tie issues, you need to meet this man. He is so well versed in infant feeding issues and so sympathetic towards the nursing mother. He understood my complaints and gave us a detailed explanation of how her oral issues were causing a lot of our feeding problems. As a medical provider, I admit we aren't well trained in these issues in the neonate, and many providers brush them off as a fad. Dr.Notestine completed the procedure, then watched Juliet nurse. This child has never latched on her own. She immediately latched and began to eat. Since coming home she is nursing multiple times a day and taking supplemented breast milk from a bottle. Her vomiting has decreased significantly, and is back to basic spit up. She is pretty fussy and gassy during the day, which makes for a frazzled momma. She was also started on Zantac by her pediatrician so we are crossing our fingers for relief.
I am so elated that she is starting to feel better, even just a tiny improvement is progress. It is literally gut wrenching to have a baby be subjected to so much in such a short time. Yes, it could be so much worse, but when I think she shouldn't have even been here yet, I feel so guilty.
To make matters worse, I am going back to work tomorrow, just as we are starting to make progress. It's like she is a newborn, just learning to nurse, and now I'm leaving her with a bottle for 10 hours a day. I feel like my maternity leave was a blur of hospitals and doctors office visits. Unlike Jaslyn, I feel like we didn't just get to sit around and get to know each other. There were errands and appointments, laundry and dishes, things I just let slide with Jaslyn. I will forever feel like we were cut short, but we have made the best of the worst situation.
I am an emotional mess. Hopefully my co-workers can help get my scatterbrained self back on track. God help my committee as I finish my dissertation. All the respect to stay at home mothers, I honestly don't know if I could do it, but I believe my life's greatest challenge will be being a working mother. We all deserve awards. Coming soon, the adventures of Dr.Mom...
