The doctor

I saw my doctor (the one who delivered my babies) *love him*. It was to check out my incision. He said he doesn't think they should be packed anymore, just to keep it clean bandage it and let it heal. Awesome. But now I miss my nurse :/ we also talked about "birth control," eh I'm not really interested. I think it would be great and amazing to make a baby on our own but really I'm not counting on it working out that way. We also talked about a permanent cerclage for the next pregnancy and he was completely against it and any cerclage unless with this "singleton" pregnancy there is reason to believe my cervix will act up...so we will see on that. I also asked about a prescription to help with my milk supply and he's said its been years since he's given anyone anything because he really hasn't seen improvement with any of the medications and the side effects of them aren't good, but he will check into it. I forgot to ask him the all important question too, when is it okay to resume activities? Haha its been so long! BUT I guess I will have to wait to ask that Sept.19th at my postpartum visit, boo. I really think I'm at the point of giving up. I'm not pumping at night only during the day but even with that I should atleast be getting 5ml every pump...I'm way below that. The consultant said to pump through the night but that only stresses me out thinking about it and I'm trying to get all the sleep I can. I told her I would try it until I meet with her on Saturday but my son's funeral is friday and I have way too much on the mind. It would be different if Madison was here and I would have to get up and feed her, otherwise I have no motivation...ugh.

We got our first call from the NICU today.

We saw Madison earlier in the day and I was told no changes really. She was on 38 for oxygen which is great. She's still on all the antibiotics, we had our first negative blood culture yesterday and are hoping to keep them negative to try and get another PICC line in since having to take the first once out when all this happened. Anyways back to the call. It started off as "I don't know if anyone went over the belly ultrasound with you or not.." um no the did not. Well we found a fungal ball in one of her kidneys which is constant with a yeast infection because the yeast usually collects somewhere. I then asked so as she is treated with the antibiotics will it break down and she said yes. It will probably come out in her urine so they will be looking for that. She also has some fluid with connective tissue which they can't say for sure or not if its an absist near her liver. So as you can imagine when that number popped up I thought the worst. She is still alive and fighting and isn't deathly ill so I'm okay as long as things are being watched and worked on but really when I was there why didn't I get the low down....

I never did get that call from the lactation consultant. But while we were visiting Madison the nurse got in touch with one and of course there was only one there because of the holiday so she couldn't come up and see me but I did get a chance to talk to her over the phone. She suggested I'd try massaging my breasts...which I do before I pump...and nada. She said I could try mother's milk tea, which I haven't yet seeing as I'm not a big tea fan so I chose to try funugreek. I figured I really don't have to worry about tasting those so why not give it a try. I picked some up today. She also said I could ask my doctor for a prescription I think she called reglan...so I will on Wednesday when I get my lovely incision checked out. I also did order the smaller breast shields which I hope works out. Kind of sad the hospitals don't carry the smaller size...but have mini things for preemie babies go figure. Well anyways we saw Madison he belly swelling seems to be going down some. There was a blood culture that did come back negative and some other blood tests showed her white blood cell count up a bit so no huge changes but we definitely know she's fighting something. I was told they had to bag her last night and this morning which kind of worries me a bit. For those of you who don't know what that means its when they have to manually pump air into her lungs without the use of the machines. Scary stuff but she seemed okay while we were there for the most part. Her heartrate did go down drastically at one point but the nurse removed some fluid that was in her tube and she was fine after that.

Adding another to the list

We went and saw Madison yesterday and dropped off the tone of little bottles of drops collected from the day we didn't see her and we found out they switched up the other antibiotics to take care of the "new" organism growing but now she has an extended tummy, which "could" be from the new infection but they aren't sure so they will be watching. I believe they did an x ray or ultrasound to see her tummy but could see her bowels so they don't really know what's going on but even then so she's acting like nothing is bugging her which is good. The nurse there tried to get in touch with the lactation consultant because I "should" be making a lot more milk then I am. I think it maybe the shields I'm using. I think they may be too big so I ordered smaller ones which I hope help. Ah well I'm waiting to from her hopefully she'll call...I really don't want to give up yet.

Crying over spilled milk

Yesterday wasn't too bad of a day. We woke up, showered, waited for the nurse, pumped and was on our way. Before leaving since we ended up being home longer than expected I pumped right before leaving so I finished set my tiny bottle down with my droplets in it and of course I would knock it over and spill what little I had to offer...so maybe it wasn't crying but more like anger. So what do I do? Start blaming myself again and I end up in a horrible mood. After that we do leave and go to the park we were married at...it will be two years October 31st. I was hobbling along slowly but it was nice to get out and "hobble" for a bit. So we got back home pumped and my husband's parents came over brought KFC. His brother was nice enough to get us into a movie free later that night. We ended up seeing Crazy, Stupid Love and it was great! Made me feel good aside from when I was laughing and it hurt to. In the midst of everything we didn't see Madison but each time we called to check on her she was fine except for another organism they found growing aside from the yeast but still none of it seems to be bugging her.

Stone accomplished, sorta.

We got up early today to get Dexter's stone situated. The phrase we originally wanted on the stone didn't fit on the small piece we have to work with. We came up with "never forgotten, always remembered as the little boy called to heaven." So we ended up having to shorten it to "never forgotten, always remembered," and there will be a little boy angel in the clouds in the corner of the stone. It is pretty black granite. But of course since there wasn't a set date with the funeral home there cemetery has no record of Dexter which means the stone orders can't be through. So we have by September 15th for the stone orders but the Dexter needs to be buried before the stone can even be set. So everything is in rush mode...but what isn't these days. Atleast they have what I want and it is paid so once things are together everything can get going quick. Overall I didn't have too bad of a day. After that was done the nurse came. I didn't even think about pumping so I didn't pump until after 2pm today and I got my usual bits. We went to go see Madison not much of a change oxygen went up slightly, usual. She had to get one of the IVs in her taken out and instead put one in her poor head but it doesn't seem to be bothering her. She had her eyes closed the whole time but was moving around like crazy, so I took a little video of her but of course she doesn't move as much as she was not being recorded. The male nurse asked me how pumping was going and I told him the truth. He said I need to relax more and pump every two hours...how is that even possible? Its like as soon as I leave the house we have to go back home to pump before we leave again. Its hard for someone who's been on bed rest for 2 months to stay home for really relax for that matter. It seems the more I pump the less I get. Why is this so difficult? I mean maybe it would be easier if she were home because as soon as she were hungry I would feed her, but knowing your really not feeding its awkward to be doing it like that.

Could it be?

I'm starting to think maybe I do have this depression thing people talk about. Today started okay but then got worse. After the visiting nurse it kind of went downhill. I pumped and got literally 2 drops of milk. We went out a bit saw my father at work the husband applied for a job. We came home to pump (trying to keep an every 2 hour schedual or as close to it as possible) so I pumped and nothing. I barely sleep at night because I have to wake up to take my antibiotics throughout my night so I try and pump as much as possible during the day. That kind of brought on everything. What kind of mom am I that I can't give some milk to my daughter and the fact that she's there because of me and Dexter isn't here because of the same reason. And my mom is still on me about oh you need to be there more for Madison...but what if I'm sick right now I'm doing all I can I feel like. I know I don't call to check on her every second or am there every second...maybe I should be I don't know what's wrong. Maybe it looks like I don't care, I do but maybe I'm still trying to keep myself no so attached encase something should happen and I don't even know why I'm saying that because I know she's going to make it. I did go see her today...only once :/ she didn't have a bad day her white blood cell count went down which was good. Still on the low setting for her oxygen and nothing much has changed otherwise. So today was a good day for Madison. On a sad note we have to go down to the memorial place to pick and design the stone for Dexter and figure out a date and time for his funeral. How do you pick these things? When do you know your ready to say goodbye?