Sunday, May 30, 2010

Mommy goes home

Mommy got discharged today. She went home for a few hours then changed and came right back with some milk.

We got to "kangaroo" today...which means I got to lay on her chest. A bit closer to the food source but I am not quite ready for the smorgasborg just yet. But if you look closely, you can see that I am eyeing all you can eat buffet.
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Monchichi

This one is kind of embarrassing but I am confident enough to show it. We all know that I am going to be super hot once I lose this back hair.

Even if I didn't, who cares....everybody loves Monchichi's!
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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Big Foot

This is the foot I used to kick while in Mommy's tummy. Many of you probably heard Mommy saying that I was a hard kicker....anyone doubt her now?

Mommy also has big feet....I heard they were useful when she was kicking all those other guys to the curb.

They also did an ultrasound on my heart today and everything looks great.
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Esthetician Recommendation


Can anyone recommend a good esthetician? I need a good shoulder waxing. This must be the Dutch bloodline from Mommy's side of the family. Heard that my Great Great Great Grandmother was Dutch...guess she got "yellow fever" while in Taiwan, which was a former Dutch colony called Formosa.

Daddy says, "once you go Asian, you don't go back to Caucasian." I am not really sure what that means but Mommy still thinks Daddy's an idiot.

That orange tube is my feeding tube. I am getting about 1mL of breast milk every 3 hours. Apparently it's good to coat my GI tract with breast milk to protect it and help stimulate digestion. I am still on TPN (total parenteral nutrition) for most of my nutritional needs.

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Daddy's Girl

Daddy finally got a chance to hold me today. He had to promise Mommy to buy me a Mercedes on my 16th birthday. I think he had his fingers crossed because he kept mumbling something about getting me a Subaru.

See me grinning...little does Daddy know that I am going to give him an ulcer when I start dating.
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Friday, May 28, 2010

Trying to Suck My Thumb



The feeding tube goes right down my stomach. If you look carefully you can see numbers on the tube, so there is about 12 cm of tubing down my throat to my stomach. Luckily preemies don't have a gag reflex so the nurse just slides it down.

Since I don't get to taste anything, I go for the next best thing....my hand. Too bad I have gigantic hands like Mommy or else I'd be gnawing away at my cute little digits.

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I want milk!

I heard Mommy talking about starting to pump today. This is the look I plan to give her to let her know I am hungry and it's time to go pump some more.
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Mommy Holding Me for the First Time

Mommy got to hold me for the first time this morning. I was progressing so well that I went off the CPAP machine and I am now just getting HiFlow 20% oxygen. This means that my lungs are doing really well.









I like it when Mommy holds me, it makes her happy. Daddy looks a bit scared because Mommy is a bit of a klutz so I think he's afraid Mommy will drop me.

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Ouch!



This is my new main line. They took out one of my umbilical cord access lines today and they will remove the other one tomorrow. I really don't know how they were able to find a vein. It only hurt a bit....the nurse practitioner Nancy is very good.
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Thursday, May 27, 2010

What do you think?

Do I really look like Daddy?


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Daddy thinks I look like Mr. Peanut.



Mommy thinks Daddy is an idiot.


Do I really look like Daddy?



I keep hearing Mommy telling Daddy it's not fair that I look like him. Mommy says she did all the work and I look like him and only got her big hands and feet.

Manicure

First thing I do when I get out of here is get a french manicure with Mommy.
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Mommy's Hand

I really like this picture of Mommy holding my hand....because it really shows that Mommy has really big hands!!!
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A's and B's

I went off the ventilator today but they put me on this CPAP machine. It's just like the one my Grandfather uses to control his snoring. When he was visting a couple of weeks ago, you should have heard his snoring when he took a nap and didn't wear his CPAP....the contractors downstairs said it was drowning out the noise from the circular saw!

So they will have this on me for a bit because preemies like me get the "A's and B's" which is apnea and bradycardia. We also get caffeine to help with the A's and B's, so Mommy is going to get me my own Starbucks Gold Card.

I think I look like Luke Skywalker in an X-Wing Fighter....going to blow up the Death Star.
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The Morning After the Party

I guess I had one too many at my birthday party because I don't really remember what happened. All I know is that I woke up with a CPAP tube stuck up my nose, my eye are covered and some joker has switched the jalapeno popper with a couple of tubes in my belly button. I guess all that partying last night did a number on my liver and my bilirubin is a bit high so my skin is a bit yellow (go figure...I am Chinese) and jaundice so the blue light helps. I hope this isn't like a tanning bed...I am already skinny and wrinkled...don't want to look like George Hamilton.
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

What a Birthday Party!



Man...that was one heck of a birthday party. Thanks to all those that were able to make it. Did you see my Mom...she was CRAZY...so intoxicated. I don't know what they gave her but it must have been so much better than that surfactant I got. Check her out...getting all mushy with me telling me how much she loves me. I love you too Mom but I am a big girl....all 1 lb 15 oz of me and 13.5 inches. No boys will mess with me.




My Birthday Party Train Next Stop - NICU



So my birthday party was a bit of a blur...but I guess it was good time because some joker stripped me down put a jalapeno popper in my belly button! Don't worry...I will hunt you down latex glove person!




My Birthday - May 26, 2010

WOW...Wednesday was such a crazy day!

It started out like just like any other hump day...I was kicking it (literally) in Mommy's belly, just waiting for some breakfast to be served. I gave Mommy a few kicks to remind her that I was starving...well some of you know how Mommy gets when she is hungry. I was about to throw a fit...and if she wasn't going to feed my more than just that bite of a cookie, I was ready to come out and feed myself.

Just as soon as Mommy took a bite of her morning oatmeal...in walks Dr. Karen Callen (Mommy's Obstetrician) screaming, "Stop! Don't eat anything...we are going to deliver you today!" At first I thought Dr. Callen was calling my bluff, but the surprised look on Mommy and Daddy's faces told me Dr. Callen was serious. Mommy said to Dr. Callen, "When the nurse said not to eat I thought we were going to do another test." Daddy put his laptop bag down and took a seat...guess he wasn't going to work today...yippee!!! Snowday!!!
Dr. Callen explain to Mommy and Daddy that all the bed rest in the hospital wasn't doing much good and it was time for me to make a grand entrance. Apparently the monitor was showing my heart rate was dipping dangerously during the night (down to 60 BPM from the average of 145 BPM) and it happened a bunch of times. (You can see the dip on the chart)



Dr. Callen was afraid that I would go into distress because the diastolic flow to Mommy's placenta was low and there were restrictions to the flow seen in the last ultrasound. Add to this the placental abruption and bleeding episode which put Mommy in the hospital for a few days at the beginning of May and drop in amniotic fluid a couple of weeks ago and what do you get....MY SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!
I guess, Dr. Callen spent a lot of time planning and wanted to make sure a lot of people could attend my birthday so she told Mommy and Daddy that it would be best to have my party today, when everyone was around and could make it, rather then keeping the date a secret and risk letting me decide when I was ready to come out. Then all those special people on the Neonatal Team would have to rush to try and make the party....so it would be less risky to have a controlled party then mayhem. Dr. Callen had already send out the Evite (sorry if you didn't get one...she didn't have your email) and my Birthday Party would begin at 3:30pm.
It looked like Mommy and Daddy were a bit caught off guard...kind of like deer in the headlights! There were a collective calm...I think you call it shock...then they started to make a flurry of calls...probably to see if the Taco Truck guy could come by the hospital and cater my party.

Well the next few hours came and went in a heart beat...I am not sure what happened...I took a nap to rest up because I could tell it was going to be a long rager of a night....you know kind, where you wake up shaking in the fetal position, covered in meconium not knowing where you are or what you did.

The last thing I remember was seeing Daddy trying to play doctor with Mommy....isn't that how this whole thing started?















Then this doctor came in and gave Mommy an epidural and the last thing I remember was this sign




















After that things were a bit of a blur....one minute I was nice and warm just floating around without a care the world....then the next minute bright lights, I hear a snap (of my umbilical cord) and I am being handed off like a football and thrown into a plastic bag.



In the video is Dr. Callen handing me off to Dr. David Lee (neonatologist). That's Patty on the left, one of the NICU nurses.



There was so much activity no one said, "Happy Birthday" when my birthday happened...so I cried.

















Then Dr. Lee was nice enough to give me a hit of pure oxygen....















....and I got to do my first funnel...not exactly sure what "Surfactant" is but WOW...man does that stuff open up the airways!















Well the party kept going for about while and I got to meet a lot of cool people from the Neonatal Team and the dance party moved to the next venue....NICU.