To Know or Not To Know...

...that has been the question.

I haven't been diligent about writing through this pregnancy, but we decided a while ago that we weren't going to find out the gender of this baby.

We didn't want to find out with Avonlea--but due to an over-eager nurse, we were told early. So, we decided that with this one, we would try again.

And it has been fun not knowing. To be able to anticipate and wonder, to thrill in the unknown. I wasn't worried about the "things" aspect. We registered for mostly gender-neutral gifts with Avonlea, and I wasn't worried about clothes, because some of our really great friends have had boys, and so I knew we would have clothes. Plus--who cares if you dress a newborn in a wrong-color onesie? You have to tell strangers what it is anyway!

There *has* been a problem with not knowing, though, and it relates to this post I wrote in December. I have found it hard to connect with this baby. Not that gender has a huge effect on that, but I think it definitely would help me to be able to connect. To get ready, to get closet space filled up, to settle on a name, to start calling the baby by something other than "Biscuit".

I mentioned this disconnect several times to Nick, and he asked if finding out the gender would be helpful for me. After thinking about it, I decided that yes, it would.

Fun fact: Did you know that we have had the ultrasound result on our refrigerator since I was 19 weeks pregnant?

And NO we didn't peek once! We decided at my 19-week ultrasound to have them put the results into an envelope--at that point, I was gung-ho about NOT looking, and Nick was 50/50 about it. We put it on the fridge, and if we decided we wanted to look, then we could.

People couldn't BELIEVE we hadn't looked at it when we told them it was on the fridge! My neighbor, Sunni, actually said she was going to come and look when we weren't there, because she wanted to know so badly! It just wasn't a temptation. With Avonlea, I found out what we were having when Nick was at work, and I didn't want to find out again without him; and when he was home, we didn't really talk about it. It honestly didn't come up.

At our 19-week appointment, the doctor saw that I had a low-lying placenta, so we had to come back at 26 weeks for another ultrasound to check on it. At the 26-week appointment, he saw that the placenta had moved up to where it should be (yay), and then checked over the rest of the baby. He moved it to the "find out" area, and then pulled the wand away--but had it there long enough that both of us thought we had seen something definitive!

Of course, a couple of hours later, I was able to talk myself out of what I had thought I had seen. :)

But anyways, because of the disconnect, we decided that we would look on Christmas Day.

Want to know what we're having?

Well, you'll just have to wait until February 3rd to find out!  'Cause we're not telling!  Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments!

(For the record, one of us guessed correctly, and one of us was surprised.)

Before I had a kid, I was an idiot.

Before I had a kid, I was an idiot.

I wasn't stupid. After all, I got a decent score on my ACTs. I graduated with an acceptable GPA from my high school and college. I graduated from grad school with a 4.0. I have fun impressing people with my Jeopardy! knowledge. I'm a smart girl.

But I was an idiot.

That's the only way I can figure how I would think I had any reasonable idea as to what to expect when I had my own living, breathing human being to take care of day in and day out. "I'm not going to do that." "My kid won't do that." "My baby will be doing this."  Blah, blah, blah, fishcakes.

I wrote recently about how I don't feel like I will ever really have the parenting thing down. I get one thing together, and something else inevitably falls apart.

But these days, I feel like every. single. thing. I am doing is screwed up in some way...and it is my fault.

See, I thought that in order to be a "good mom", I had to do it all. Well, maybe not do it all, but try to do it all right.  Keep the house clean, keep the kid clean, breastfeed exclusively, get her on a schedule, make sure she sleeps in her own bed, don't worry about giving her solid foods until she's 6 months, get dinner on the table every night, yadda, yadda, yadda. Every single thing I was doing I was doing it as well as I could, but also simultaneously feeling like I was doing it wrong.

We have 2 dogs, and one saying that we tried to maintain throughout the puppy years was, "If you don't want the dog doing _____ when they're 150 pounds, don't let them do it when they're 15 pounds."  So, Waldo and Gus don't get on the couch. They get in and out of the car and the bathtub without help. They sit when they come in the house if it's raining, so that I can wipe off their paws.

I feel like with Avonlea, I've screwed up so much, and I've made things so hard on myself. She's a figurative 150lb dog that I didn't train right when she was 15lbs.

I worked so hard on breastfeeding that now, she will only eat from me. She spits out anything with texture, so she doesn't get any nutrients from "real food", and I am wasting tons of money on baby food that she eats one or two bites from. I also feed her before putting her down for a nap, or down for bed at night, so now she will scream if she doesn't get fed before bed.  Know who that messes up? Definitely not the little munchkin happily fed and sleeping in her bed.

I was lazy in the beginning, and once I found out she wasn't going to take a bottle anymore, I didn't press the issue. I didn't work with her to take a bottle. So now she doesn't take one. She does do a sippy cup and a cup with a straw, but I have never tried feeding her with that before putting her to bed. I never tried to have Nick feed her before putting her to bed. So now I am the one who has to put her to bed every night.

Avonlea still only sleeps in 2-3 hour stretches at night. I know I should sleep train her. I do. I have all of this guilt that she's keeping Nick up and he has to work and I get mad because I just want to stinking sleep already, but my boobs hurt if she goes really long between feedings because she eats every 2 hours at night that I just get up and feed her and she goes right back to sleep. And if I don't feed her then she screams for 1.5 hours, or maybe more but I don't know because by that time I lose my mind and just get up and feed her. So now I have a 10.5 month old who gets up at least 3 times every night and so I can't go do anything past 10pm because my kid will wake up and want to eat. Nick and I have tickets to see my favorite musical group on Sunday, and it's going to be a train wreck (pretty sure I can't convince them to only have the concert between 7 and 10pm).

My baby is a sweet, adorable, snuggly pair of handcuffs, and it is all my fault.

I'm already saying, "Oh, I'm going to do things so differently with the next kid," and then I stop myself and think, "Next kid? Oh, #*#& no!"

Chiming in...

I'm not one to comment on social or political happenings--at least, not on my blog.  Go ahead and look back--I usually write about what's happening with Avonlea, or how I'm feeling about being a mom.

It just so happens that the whole "Miley Cyrus debacle" hits on one of those areas.

There have been SO many posts about Miley, condemning her actions and calling her all manner of names. I was disgusted by the whole situation, as well. I, however, was not only disgusted by Miley's actions, but by Robin Thicke's. He is singing a song that has a repeated lyric of, "I know you want it." He is a married man, onstage doing inappropriate things with another woman.  There are double standards of sexuality on display that rankled my sense of morality. So, yes, the whole situation bothered me.

But mainly, it made me worried.

This isn't the first time in my lifetime that the standards of sexuality have been lowered in the public eye. When I was growing up, it was Madonna who was setting the standards. I remember a huge brou-haha when her "Erotica" video was released. When I was a little older, it was Madonna and Christina and Britney and their kissing fiasco.  Later still was Janet and her "wardrobe malfunction." And even on the show with the Miley issue was another superstar pop icon wearing a seashell bra and thong throughout the telecast (no one comments on that, however).

I don't think we're going to have a culture that stops any of these actions anytime soon. Sadly, it's what happens when we live in a fallen world.

My worry comes from the fact that I'm raising a little girl in a culture that accepts and values warped views of the female body. A culture that hails "women's rights" as an equal exchange for a distorted view of sexuality. A culture that turns a blind eye to the sexual deviancy that is prevalent in every single American city (see my friend's blog for a great post about this).

I grew up in a culture completely different than the one Avonlea is going to be exposed to. Even though I grew up in the Madonna zeitgeist, I was pretty sheltered in my little Baptist house and church. I remember sitting on the bus when I was in middle school, looking at the boys and girls sitting around me holding hands and snuggling up to each other, and being fascinated with it. Thank God He kept me just on the ugly side of the "ugly duckling syndrome" long enough to not get caught up in the physicality of relationships too early.  Even though I wasn't holding hands with anyone, I desired it so greatly. I wanted someone to cherish me. From the pictures I see of some of my former students on social media, I know that those same things happen still--only they are even further down "the line of sexual progression" than we were.

While my growing up was sheltered (and yes, there are negatives to that, too), there were also a lot more days of childhood innocence. While I spent my middle school years yearning for a boyfriend, I was also saved from dealing with physical pressures too early.  While I spent 3.95 of my high school years without a boyfriend, I spent that time in school activities and sports with friends (both guy and girl), not wrapped around a guy in the hallway 24/7.

And I worry that Avonlea won't get to experience that. I live in the 2nd largest city in the United States. The opportunities here are endless for both good and bad.  I also live in one of the most image-conscious cities in the world. Everyone here is so obsessed with health, fitness (not bad things in moderation), fashion, and being thin, it is like a god.  There are ads everywhere for liposuction and plastic surgery. The photoshopped images shout at you from every corner. I want to keep my little girl sheltered from all that.

At the same time, being sheltered from all of it doesn't teach you how to process it, either.  How many stories are there of "good girl gone bad" when released on their own to college life? Even for myself, I did some things I'm not proud of after I was out of my parent's eye, because I wasn't taught how to engage in culture without compromising.

I think at the heart of so many of these things is what my pastor taught about a couple of weeks ago. If you have the chance, I would encourage you to listen to the podcast on Proverbs 22:6:

"Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it."

(There is a link to the podcasts here. Look for the 8/18/13 message.)

The crux of Joseph's message was that as parents, we have to do what we can (with God's help) to give our children a strong moral base for their lives--and that beyond that, God will fill in the gaps.  I can't hold Avonlea's hand through every step of her life. I can't guarantee that she will make the choices that I think she should make--in fact, she might go the opposite of all my hopes.  But I *can* do the best I can to raise a daughter that has a strong sense of self, and a strong desire to love God fully.  I can't guarantee that Avonlea will remain a virgin until she gets married (like her ugly duckling mom was blessed to do), but I can do my best (with God's help) to help Avonlea know truth:

• God loves her with an uncontrollable, unquenchable fire.
• God wants us to seek after Him with every fiber of our being--and he is waiting for us at the end of every search.
• God's plan for love isn't self-serving, the way that our culture views it.  The love that God has for you is self-sacrificing. Putting the needs of the other person above your own needs. The love that God has for you looks like the love that Jesus had for you.
• God wants us to have a love that consumes us. God wants you to have the passionate love story that you've always dreamed of. Think of Jesus--he loved us so much that he died for us. It would have felt better for himself to stay off of that cross. But He put himself at the mercy of others because He loved us.
• (and now I'm crying)
• A boyfriend is not the be-all-end-all. Most boys are just that--boys. They aren't mature enough to put your needs above theirs.
• A marriage isn't a guarantee. It is WORK. It is TIME. It is HARD.  Unlike the movies, the credits don't roll on a happy ending when the boy tells you he loves you. In real life, that's where the movie starts. Sometimes your movie is a comedy, sometimes it is a tragedy, sometimes it is a farce, or a romance, or an adventure.

What I want Avonlea to know above everything else is this:

The real be-all-end-all in life--the real adventure comes in living your life for someone else--and that someone is Jesus. Because in reality, boys will let you down. Dating will let you down. Marriage will let you down. Sex will let you down. But God--my dear, sweet girl--GOD will NEVER let you down.  He cares about every single morsel of your life. He knows how you will yearn for companionship. He knows how your heart will desire a boyfriend and a husband. He knows how you feel, because He desires US in the exact same way.

I wish I could tell Miley this. That living her life for herself isn't going to fill any gaps. That giving more away isn't going to bring her any satisfaction. It isn't going to make anyone respect her more.

I wish I could tell Robin this. That singing about desire and power over women isn't going to help him feel more in control. That the power this world gives in money and fame and sex isn't enough to fill a void. It's a drug that simply needs more and more from you, but gives nothing to you.

I worry for my daughter. I worry for her innocence and her little mind. I worry for her heart.  After this weekend, I won't just pray for her. I will pray for US.

"I've Got This?"

In my classroom, we did journaling almost every day. The beginning of the year was setting up the structure and the expectations, and was always a struggle to get them to write to the level I was expecting. But somewhere around the halfway point of the year, I didn't have to do reminders anymore. They knew the expectations, they knew the rules, and they started to take off and do some amazing writing during that time.  I would always get to the point of the year where I would think, "This one area of teaching? This one? I've got this."

Sometimes I wonder, in parenting, will I ever get to the point where I think, "I've got this"?

I find myself constantly second-guessing myself when it comes to parenting Avonlea.  The questions about how to do (fill-in-blank-here) flit through my brain rapid-fire style.  Here are just a few from the long day we shared together yesterday:

- Why is she only sleeping 2 to 3 hours at a time overnight?
- She just got up from her nap. Can I go to the store without her throwing a fit?
- It hasn't been 2 hours since she ate, but she always eats when she gets up from a nap. Should I feed her now?
- Why is she throwing a fit in the store?
- Is she sitting in the carrier wrong?
- How is she sleepy again? She only got up an hour ago. Is she sick? *Google "babies sleep a lot when sick?"*
- Should I put her down for a nap again?
- Why does she get so hot when I'm feeding her? *consult Google*
- I'm not sure if I should give her a nap..should I try anyway?
- How long will she sleep?
- Do I have time to take a shower?
- Will my shower wake her up?
- Will she sit in this seat while I make lunch?
- Are these toys overstimulating her? *Google "signs of overstimulation in babies"*
- Why is she so fussy today?
- Is she tired again? She only got up an hour and a half ago--how can she be tired again?
- If I try to go on a walk, will she fuss because she's sleepy?
- Why does she keep pulling at her ear?
- How can I get her to do more tummy time if she cries after 5 seconds?
- How long should tummy time be, and how long should I let her fuss and scream in tummy time? *Google "tummy time 3 months"
- Will she ever roll over again?
- Will she ever want to roll to her front, because she hates it so much?
- Can a 3 month old get too much sleep? *Google "babies too much sleep*
- Is she getting enough to eat?
- Why doesn't she open her mouth more when feeding? Is that causing her to not get enough?
- What colors of poo are normal?  *Google "normal baby poop"*
- Why did I just Google that?!?

My whole 3 months and 2 weeks of parenting has been nothing but one question after another. And I sit sometimes, and wonder if I'll ever be confident that what I am doing is the right thing. That what I am doing is the best thing.  That I'll be able to look at Avonlea the way I looked at my classroom of students and breathe a sigh of relief that I'm finally getting the hang of things.

The Day I Took My Sanity Back

There have been so many things I have wanted to write about over the last 3 weeks, but just a lack of time has prevented it. I'm sad, because I have forgotten many things, and I wanted to have that record of how I was feeling.

I have had it suggested to me that I might have some postpartum depression.  I can see how that might be the case. But I really don't feel like I'm spiraling. I'm getting out of bed every day without any problems. I want to take care of Avonlea. I want to take care of my house, and Nick.

This was not the case when we first came home with Avonlea.

The first 2 days we were at home (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), I was spiraling. I felt myself falling into this pit, and not seeing any way out of it. I was crying constantly. I was in pain (a little from the surgery, but mostly from breastfeeding), and the pain was directly a result of my daughter's latching problems--which, in turn, made me hate her.  Have you ever experienced what it is like to hate your daughter?

At that point, I decided to stop breastfeeding. Avonlea was extremely frustrated with each feeding--she was breathing fast and crying and getting angrier and more frustrated at each feeding, and I was bleeding and in pain throughout the entire feeding. And, she would cry constantly between feedings, too.

I kept pumping, but Sunday afternoon I decided that I had to stop, for at least a day. I needed to let my nipples heal, and I needed to take a step away so that I didn't continue these feelings of resentment towards Avonlea.  I was crying non-stop throughout the feedings at that point.

I felt like a failure. I mean, I couldn't even breastfeed for 3 days!  But on Monday, I talked to a lot of momma friends. And they assured me that no matter what happened with breastfeeding, I was still a good mom. I was the best mom for Avonlea. And she was healthy and was going to be fine, whether I breastfed, or fed breastmilk from a bottle, or had to go back to formula.

Monday was hard. But it was also good. Because by the end of the day, I gave myself permission to not breastfeed. I gave myself permission to do what was best for my mental sanity. And though it hurt my heart, and was yet ANOTHER thing that didn't go the way I planned, I felt myself leaving the downward spiral.  I was okay. She would be okay.

She did well on the bottle, and I felt my sanity slowly returning. I was able to look at things rationally again, and though I was still tired and emotional, I was able to be that way without feeling like I was drowning.

But I didn't want to give up on breastfeeding.  I made an appointment with a lactation consultant separate from the hospital. I tried to contact the lady from the hospital several times, but couldn't get in touch with her. So, I got some recommendations from friends in the area. I made the appointment on Thursday, and so I decided to continue to bottle-feed until the appointment.

Bottle feeding was easy in some ways, and difficult in others.  Nick could feed her--definite ease. I knew she was getting nutrition--definite ease.  One difficulty, though, was just the timing. While Avonlea was awake, I pumped while she ate--definitely glad this was happening while Nick was home for the week!  But overnight, she would eat at 3-hour intervals, and I was needing to pump every 2 hours. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of sleep.

Thursday came, and I was extremely nervous. Would going back to breastfeeding make me a crazy person again?  The appointment went well. Mina noted that it was a combination of the time on the bottle in the NICU, plus my overproduction (making it difficult for Avonlea to latch), plus Avonlea's narrow latch that was making things so difficult. She recommended using the nipple shield while breastfeeding, at least for a little while. Working on Avonlea's lip positioning during feeding would help protect myself.  She also suggested breastfeeding during the day and pumping at night for a little bit, so that I could continue to heal.

I left the appointment feeling good, but when we got home, the familiar sinking feeling started to creep over me--it stems from wondering if what I am doing is right, and the logistics of timing and other things breastfeeding-related.

I eventually realized I just need to relax in it. I didn't read any books--that was one of the first good pieces of advice I got--I realized the books I was reading were helping to make me feel inadequate, so I stopped reading them.  I just needed to trust my body and what Avonlea was telling me.

I did the breastfeeding during the day and pumping at night for 2 nights--but quickly went to breastfeeding exclusively after realizing how much more sleep I would get. As I posted before, I cherish my sleep.

The feelings of drowning stopped on Friday. I just started trusting myself. I was having some fever (which was production-related), so I wasn't feeling 100%, but at least I felt like my brain wasn't mushy.

It's been over a week now, and it is going well. My production is evening out--Avonlea has gone 5 hours at night between feedings, and I don't feel like I'm going to die quite so much anymore. But, I think I'm going to start waking her up at the 4-hour mark anyway, so that she sleeps better, and so that I sleep better, too.

She eats every 2 hours during the day (when she stays awake), or every 3-4 hours if she takes a nap. At her appointment last week, she was up to 9lbs 6.5oz, so I know she's getting plenty of nutrition.  Now, I'm just thinking about her face--she gets horrible acne after feedings--and her tummy--she seems to be really uncomfortable, and is often squirmy during feedings. She's been spitting up a little bit, and is in a general state of fussiness all the time.

I'm not eating dairy right now, and I've been working on other things to make her tummy happy. She burps really well, but she's still fussy a lot, especially in the morning (before 10) and in the evening (from 6-9ish).

But she's been a champion sleeper--last night was the best yet, with her sleeping from 10 to 9, getting up three times to eat.

Our Journey to the NICU

Never in a million years did I expect my perfectly healthy pregnancy and big baby girl to end up in the NICU for 7 days.  Of course, I guess anyone who has a baby that ends up in the NICU doesn't really expect it, no matter what the circumstance.

As I said on Facebook in this post, we have been extremely blessed throughout this process. My time in the NICU, though stressful and emotional for me, is not even remotely close to what many moms and dads have experienced--even some of my own friends who had babies arrive weeks or months earlier have much more compelling stories than my own. I do not, through this post, try to make my situation sound any better than theirs. After all, if you put our situations on a scale, mine would certainly be light.  However, emotionally, I am sure that many of the feelings are the same. So, though my story might be much weaker than many others, I hope you'll endure the telling of it, and lend me grace.

I sent Nick home the first night I was in the hospital. It was what our childbirth instructor suggested us to do, because she said the 2nd night was the really hard one, and that we would rather have a rested husband on the 2nd night than a cranky one.  I recognized how tired Nick was--while I was able to have an Ambien and then have an epidural-induced sleep (totaling around 7 hours), Nick was only able to sleep while I had my epidural (and he is a light sleeper, so he probably didn't sleep all that wonderfully, anyway). Though I desired for him to stay, I also knew that he needed to get some good sleep. I told him to go and come back the next morning--he planned on coming in around 9 or so.

Little did I know then how much I would end up needing him! I hope that writing this doesn't make Nick seem like a bad guy for not staying. We literally had no idea what was going to happen that night, and we only knew the advice that a reliable source had given us: he needed to go home. We both felt (at the time) perfectly happy with that decision.  Nick has been awesome--I don't want this to make it seem like he abandoned me or anything. He totally didn't.

After Avonlea was born, we had a couple of visitors, plus I was hyped up on different drugs and the activities of the day, and although the picture in the previous entry looks like I slept, I didn't sleep at all during the day that Avonlea arrived.

The first night, I stayed up almost all night. I did get an hour of sleep here and there, but they are an exclusive room-in-only hospital. I didn't find this out until later that night--or I might've made arrangements for someone else to stay with me that first night!  I was trying to breastfeed every couple of hours, but she wouldn't latch on for any length of time. I was also extremely itchy from the anesthesia wearing off. I was given Benadryl at one point, and the nurses watched Avonlea for an hour because I fell into a Benadryl sleep.  I was being given oxytocin to help get rid of my blood clots, and the IV made a noise that sounded just like our door opening, so all night long I kept looking over at the door. I kept waking up in pain. And of course, hospitals are just really loud. The nurses also kept coming to get Avonlea over and over to do different tests--a few of them they had to do more than once--turns out, her blood clots super fast and they kept having to redo some of the tests because her samples had clotted too quickly.

I enjoyed having the bonding time with Avonlea--I propped her up on my knees on a pillow, and we just watched each other.

But I was also physically exhausted. I kept needing to call the nurses, which made me feel bad (yes, I know it's their jobs, but I still don't like to be that one who keeps calling over and over).  I mean, I couldn't even get Avonlea out of her baby bed that was right next to mine! So anytime she needed to be changed or fed or wrapped up again, I had to call someone.  Grr...

But, when I really needed Nick was in the morning. At 7am, my doctor came in to check on me and pronounced that I was doing well. Then around 7:30, the pediatrician came in. He introduced himself to me, and explained that one of the tests he had ordered last night was a CBC count, and a CRP count. The CBC count was to see how many white blood cells she had. Her number was 30,000, which seems like a lot, but I guess is only borderline normal. It should be much higher than that. Then, the CRP test checks for inflammation or infection in the body. A good definition I found is:

C-reactive protein is released into the blood by the liver shortly after the start of an infection or inflammation. CRP is an early indicator of these problems because its levels usually start to rise in the blood before symptoms, such as fever and pain, appear.

A normal CRP result in newborns is anywhere from 2-10 at the highest. Avonlea's was 19. The Pediatrician ordered another set of the same tests, to determine whether or not the rise in numbers was just from the trauma of birth, or if it was because of an infection due to her being born so far past the water breaking.

At 10 (when Nick was supposed to get to the hospital), the pediatrician called back and said that the tests had come back. While the CBC had gone back to normal, the CRP result jumped up to 35, indicating an infection. It was then that he rocked my world. He said that she would have to be admitted for a minimum of 48 hours to the NICU for a round of antibiotics.

I really think my world stopped. I don't remember most of the rest of what the pediatrician said. I just remember saying "yeah" and "okay" a lot.

I hung up the phone and called Nick immediately. He was at home, getting ready to go, and I told him to hurry and get here because a lot had gone on while he was at home.  Thankfully, he made it to the hospital before they took her down to the NICU.

After I hung up with Nick, I just held on to Avonlea and cried. It was amazing how I had already established this strong and powerful bond with someone I had just met, not even 24 hours before. While the night before by myself hadn't been my favorite, with little sleep and lots of distractions and feeding complications, when it came right down to it, when someone was going to take my baby away from me, I was willing to do anything I could to hold on to her a little bit longer. I prayed a lot until Nick got to the hospital. Asking God to protect her little body, to strengthen her cells, to help her fight off infection, to bring her back to me as soon as possible.

Taking Avonlea down to the NICU was one of the hardest things I have ever done. We wheeled her in, and I couldn't keep the tears from falling. As we went past the beds of the tiny babies, I couldn't imagine her in one of these places, away from me. It was really hard to watch her being put in that bed all by herself (I'm crying again thinking of it).

I know she won't remember this time in her life at all. She won't remember the IVs and the cords and the tubes. She won't remember the beeping and the alarms going off all around her, and the feeling of life being held on by a thread--but these are things that I won't ever be able to forget.

I am again reminded of how blessed my baby is--I joke that she is the Jolly Green Giant of the NICU ward, because she's so much bigger than the rest of the babies, but it is true, and it is a blessing. We don't get a lot of one-on-one time with the neonatologist--but the fact is, we don't need to talk to her a lot, because Avonlea's problems are small in comparison.

Avonlea's journey in the NICU will last 7 days. Her counts came back after 48 hours back down to 19, but because they didn't go down to normal immediately, it indicated an infection present in her system, so they decided to do the full course of treatment. While it makes me sad, I also know that she is in completely competent, professional hands, and she is getting the absolute best care that she can be given.  In the meantime, I am taking care of myself, getting extra rest and nutrition, and pumping every 2 hours to get my milk supply up for her.

I will post some more pictures of what life in the NICU is like in the next entry.