After The Tenth..... When The Fun Really Begins

The one question I get asked more than anything else is usually some form of "How is Macy adjusting to being Laney's big sister?" and I have to be honest and say that it has gone even better than I ever imagined. Our biggest problem is that Macy love's her sister tooooo much. Let me explain.

When Macy used to wake up from a nap, she would either cry or call out for mommy or daddy to come get her. When you entered her room, she would instantly perk up and yell out "Mamma" or "Dadda" depending upon who actually got her. Now she's just as likely to call out to you as she is to call out for "baby." Instead of rewarding me for saving her from the confines of her crib, she just wants to know where to find her sister.

She will then run up and down the hall searching for Laney. Often times, Laney was in one location when Macy started her nap and is in a different one when Macy wakes up. Once she reaches the ground, her two little feet go stomping around, rushing her wobbly body down the hall to see if Laney is where she left her and when she's not, she then begins her search.

As you can imagine, newborns cry and some days they cry a lot. Macy does not like it when her sister cries. She will often try pick up Laney's binky and shove it in her mouth. Macy being affected by Laney's crying has made it difficult on Annie since Laney had been getting regular injections to address her low hemoglobin numbers.

The latest bit of fun is watching Macy put her arms out, wanting Annie to lay her sister in her arms. It is very cute to see and difficult to explain that mommy carries her baby and Macy carries her own baby, but not mommy's.

With every passing day, Laney seems to get bigger and stronger and so we felt comfortable in loosening our efforts to segregate her from the general population. First it was a friend or two over to the house and then a short trip to the bank and now we take Laney out and about. Knowing that she was 5 weeks early and that her immune system is  probably still getting ramped up, we were a little overly protective. According to the pediatrician, we shouldn't have her out for 3 months, but that's just not realistic; so we do what we can.

We still have our custom "preemie" sign on her stroller, which seems to have helped. Our new found freedom coincided with Father's Day this year and the Kupper family's Texas to Florida road trip. The road trip had a tentative stop in South Florida planned, with the assumption that all the road-trippers were healthy. The van based group were met by the Cateni faction and Grandpa Kupper. After travelling all the way from Texas to the great state of Florida, Caitlin got sick the morning of the drive east. JUST OUR LUCK! (Ok...that was a bit self-centered...of course I was upset that Caitlin was sick and not feeling well.) A few last minute calls and I found myself meeting the Kupper clan in the parking lot of a walk-in clinic, minutes before they were scheduled to close.

I played the role of supervising adult, while Mike had to rush the rest of his family and his nauseous wife (Sara) to the hotel, and we got Caitlin checked out and walked away with a prescription for an antibiotic. We then spent the next few days trying to keep Laney as far away from her cousin as possible. All in all the weekend was a lot of fun and we even got a few cute pictures, which are below. (Caitlin was a trooper and in the end no one else noticed any ill-effects...go antibiotics!!!!)

I guess since I don't have any first cousins, I find it hard to believe that Macy and Laney have 4 first cousins and guess what?They are about to get TWO more!!! (You didn't think Sara was on the verge of puking all weekend because she was sick as well, did you? Wouldn't I have mentioned that? )

Big congrats go out to Uncle Mike and Aunt Sara AND Uncle Americo and Aunt Tori. Looks like Laney's moment in the sun  as the family's newest member is going to be pretty short lived. Last year at the Father's Day get together, Annie announced that she wouldn't be providing the new baby at each year's family weekend and we all know how that turned out. But this time there is no need...

At this rate, future family gatherings are going to have be held at a local convention center and not someone's house.

(FYI...This set of images has some captions at the bottom of the photo.)

Laney's reached the double digits...she's now a 10 pound baby. It is hard to believe how fast she's growing. I know that a 10 pound baby isn't that big, but when you start out less than 6 pounds, you feel HEAVY when you reach the double digit mark.

While it hasn't been an easy march towards her new weight, it has certainly never been boring. We always knew that we had it easy with Macy on so many fronts and there was no way a second baby would be as easy, but life with Laney has been a much "rarer" experience than we bargained for. I'm sure I don't have to re-hash the rare condition that caused her to join us a little earlier than expected. Then once she was born we had a bit of a jaundice issue that lasted much longer than anyone expected. (To be honest, it isn't completely gone yet...but I'll explain more in a second)

Upon her arrival home, it became clear that things weren't going to be that easy with our newest one. She didn't take to the breast feeding right away and we had to supplement her feedings with a bottle of breast milk. When her bilirubin scores didn't drop, the doctor's were concerned about her having Breast Milk Jaundice, which is a rare condition in which the something in the mother's milk prevents the baby from breaking down the bilirubin in their body. (picking up on the pattern yet?) We aren't sure if she had this or not, but for the 3 days that she was switched to formula seemed to make a difference.

While addressing her continued orange hue, we also mentioned how much she sleeps. So after a number of visits and follow ups, Laney is now seeing a hematologist since there were some blood test results that the pediatrician wasn't happy with. Laney's hemoglobin numbers were a little low and dropping. So now Laney has the distinct pleasure of going to BGMC to get an injection three times a week. She then has to get a particular blood test done once a week to test the success of the treatments. Of course our health insurance doesn't cover the lab at BGMC, so Annie has to schlep Laney down to the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital , which isn't nearly as close. Good news though, since she started the treatments her hemoglobin numbers have risen and her orange color is gone.

We still don't know the root cause of the issue, but at least the symptoms seem to be coming under control and they have ruled out some possible causes that wouldn't have been fun. She's awake more now than ever and her color looks good and for our "rare" baby, that is enough for now.

PS...I know that I have been REALLY behind in my posts and it bothers me when I think about how many things are happening that I haven't written about and I'll most likely never remember to write about all of them, but I'm going to make an effort to backtrack and document some recent events. One event that seems to have happened a lifetime ago, was the visit from Annie's side of the family. I have a handful of really cute photos from that weekend and I want to get them posted...along with the other 25 things I want to do that don't actually ever get done.