…with our finicky eater

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I provided an update. Who knew taking care of baby took up so much time 😉 So, let me jump in.

Our biggest challenge with Olivia is eating. She was champion eater before we left the hospital but at home she has not been the same. It has definitely been discouraging in many ways. We want the best for Liv. We want her to grow and then we worry about dehydration. We have tried lots of things, different bottles, different formula, different positions, etc and nothing seems to impact it. These last couple of days we have tried going up in nipple flow and that has actually been helping. We are getting closer to what the daily goal is. We had an appointment with speech on Friday, and we learned that it is around three months where the instinct to suck stops and babies need to want to suck on their own. That has helped us understand why sometimes it takes awhile for her to start to suck and why it seems like she gets frustrated. We will continue to try all the things and just pray that she continues to improve without any other health issues. With our visit to the pediatrician on the 28th he did say we could start to try food! So we started with some pureed apples. She’s not sure how she feels about them, but she did eat some. Today we tried pureed carrots. She seemed to like those a little more. Or maybe she is getting to used the new consistency.

For her pediatrician appointment, we also had to get labs done. I don’t know if many of you have experienced a baby having to get blood drawn, but I do not recommend it. I may have been more traumatized than Olivia. I am hoping we will not have to do that again. Her labs came back good so we were able to drop her iron supplement. She is still on the two diuretics, sodium chloride, and her breathing treatment. But with her oral meds the pulmonologist did cut them in half, which has been so nice. She was throwing up half of them anyways.

Her pulmonology appointment went well on the 26th also. We weaned Olivia down to .5 liters. She has been a rock star. Instead of weaning Olivia down more on oxygen, we are beginning to do “sprints” of taking her off the oxygen. So, we will keep her off her oxygen for periods of time to have her get use to it and build her stamina. We are very excited for this step. We see the pulmonologist again tomorrow. We are hoping we can maybe cut her meds. The breathing treatment is not so bad, but unfortunately we cannot find a compound pharmacy that takes our insurance and the sodium chloride is $65 every two weeks. She has to stay on that as long as she is taking any diuretics. We would like to not have to pay that if we can help it.

Olivia has had a couple of home appointments to be assessed for milestones and she rated well in most areas. For Cognitive she is at 2 months (this assessment was done three weeks ago), Communication she is at 3 months, and Social-Emotional she is at 5 months. We will qualify for child development to come in every other week to check on her progress and to show us various things to do with her to have her stay on track. Liv also had an assessment with physical therapy, and she qualifies for a physical therapist to come in every other week to help make sure she is progressing.

Besides all the appointments we have been having so much fun being as a family. We have had lot of visitors, from family, friends, and even some of our primary nurses and child life specialist. We love going on walks, eating at our fav local spots out on the patios when the weather has been nice, and just chillin’ at home. A silver lining of the NICU is that they basically sleep trained Olivia, so she sleeps usually 8hrs, sometimes a little longer. If she sleeps less, we just feed her and then she knocks out for a few more hours. So that has been nice for us. We are not looking forward to when she starts teething. I am sure we will lose sleep at that point.

On the parental front, Jeremy starts a new job tomorrow! He will now be working for Beutler Air Conditioning and Plumbing. So, if you or someone you know needs HVAC repair, maintenance or installation reach out to Jer and he can at least provide information and a quote 🙂

I am still on Paid Family Leave, which has been so great. Being home has definitely not been a walk in the park. My body and mind are starting to slowly come out of survival mode and emotions, thoughts, and memories of what I went through and our time in the NICU are coming up. And even though Liv is doing well, I am still plagued with anxiety about her being home and sometimes taking care of her. I am so thankful for Jeremy who has been not only a great dad but great support to me. And my mom has continued to be a huge help with Liv. I have also started seeing a therapist to help me process everything and help me with my anxiety and this transition of being home.

Alright, I think that is all the updates from The Andersons! Thank you for your continued prayers and support. We appreciate it so much.

Lil’ Liv’s Numbers: