Home Again

It's good to be back to our home in Maryland.  Tim completed his two months of training in San Angelo, TX.  Sophia and I spent the first month in Texarkana with our families, and the second month we got a furnished apartment in San Angelo with Tim.  We have been home almost two weeks, and i'm still unpacking and cleaning..sad!  All of my free time is spent working on my real estate class, which I will finish this week and take the final test. 

Sophia is growing like a flower.  "Growing like a weed" isn't as pretty.  She will hit 6 1/2 months this friday.  I can't even believe it.  She is rolling all the time, "talking" non-stop, and eating so much more baby food..so cute!  Her favorite is sweet potatoes.  Ohh, and she is teething, so you can imagine the drool. 

This past friday I made a last minute appointment for Sophia to see her Dr.  I have been concerned about her spitting up more than normal still, night waking constantly, screaming out randomly like she is in pain, and a few other things.  Of course I have researched all the symptoms, and they all lead to GER or GERD.  Gastroesophegial Reflux (disease).  Sophia does not sleep more than 3 hours at a time.  She wakes up constantly throughout the night, seeming to be uncomfortable.  Nobody gets much sleep in this house.  Anyway, the Dr. put her on prevacid (reflux medicine) and told me to call in two weeks.  If I haven't seen any change, she will refer us to a GI specialist.  Lets hope this works!

                                                    Winter hat that NanaDee made Sophia

 

A warm Russian Princess

Sophia's first Halloween (in San Angelo)

My 25th surprise birthday present from Tim! (ignore the mess)

The Happenings

So much has gone on since my last post. I have not been good about blogging, but once we make it back home to Maryland, I will post more often.

Sophia turned the big 5 months on October 12th! I can't even believe I have a five month old. And not to mention I will be 25 in 3 weeks! Where is the time going?! Anyway, Sophia has done much better with spitting up. When I was in San Angelo (my last post) we decided to switch her formula (with the help of NanaDee, Thank you!) to Parent's Choice Added Rice Starch "for babies that spit up frequently". It has been a miracle drug for her...until she got sick, but I won't get in to that. She was a totally different baby almost immediately after switching. I didn't consult her pedi on this matter, because her dr. has switched for formula several times with no success. Her dr. has staying with the same brand of formula, Enfamil, (probably because she gets paid by them), but I decided to try something new...so happy I went with my own instict. Mom's know best sometimes, right? I would go on a long tangent about how we are all brainwashed to think that only name brand anything is the best. Well, that's not always the case. Parent's Choice (walmart brand) has worked the best for Sophia thus far. And it's much cheaper. Why? Probably because they don't spend millions of dollars selling their products to Dr's and hospitals, or making their formula cans look pretty. I will leave it at that before I get angry again.

Next: Tim decided to get some of his family together in Austin on his four day weekend. Two weeks ago, I drove from Texarkana, Stephanie (his sister) drover from Houston, his cousin Megan drove from College Station, his cousin Amber and her husband Kyle drove from Tyler, and good ole Uncle Dave from Texarkana. We all met in Austin for a bit of a family reunion. At the last minute I decided to bring Sophia, so that we could just drive back to San Angelo with Tim to stay for his remaining time in training. It wasn't the best circumstances to bring an infant to Austin, but I'm glad we made the trip, because Sophia and I have been in San Angelo for the past two weeks. We three got a furnished apartment off base until November 5th. We are enjoying our time here with Tim.  We had a great time seeing everyone in Austin, and plan to make it a yearly reunion.

Oatmeal:
Sophia's pedi back in Maryland insisted that I do not start solids until she is 6 months. However, her temporary Dr. in Texarkana starts their feeding program at 4 months. So i figured since she is 5 months, we would give in a whirl. I started with 1 teaspoon rice cereal mixed with formula. She absolutely hated it. Her face was priceless. The next morning i tried Oatmeal mixed with formula..same story. I figured she just wasn't quite ready, so I would wait about a week and try it again. My wonderful friend Stephanie, who has two kiddos (we miss you girls!), one of which is only 3 weeks older than Sophia, told me to try apple juice mixed with oatmeal...Anabelle loves it. So this past monday, October 18th, I tried it once more with Steph's recommendation. Sophia loved it! ( I really prefer her to eat oatmeal over rice cereal, since it doesn't cause constipation) It's the cutest thing now! I have been giving it to her every morning and evening, and then of course her bottle afterwards. The past two days I have even given her some at lunch. I upped her feeding to 2 tablespoons each time today and she gobbled it all right up! She has gotten to the point of opening her mouth every time the spoon comes near. She hasn't quite mastered the art of putting her tongue down and closing her mouth around the spoon, but so far, she's a champ! Does anybody have any recommendations on how much oatmeal to give her each time? For now, i'm just sticking with 2 tablespoons.

Now that she is eating oatmeal, i don't feel like she is even a baby anymore (until she screams uncontrollably) haha. The Pedi in Texarkana recommends 3 weeks of oatmeal, and then go on to baby food, starting with squash and other yellows. Try each one for 3 days to make sure no rash appears and then move on. Any other ideas, moms? If not, i'll stick to that plan.

In other news, i'm still working on my real estate license course online. I should finish within a few weeks, and take the final test when we get back to Maryland. I'm very excited! We are set to make it back around November 10 or 11. Tim goes back to work on the 12th (my b-day). What a bummer! I actually cannot wait to get back home though. Our great friends Dave and Flee, whom we haven't seen in over 3 years and now have 3 girls, moved 1 1/2 hours from us in Virginia! We are so excited to see them and meet all their babies! Their twin girls are only about a month younger than Sophia and Lizzy is 3 1/2! I can't wait to get our little families together.

Ok, pictures! A bit out of order with the oatmeal pics.

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Who knew that this $15 dollar umbrella stroller would come in handy!  It swallows her right now, but she loves it!

We are back!

It's been too long since my last post. So much has happened, and Sophia is pretty much grown! I have deleted my facebook, and will blog on a regular basis now. My goal is to post on here at least once a week. I hope to keep up with it so that one day Sophia can go back and read all about her growth and milestones and how much we love her.

Sophia turned 4 months on September 12th. She actually rolled over for the first time two days ago. She rolled from her belly to her back during the night. I happened to be awake so I was able to witness the adorable experience. She is making all kinds of noises (talking all the time), and smiling non-stop. She hasn't quite giggled yet, but she is so close! I cannot wait for that sweet sound.

She went through a colicky spell that started about a month ago, but is getting over that. She has still been spitting up a lot which causes her to be fussy and not be able to sleep very well at times...so she is on her fourth kind of formula, which she just started last night. We will give it about 2 weeks to see if it makes a difference. She was on the most expensive kind, for colic, but it wasn't helping with spitting up at all, so we switched her to Similac Sensitive Tummy for Spit-Up. We pray that this new brand/kind makes a difference. On a positive note, Sophia did start sleeping through the night at 4 months. She has been sleeping from 10pm-7am on average. She may wake up once during the night and get a little fussy because her tummy bothers her, but normally giving her the pacifier puts her back to sleep.

In other news Tim, Sophia, and I have been in Texas since September 9th. Tim was sent to ALC (military training) in San Angelo, TX. This training will last for 7 weeks so we figured we should all travel to Texas so that Sophia and I could spend time with family. I actually left Texarkana yesterday and drove to San Angelo to surprise Tim. He was totally shocked! I will stay for about a week. Sophia is with her Nana Dee (Tim's mom), and i know they are having fun. I miss her so much, but I try not to worry too much because I know she is in great hands. It's tough being away. I'm torn between Sophia and Tim, so i'm trying to do my best at being a good mom and wife. It's hard when they are in two different places, but we are making it.

It's getting late here in San Angelo, so I will leave you all with a few recent pictures of our angel.

Anniversary Surprise

Tim and I celebrated our five year anniversary on June 11th. Luckily we had family here, Papa Cox and Mama Cox, to keep Sophia so we could slip away for a couple of hours. (They were a HUGE help by the way..THANK YOU!) I had no idea what Tim had planned..He just told me that he would be wearing dress pants and a tie. Oh great, I had no idea what to wear..so I threw on a dress to be safe. We drove to a restaurant in downtown Annapolis (which is picture perfect). It was a fancy little local italian restaurant. The manager led us through a locked door to our own private table. When I walked in the manager said, "Happy Anniversary Mrs. Rice". Sooo Tim had been planning...haha. It was very sweet. On our table sat an arrangement of pretty flowers and candles. Tim had a local florist deliver the flowers about half an hour before we arrived. He's so thoughtful! A few minutes after we sat down, he started a sweet speech, that made us both tear up of course (sorry Tim). And THEN to my SHOCKING SURPRISE he pulled out what looked like a ring box! I was speechless. Tim had upgraded my wedding ring! I couldn't speak..i had no idea what to say! I was so surprised!

See, five years ago we were 19 and had NO MONEY..therefore he was forced to take out a loan for 400.00 for my first ring! Which we laugh so hard about now when we realize how far we have come. I love my wedding ring and will always wear it (until i give it to Sophia someday) however, I LOOOOOOOVE my new ring. Tim explained, "five diamonds for five years". It's so big! I don't even feel like I can wear something this nice! But I will quickly get used to it, haha. I'm actually picking it up today from being sized. I cannot wait to wear it proudly. Thank you so much my love! You are the greatest thing thats ever happened to me.

So I had to post a picture of it, which does not do it justice!

I also found our first family photo in the NICU. My poor baby. But she's doing great now. This past tuesday she weighed in at 7lbs 9ozs. We go back in 2 weeks for another weight check. Also we go for a follow-up head ultrasound in a couple of weeks. This is because her first head scan in the hospital came back questionable. The Dr. said there was possible hemmoraging (bleeding) in her brain after birth and also the scan showed an englarged ventricle. It sounds bad, however, the Doctor assured us that he would not send her home if he thought it was dangerous. So he sent us home from the hospital with instructions for a follow-up head scan to make sure everything looks ok. Please pray that everything checks out.

Sophia hasn't quite mastered sleeping through the night yet. Tim went back to work this past Thursday so i have been taking all the night feedings. I get about 2 hours of sleep at a time. I hope she steps it up soon! For those that know my sleeping habits, knows that lack of sleep to this extent has been extremely hard for me, haha. But i'm loving every minute of my time with Sophia. We hang out all day at the house and wait for Daddy to get home around 5pm...then i'm off to run errands and gain some sanity, lol.

Pops, Nanadee, Aunt Melo and Aunt Katy arrive tomorrow (Tim's parents and sisters). We can't wait for them to meet Sophia!

We love you all!

Aren't they adorable??

Register

SHR

So Haleigh and I are officially falling in love with Sophia here in our home. She reallyis being a good baby. Her fussing and crying is minimal and she has eating quite well lately. We bought a jogging stroller and have taken her on several walks already. As luck would have it, just as soon as she feels the stroller in motion, she falls asleep. It's precious.

David, Tresa and Zach left earlier this afternoon (notice I'm up feeding Sohia at 3 am, so I guess they left yesterday now), and we had blast with them. Lots of games with Zach and company, and David and Tresa proved quite helpful with the house and babysitting. Hal and I were able to go and celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. We had a great time.

Now it's just the three of us until my parents and little sisters come to visit on the 20th or so. We're really looking forward to spending time with them, and I understand they're pretty excited about meeting Sophia. Then again, who wouldn't be??? :)

God bless everyone. Thank God our girl is home.

Sophia is HOOOOOOMMMMEE!!!!! thank God almighty, Sophia is home at last! (pics to follow soon)

So this is Sophia chilling in her swing. Our friend Banu brought us an outfit from Turkey when she visted last, and Sophia wore it home from the hospital. Isn't that hat hilarious?!?



And here is the onesie (sp?) that Uncle Dave got her. Ha ha ha... Sorry, these iPhone pics are too small. The shirt says "Hey Obama, I could use a change."

My name is Sophia, and I'm (no longer) an addict.

Sophia is off the morphine!! The docs discontinued it this morning after weaning by 2-hundreths of a miligram every day. She had minimal withdrawal symptoms towards the end, so she's no longer on narcotics!

Poor Haleigh is exhausted yet determined to run off of adrenaline. We learned yesterday that she has an infection, Mastitus, so she's taking anti-biotics for that.

We're a lot closer to bringing Sophia home. We have to have her take every feeding by bottle, whereas currently she takes every other feeding by her feeding tube. Also weight gain is an issue, as she has been going down by an ounce or two over the past few days (which basically means she is burning more calories by being forced to take a bottle than the amount contained in the bottle itself).

Please keep Haleigh and Sophia in your prayers, as well as Bradie Cook (and family) and Trey Sutton. God bless.

Keeping the Faith

Today Haleigh and I unfortunately learned that, and I quote the nurse, "even if everything in the universe goes perfectly well, Sophia will be in the hospital at least 8 more days for weaning the morphine alone." I could have punched through a brick wall... We were so shocked. We had the impression that the medical staff all felt Sophia would be released soon. It seems that hospitals operate differently, so while Johns Hopkins main campus was perhaps more aggressive in Sohpia's weaning, Bayview Hospital (also owned by Johns Hopkins) has a more established procedure. We learned that Bayview actually specializes in the Baltimore region's babies who are born addicted to drugs. It is rather painful to see Sophia be weaned by the same nurses who are caring for babies whose mothers were doing drugs during their pregnancy. Even so, we are aware that we did everything we could as far as prenatal care is concerned, and Sophia is only addicted to narcotics because they were necessary to sedate her for the ventilator's breathing support.

On a more positive note, the doctors removed the high flow nasal canula today and so far we have not had to replace it. Sophia's (she's beautiful, by the way) saturations have remained stable for the past 10 hours even with no breathing or oxygen support. Thank God for this. So the two big concerns are weening her off the morphine and also increasing her feeding intake. Both, it seems, will take a lot longer than we expected.

Our assigned social worker could not be more helpful. She reminds me of my mother (now referred to as Nana Dee) and has helped us out with a free parking pass and official letter to my chain of command. For that matter, we are very comfortable with with all of the doctors, some of whom we actually met at the critical NICU on the main campus.

I don't know how Ashlie and Brad did this. And even still they are helping Bradie fight illness and slow growth. Trey Sutton and his whole family... how? A hospital is not a home, and we can't wait to get Sophia to where she belongs.

Inconvenient but good news

Although we were hoping to bring Sophia home today, she has shown sufficient progress to make the doctors decide another transfer. We told them in the beginning about our discontent with Howard County General, so they didn't even mention that hospital as an option last night. Instead they asked us last night for our consent to transfer Sophia to Bayview hospital, a Johns Hopkins (JH) campus also in Baltimore. The NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) at the main JH campus where she currenty lies is a class 4 NICU which means it provides care to infants in critical need. Since Sophia is in the clear regarding the pneumoparacardium and jet ventilator, all doctors agree that she can be transferred.

Haleigh and I were caught off guard when a Dr. confronted us last night with a request to sign the consent form for transfer. I never like making a hasty decision, so we took advantage of our rights, as it were, and decided to sleep on it. Now we're comfortable with signing the consent form and we're on our way to the hospital soon to do just that. Obviously we hate having to change our comfort zone again and go through meeting an entirely new medical staff (again), but in the grand scheme of things, we consider this good news since Sophia no longer requires critical care.


My brother and sister-in-law, Ben and Kacey, are heading out today. They've been a tremendous help for the past few days and we love them very much. Incoming today is Haleigh's step-dad, Jay, and he and Melissa will stay with us until June 6th.


Now let's get this little girl home!!

Slow Progress, But Progress Nonetheless

Hey everyone. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers and staying in touch. Sophia wants to come home but we're still waiting on her lungs to function independently, among other things. She's off the ventilator but remains on the high flow nasal canula with 30% oxygen. The doctors have switched the fentynol (sedetive drug) to morphine in order to transition her dependency on drugs a bit more smoothly. The only need for the morphine is to ween Sophia from the high doses of sedatives so as to prevent strong withdrawals. It's sad, but yes, our daughter is addicted to narcotics.

In the pictures below you'll see Sophia's PICC (peripherally inserted centralized catheter) in the side of her head. The catheter replaces the peripheral IV inserted in the hand or foot and it runs from her scalp, down through her neck and to the right atrium of her heart. The tube sends nutritional fluids through her vein until Sophia is 100% on breast milk. Currently, the doctors are giving about half of Sophia's nutrition through breast milk, but even half of that is given by a feeding tube because Sophia is being stubborn with the bottle.

It has been nice being able to hold and feed our little girl lately. Granted, she's got a thousand tubes connected to her, but after 8 days of never hold our daughter, we'll take what we can get. On one hand these day-long visits to the hospital make it seem that we'll never bring Sophia home, but on the other hand we're definitely seeing progress. Just pick up the pace, Sophia!! God bless.

Very Good News

Quick and good update: We were present for the 'rounds' that the doctors make throughout the morning, where 10 doctors collectively assess each infant in the NICU and determine the proper plan for the day. We learned that the attendee doctor thought Sophia was ready to come off the conventional ventilator! Although it's possible that she may have to return to it, the doctors all agreed that Sohpia's lungs and blood gases all reflected her readiness to breathe without a ventilator. They hope to extubate her today and put in its place an air nasal canula. How happy this made us! (including Sophia...)

The doctors shed much more light on her case, including that optimistically Sophia has at least another week to spend in the hospital. The general rule of thumb, as we learned today, is for doctors to monitor an infant for stability in every aspect for a period of 5 days before they release the baby to go home. We're trying to wean her off the fentynol more aggressively, so she's on 1.7 micrograms per hour right now, as opposed to 2 (just nod your head and smile like I do when the doctors try to explain all this... :)

So please pray that she shows more signs of improvement and stability once she is extubated. We can't wait to bring her home!

Sophia, hurry home!!!

Here's a little video of Sophia blinking her eyes for us. She's sedated on fentynol, so she may look a little drowsy...

Here is Haleigh leaving the hospital (Howard County). She had to stay home the next day, but on the 16th she was able to accompany me to visit Sophia at Johns Hopkins.


Being treated with the ole' Billy Light (for Jaundice). The docs stopped the treatment after only 24 hours, however they say it's likely to have to treat it again later.

Kissing her precious little knee.

Melissa (Haleigh's mom who now goes by Grammy) arrived on the 16th and has taken on the grandmother role like a champ. :) What a big help around the house!!

Three generations...

Haleigh got to change her diaper earlier today! I checked Sophia's temperature.

Okay, now that the pics are over, all the interested parties can continue learning the details by reading the following. First, I'd like to say that my heart goes out to Ashlie and Brad Cook who spent 4 months visiting the NICU at Baylor Medical because their (now 1.5 year old) Bradie was born premature at 26 weeks. I can't imagine going through this for that long, so for that, Ashlie and Brad have become my heroes. God bless you guys.

It seems that God and the doctors and the ventilator have all made the pneumoparachardiom (air around the heart) go away. This was the reason Sophia was tranferred by ambulance to Johns Hopkins (JH) in the beginning, so what a relief to have that behind us. The pneumonia is still being treated by antibiotics and we believe it will take another 7 days for effectiveness. As for the darn ventilator, we're hoping that her blood gases improve so that we can switch from the jet ventilator to the conventional ventilator, and then to no ventilator. Sophia's being stubborn for now though, and her oxygen assistance level is ranging between 40 and 60 per cent lately. The persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN) is no longer a concern to the doctors, so I guess that means her lungs have developed properly. (Haleigh, remind me to ask Dr. Hughes how the PPHN can go away but the PIP/PEEP not decrease from the current settings)

We recorded some classical music (some of which was given to us by Meme and Papaw for the baby shower) onto a tape recorder and placed it in Sophia's bed. On the other side of the tape, we recorded ourselves reading kids books. I hope this keeps her company through the night!

Thank you all for your prayers. We appreciate it more than you know.

Mommy's first visit; transfer to Johns Hopkins

Thank you all for coming together last night and lifting Sophia up in prayer! Quick update: the air around her heart has begun to go away as shown in several X-rays. The docs are hoping the pneumoparacardium solves itself without having to operate. Nothing much has changed except that she's developed jaundice and the docs increased her oxygen over night to 100%. She will be treated for at least 10 days for pneumonia, and then we'll take it day by day.

Sophia truly completes the lives of Haleigh and me, in a way we could never describe. When the transport nurse practioner explained to us she would have to operate on Sophia during transit if her heart got worse, she used the words, "because at that point it's the only thing that will save her life." We could barely manage our emotional distress when presented with the gravity of that scenario, and of course the crying was immensely painful on Haleigh's abdomen. So please understand the reason I requested that no one contact Haleigh. She is feeling better now though.

The following pics are from Haleigh's first visit with Sophia, 2 days after the c-section. It was a heart-warming moment, and the icing on the cake was that Sophia started moving immediately after hearing Mommy's voice. :)

Look at that head of hair!

Then, the sad part. The Neonatalogist at Howard County General discovered pneumoparacardium (the wall of air around Sophia's heart) and ordered a transfer to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. This pic is just before the team began prepping her for transport (by ambulance).

The nurse practitioner on the team was very nice and reminded me of my Aunt Kathy. The team didn't allow me to follow, but I made it clear to them that while Sophia was just another baby to them, she was my daughter, and they were transporting the future first female president of the United States.

Upon arrival to Johns Hopkins, the new doctor replaced the ventilator with one more gentle. They took X-rays and already saw a decrease in the air built up around the heart. Thanks be to God!

Here she is at the new NICU. I showed up about an hour after they admitted her. She fussed a little so I had the doctor tear down the hideous wallpaper and make the lighting softer on the walls. I could tell that's what her problem was...

In conclusion, Haleigh's OB saw her this morning and after learning about Sophia's transfer offered to discharge Haleigh early. Since it is the third-and-a-half day after the c-section, the Dr. thought it was no problem to release her. We will be leaving Howard County within the hours and take Haleigh home. Our house is closer to Baltimore so as I continue commuting between the two loves of my life, it will be easier on all of us. Melissa, Haleigh's mom who chose "Grammy" as her grandparent title, will be here tomorrow to help us at the house. This will be extremely helpful!

Thanks again everyone. Please continue to pray for our little girl. And for that matter remember Ashlie and Brad Cook's little one, Bradie, who has spent way too much of her precious life inside a hospital. Also, of course most of you know Trey Sutton and his family, and we continue to pray for God to heal him as well.

Peace be with you all!