By Liz McCarthy

The First Part of this Story can be found at Born Too Early; A Mom’s Story Pt.1

The emotions of loss while at the same time knowing you have a daughter whose life is hanging by a thread has to be the hardest thing anyone should have to go through.

Kaitlyn weighed 1 pound 11 ounces at birth. She was born 13 weeks early, at 26 weeks gestation. Brian’s wedding band fit over Kaitlyn’s foot. Kaitlyn spent a long 127 days in the NICU. That’s over 4 months! I wasn’t able to hold Kaitlyn, she was covered in wires, she was under blue lights to treat jaundice, and she was on a ventilator. Kaitlyn had so many blood transfusions I lost count. She had constant heel pricks to get her blood to test for numerous things. She was at risk for NEC, PDA, ROP, BPD…the alphabet soup of scary things that I knew nothing about. I had a crash course in Medicine (I’ve since had people ask me if I was a nurse, and I say, no, I’m a Real Estate Broker!)

We were told the NICU experience was like a roller-coaster. Some days she did better than others, some days were absolutely awful. Just when you felt she was doing better, we were told that her lungs were filling with fluid and that things were not looking good. She was on a ventilator for a month, and we weren’t allowed to hold her that entire time. Many days when we’d visit Kaitlyn would be sound asleep, and I would just sit there at her bed side, reading to her, cupping her, feeling absolutely helpless. Day after day after day.

The NICU finally told me to stop bringing in breast milk as they ran out of room, as Kaitlyn was so sick, she wasn’t being fed my milk yet, eventually we ran out of room in our freezer at home so we had to purchase a 6-foot tall dedicated freezer.

Here are a couple posts from my blog:

Katilyn is incredibly feisty! I mean really, really feisty. She has a temper like you can’t believe. The docs main concern (besides her lungs of course) is trying to keep her sedated and still, as she hates anything being done to her and kicks, moves, squirms and thrashes. She’s got the longest arms, legs, fingers and toes and when she’s trashing about, she’s kicking her legs, waves her arms and tries to grab all the wires and tubes.

I got to change her diaper today and I got to “cup” her in her isolette which helps her to be less fussy. Her oxygen requirements are much less when I do that, so I do think she can feel my presence.

Today Kaitlyn got her breathing tube removed and went on the CPAP.
They removed the face mask and we got to see Kaitlyn for the very first time without any wires or tape on her face! Unfortunately, her face was very “scrunched” up do to the mask that was on it, so she wasn’t looking her best, but she opened up her eyes. It brought tears to both our eyes.

By the time we got home from the hospital, the doctor called us and said she had to removed her from the CPAP and put back on the ventilator.

Afterwards I had a crying break-down. Seems to be a common occurrence for me. I tried to ask Brian how I should feel, as it’s so hard for me to feel “encouraged, joyful, optimism or any type of happiness”. I feel too guilty for feeling this way because of the incredible grief I feel for Corinne. It feels like I’m being disloyal to myself and to Corinne’s memory.

Well, it’s time to pump again and for Brian to change my dressings. It’s like having a full-time job (which I do have but I’m just not going to)…..Between pumping, dressing changes, trying to sleep to recover, time at the hospital, driving to and from the hospital, the entire day flies by.

November 12! I finally got to hold Kaitlyn. Just think of your baby when they were first born and placed on your chest. I had to wait 1 _ months to hold my baby - This moment was so amazing, the tears just ran down my cheeks as I held her gingerly. She was so beautiful! She looked up at my face, my heart melted there on the spot.

Fast forward to the beginning of December when Kaitlyn was diagnosed with Stage 3 ROP. Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is what caused Stevie Wonder’s blindness. Premature babies who are exposed to too much oxygen get ROP, which is basically the retinas detaching from the corneas. Kaitlyn needed another surgery, to try to stop the progression of ROP. If you recall, she already had heart surgery when she was 6 days old, and now an eye surgery. Months later, we found out that her ROP progression was stopped by the surgery, and we are still waiting (at a year old) to find out if she’ll need glasses for her near-sightedness.

I started asking the doctors in December that I was concerned about her lack of a cry. They discovered that her left vocal chord was paralyzed which was caused from her heart surgery (after a horrible scope test). The surgery saved her life, but she will now spend the rest of her life with a paralyzed vocal chord. She will likely learn to speak, but it will likely be very hoarse and raspy. When she cries it’s silent.

Kaitlyn stopped wanting to eat. She would eat some by nipple (or from my breast), but then stop, so she continued to have to be supplemented via feeding tube. Eventually, weeks and weeks later, her due date came and went. It was now January. She’d been in the NICU for 3 months, and it didn’t look like she was coming home any time soon.

February 9th, 4 months after she was born, 1 month after she was due, we finally got to bring our little girl home with us. I can’t tell you the elation when it was me finally walking the halls with my car seat! I felt like I lived at the hospital for 4 months and we were finally taking our baby home with us. We were sent home with feeding tubes, tape for her skin, syringes, and instructions to set up 8 doctor appointments the day we got home. I suddenly realized that my dream of going home was being realized, but that nothing was “normal” about our homecoming.

I had been focusing for 4 longs months of our homecoming and never really thought about anything post NICU. No one ever prepared me for how hard things would be after we walked out of the hospital door.

November 2006
Kaitlyn is 13 months old now (10 months adjusted). Kaitlyn has had so many doctor visits since our release from the NICU it’s impossible to count. She had to have a 3rd surgery – to implant a feeding tube directly into her stomach in March, as she stopped wanting to eat anything orally. She lost her “suck” reflux, and has spent many months now of vomiting upwards of 20 times a day. She has horrible reflux and oral aversions.

She now is fed via a feeding tube for 10 hours straight at night, as well as 3 hours during the day. We go to weekly eating therapy, physical therapy, developmental specialists, and still visit the following doctors monthly: Eyes, lungs, urologist, ENT (for her vocal chord), pediatrician, neurologist. In the winter months she gets monthly shots that cost $2,000 each to help ward off RSV. My life is full of syringes, feeding tubes, IV poles, never-ending laundry, and nursing help so I can get a break to work.

She just celebrated her birthday last month, and even with all of the above, Kaitlyn is doing amazingly well. She’s absolutely beautiful! She just learned to crawl and can sit up on her own. Although she is definitely delayed, she is doing remarkably well. She hasn’t smiled AT ALL until just recently (Yes, I waited an entire YEAR for my daughter to smile and recognize me); she doesn’t make vocalizations, and is still socially very very delayed – she’s had a rough start of life. She now weighs 16 _ pounds - We are amazed with all her vomiting that she continues to gain.

Kaitlyn is the love of my life. I can honestly say that I am a very different person than I was before I entered down the path of motherhood. I think I’ve become much more compassionate, caring and understanding about how precious life is. And how much a miracle having a healthy baby truly is. My life was altered forever when I had my amnio on 7/26/05. I’ll NEVER forget that date as long as I live. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of Kaitlyn’s sister Corinne, but I know that Kaitlyn has the most precious guardian angel looking out for her.

My entire story is online at: www.alizard.com Please spread the word about my preemie support group. Preemie mom’s need help in so many ways – Our life is different, our motherhood experience is different. So if you know of someone who needs some support, please have them contact me! Liz@aLizard.com (or if you need real estate help!)

A South African man is in trouble after he faked a sick note which said he needed time off work because he was pregnant.

Magistrates in Vereeniging, near Johannesburg, fined Charles Sibindana, 27, £70 for the forgery, reports the Sapa agency.

Sibindana stole a medical certificate from a health centre used by his pregnant girlfriend, but was apparently unaware only women consulted gynaecologists.

Magistrate Bruno Van Eeden jokingly warned Sibindana “not to walk around faking sick letters from gynaecologists”

SOURCE:ANANOVA

I have never posted a positive article on smoking while being pregnant. That’s because there aren’t any. Researchers are always finding more side effects that are caused by maternal smoking. There are no benefits to anyone. Because I have never smoked before I cannot understand why someone would willing choose to put their child at risk.

Not only are the children of pregnant women who smoke more likely to develop a host of health and behavioural problems — including asthma, attention deficit disorder and difficulty with reading and math — they are also more likely to take up smoking and to do so at an early age, a new study finds.

The study examined the smoking patterns of children of 3,058 mothers who took part in a long-term study of pregnancy by the University of Queensland and Mater Misericordiae Mothers’ Hospital in Australia. The mothers received prenatal care at the Brisbane hospital between 1981 and 1984.

Of the mothers, 53.1 per cent said they never smoked, 35.6 per cent smoked at some stage of pregnancy, and 11.4 per cent said they smoked before or after but not during pregnancy.

Researchers followed up with the children at age 21. Children whose mothers smoked while pregnant were nearly three times as likely to have started smoking before age 14 and to have become regular smokers than children whose mothers never smoked. The children were twice as likely to have started smoking after age 14 and to have become

Researchers said there is evidence that nicotine passes through the placenta and alters brain development in a way that changes how the body responds to nicotine later in life.

Related Articles:

Smoking In Cars A Danger To Children

Smoking During Pregnancy Harms Baby’s Immune System

New Moms Resume Smoking After Giving Birth

SOURCE:CANADA.COM

The Canadian Mint has produced many new collections of coins for Christmas this year.

The two that caught my eye were the 2006 Baby Coin Gift Set and 2006 Commemorative Holiday Coin Set. Both of these sets would be a great gift for baby’s first Christmas.

The Baby Coin Gift Set includes a $2 coin, $1 coin, .50 cent piece, Quarter, Dime, Nickel, Penny and a soothing instrumental lullabies CD. The set features an authentic Royal Canadian Mint Sterling dollar coin with a teddy bear, stars and a half moon inset at the top of it. The packing includes a section where the babies information can filled in. $29.95 CAD available at the The Royal Canadian Mint.

The third edition of the 2006 Commemorative Holiday Coin Set features a special a 25- cent coin painted with Santa Claus and Rudolph, which will only be available in this set. The set includes a $2 coin, $1 coin, .50 cent piece, Quarter, Dime, Nickel and Penny. This set is great for any child. You could help there start a collection of coins and make this a yearly gift. $19.95 CAD available at The Royal Canadian Mint.

There are more and more unusual stories about babies being born with anomalies. I am not sure if there are now more occurrences of unusual happenings or that we have more access to the information.

A boy has been born in Chile with a fetus in his stomach in what doctors said was a rare case of “fetus in fetu” in which one twin becomes trapped inside another during pregnancy and continues to grow inside it.

Doctors carried out a scan on the boy’s mother shortly before she gave birth on Nov. 15 in the southern city of Temuco and noticed the 4-inch-long fetus inside the boy’s abdomen.

It had limbs and a partially developed spinal cord but no head and stood no chance of survival, doctors said.

After the birth, doctors operated and removed the fetus from the boy’s stomach. The boy, who has not been named, was recovering at Temuco’s Hernan Henriquez hospital.

“It’s very rare,” said Maria Angelica Belmar, head of the hospital’s neonatal wing, speaking of fetus in fetu cases.

“It occurs in only one in every 500,000 live births,” she told Reuters, adding that the number of cases recorded worldwide was fewer than 90.

SOURCE:MSNBC

This is really cute!! I love Huggies commercials they are so well done. This one is a spoof of the Jerry Maguire type “Bad Day”. Enjoy!!

Related Videos:

You Tube “Huggies Commercial”

You Tube ” Girlfriend Tip #47 Funny Pregnancy Video”


You Tube “Water Babies by Evian”

These Ghosts make a great night light for your childs room or just a great companion that changes colour to your favourite song.

Vaguely reminiscent of Casper the ghost, (but at least twice as cute), they cycle through an array of cheerful, ambient colours casting pleasing little puddles of light about the room. They come with a variety of settings which allow you to control the speed at which they cycle through the colours (with one setting that’s so fast it feels like looking at a strobe). They’re also sensitive to sound, so if you sit them beside your radio or CD player they’ll change colour in time to the beat of the music.

Available at gadgetshop.com for £9.95

A Toronto mother is facing charges of “leaving a child unattended” and charges are pending against the father after Police were called to a North York Mall on Monday evening.

The unnamed woman and her husband left their 5 children aged, 4 months, 2 years, 7 years and a set of twins that are 17 months in the car unattended for an hour while they did some shopping.

When a witness went into the mall at 7pm the children were in the car alone. At 8pm when she was done her shopping she noticed the children were still in the vehicle and called mall security.

The parents declined to be interviewed on camera, but only had to say that they are upset and disheartened by the allegations. It would be inconceivable for them to abandon their children.

It is illegal to leave a child under the age of 16 without adult supervision.

A court date has been set for January. The Children’s Aid Society are also now involved.

You never want 5 children to be taken away from their parents at Christmas time, but leaving these children in the car on a cold night is not forgivable especially a 4 month old infant. It is one thing to run in quickly to get your takeout and leave your kids in the car, but not for a full hour in the middle of November.

This is a shortened version of a long, sad and sweet story of the birth of my twin daughters. The entire story can be found on my web blog: www.aLizard.com

I became pregnant with fraternal triplets after a long difficult road of trying to get pregnant. The trials of my infertility seem like a distant memory to me know, but I remember those days of hope despair and then finally success. This story is more about what happened after I was pregnant rather than getting pregnant.

I had 3 very good quality embryos and all 3 were implanted, and 2 weeks later (more shots the whole time) all 3 took!!!! I was finally pregnant, and with triplets!!!!

At week 8 of my pregnancy, I miscarried baby C. I was very sad, but after the misscary finished, I was finally pregnant, healthy with twins, feeling great, we had just bought a house, things were fabulous.

The start of the bad news…

I had my amniocentesis at 16 weeks, 6 days (1 day short of 17 weeks on 7/26/05). I got an amnio due to the fact that I was 39 years old. At the ultrasound prior to the amnio, everything looked GREAT! The babies were moving around, looked healthy from what can be seen from the u/s, their development was right on schedule for both of them, AND we found out the sexes. We are having 2 little girls!

The doc said that if he could, he would try to do the amnio with one needle stick instead of two. What this means is that he inserts the needle into one sac, out through the membrane that separates the twins, and into the other sac to retrieve her fluid first. He then pulls the needle back and removes fluid from the other sac. I asked about this, stating I was concerned that putting 2 holes into one sac seemed worse.

Well, that night, I started leaking amniotic fluid. Just a bit, which the doc had said could be a side effect. I went to sleep thinking about my two little girls and our move which was to take place in 2 days to our new house.

The next morning things got bad. I started leaking a lot, a whole lot. Basically my water broke.

My mom came up to help us with the move and take care of me. Brian came to the new house and set up a bed so that I could be immediately transferred from the bed at the old house to a bed in the new house. I entered into my first new house ever and went straight to the bedroom. That was my first glimpses of our house. I was very depressed. I continued to leak

I can’t believe this is happening to me.

We are told that 70% of women whose water breaks go into labor within 72 hours. This means that BOTH babies are at risk.

At 1 week past the amnio we go to our first u/s since the amnio and it’s not good. There is a small amount of fluid near the baby’s head of Twin A. Very small amount. Her heart rate was still normal, and she had fluid in her bladder and abdomen, signs which were also good The Doctor said that the baby needs fluid for her lungs to develop normally. We are told to go back home for more bedrest and that hopefully in another week it will heal. I can’t even walk out of the office as I’m crying so hard.

Bedrest means getting up only to use the bathroom. Even sitting up in bed is discouraged. I only sit up to eat. I am starting to loose it. I can’t believe I’m in this situation. I have two major thoughts, one is for the health of the babies obviously, and the other selfish I guess, but I have lost my freedom. I am normally so active and now I am stuck in bed, in my new house that I haven’t even seen. Brian has lost his freedom too. I can’t work. How am I going to cover the mortgage of the house we just bought? Being self-employed as a Realtor, if I don’t work, I don’t make money.

We really started pressing the doctors to know what the outcome looked like if things didn’t heal. The outcome was not good. Birth defects for both babies were a very major concern.

The 3 options as were outlined to us were:

• Abort (or kill, as the fetus would not leave my uterus, with a shot of chemicals to her heart) the ruptured twin.
• Abort both twins.
• Do nothing and see what happens.

The best outcome was for the sac to heal.

You might be saying, why would you abort both twins? Or even the one, as she seems to be growing ok? Well, this is a 2 for 1 deal. Although the twins are in two separate sacs (they are fraternal), they are both in my single uterus.

What I have is called pPROM. (Pre-term Premature Rupture of Membranes). I PROMEd at 17 weeks.

The single biggest fear from PROM is infection. Because the sac is ruptured, bacteria can easily find its way into the sac through the open membrane from the leaking fluid. Many, many cases of PROM pre-term labor are caused from infection. Pre-term labor would affect BOTH babies, no matter how healthy the one is currently. 24 Weeks is the earliest viability for pre-term babies, but the outlook is not good for that early delivery. One doctor told us there was only a 10% chance of not having problems at a 24 week delivery. At 28 weeks, things start looking better, but it would still be an uphill battle.

Factors affecting the PROM baby, should I hold out getting an infection are lung development issues. Babies need amniotic fluid to develop their lungs, as they actually “breathe” in the amniotic fluid. ; The major time of lung development for a fetus is between the weeks of 18-22. I ruptured at 17 weeks. Another fear of PROM is compression of limbs and face. The fetus usually swims and moves around in the amniotic fluid. There are many other complications like: prolapsed cords, placenta abruption that I won’t go into.

Our 2nd ultrasound 2 weeks after the PROM was even worst than the first. It showed no fluid what so ever around Twin A. All other signs were still ok.

The leaking that I’m experiencing is basically the baby’s urine. She gets the fluid and nutrients from my blood and umbilical cord, which she excretes. Normally this fluid is recirculated every few days, but with the sac being ruptured, it just spills out of me.

What are we going to do?

Well, after doing a lot of research I found a 4th option I felt, a way for the sac to heal which would make everything ok. We ended up flying to Florida to try an experimental procedure called an Amniopatch, which sadly didn’t work. Flying on bedrest – that’s another story.

I spent a total of 10 weeks on bedrest. I started having labor contractions at 8 weeks post PROM, I spent the day at the hospital, was given anti-contraction drugs and sent back home as my twins weren’t yet viable (I was 23 weeks pregnant).

At 25 weeks, I started again having contractions, and this time was immediately admitted. I was given horrible drugs to stop the labor, but the doctors were concerned that stopping my labor would possibly mask an infection, and preemies with infections were worse-off than preemies born earlier.

The contracts were slowed, and I spent 2 horrible weeks in the hospital during a labor strike. Eventually I started spiking a fever, sure signs of an infection and was sent immediately into surgery for my girls to be delivered by an emergency c-section.

The delivery

My beautiful, perfect twin daughters were born at 7:30 in the morning on October 4th.

I will NEVER forget the absolute terror I felt when I was wheeled into the delivery room. I kept telling the nurse who stayed by my side all night as my labor began that it was too soon, I wasn’t ready, the babies weren’t ready. ; My husband was at work as a fireman, and they waited just long enough for him to arrive at the hospital. They were 13 weeks early.

Corinne Margaret (named after our mothers) was born first and weighed 1 pound 14 ounces, Kaitlyn Elizabeth was born a minute later weighing a mere 1 pound 11 ounces. Corinne was our prom princess. Brian felt it was important to name our prom princess our mother’s names’ as she needed all the strength she could use.

As I was recovering in the post-surgery room, the doctor came to tell us the grim news, that Corinne’s lungs weren’t developed and that she was in very bad shape. I was wheeled into the NICU, they disconnected Corinne from everything and handed her to me. She was so tiny. She held on to my finger tight. She lived 3 short hours and took her last breath in my arms. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I didn’t know it would be so hard.

I looked over at her sister Kaitlyn in her isolate, she too was so tiny. I wasn’t able to hold her, I reached out and touched her with my finger before I was wheeled away again. I ended up getting quite sick, I became septic with eColi and basically could have died myself. I spent 4 days in the hospital recovering, never once being allowed (or feeling well enough with my 105+ fever) to go see my surviving daughter. Brian gave me updates, we were told that it was likely she was going to need a heart surgery immediately.

When I was finally well enough to visit Kaitlyn the first thing I did was look to the empty space where Corinne isolette was. It was so empty , the tears rolled down my cheeks. When I first really looked at Kaitlyn, I was amazed how incredibly small, fragile and sick she looked. She was covered in wires and tape and I could hardly see her. She was under a billirubben light and had her head completely covered.

The Continuation: Born Too Early: A Mom’s Story Pt.2

Every year when Christmas arrives, I guess we just take for granted that “Santa” will be in all of the malls and special events. You never actually think that maybe it’s not easy to find people to fit the bill.

Berlin is facing an acute shortage of Santas just a month before Christmas, the head of a Father Christmas placement agency said Monday.

The director of Berlin’s “Heinzelmaennchen” agency, which provides Santas to thousands of Berlin families every Christmas Eve, said he was having trouble getting enough qualified help.

“We prefer chubby men, of course, ideally with a real beard but we’re not picky and take what we get,” said director Rene Heydeck, whose official title is Ober-Weinachtsmann (chief Santa Claus).

The Santas, many of whom are students, earn 28 euros ($37) a visit for bringing a sack of presents provided by the parents into each home and handing them out. But Santas must also pay 45 euros for a costume and give the agency 15 percent of earnings.

“In a lot of families in Berlin it’s a tradition that carries on even after the children grow older and stop believing,” Heydeck said.

Each Santa visits an average of 10 to 12 families, although some have managed up to 20.

SOURCE:REUTERS