Time flies!
Wow! The little nugget is almost 3 months old already!
I realized last night that I never wrote about her birth...(poor second kid) so I'm going to do it now.
The nugget was born via repeat c-section on Monday, Feb 20. This time around wasn't as smooth as with E. With E, the spinal block was super quick and painless, I didn't even notice. This time it took several, painful tries before the anesthesiologist found the right spot. With E, recovery while at the hospital was a (relative) piece of cake. This time, my uterus wasn't contracting like it should have and I wound up with some hemorrhaging. Luckily, the nurses were on top of it and caught it before it became a major issue. Unluckily, meds didn't work and the doc wound up using a balloon catheter to apply pressure to get the bleeding to stop. That hurt worse than anything else. Thank god for pain meds and sweet nurses! I got really lucky that I never felt any of the effects of the blood loss, the nurses were impressed that I never got pale or weak, so there's that at least, right?
Once all of that was under control, the rest was a breeze. We went home on a Wednesday and everything was good.
Then the lab that does the newborn screenings called on Friday around 5pm. The lady on the phone couldn't tell me anything other than Nugget's newborn screen came back positive for something and the lab needed her pediatricians name and number, which they didn't have which is a whole different issue, so they could get the results to the doctor, but to make sure Nugget was eating every 2 hours no matter what. Thanks, that's not going to freak out a new mom at 5pm on a Friday...ugh. Thankfully, her pediatrician is amazing and called us at 6:30pm Friday night, so I didn't spend the weekend freaking out. He explained that her screen came back positive for MCAD, a metabolic deficiency. He gave us a site to read a bit more about it and told us to keep feeding her every 2-3 hours and some warning signs of trouble to keep an eye out for.
At her first doctor's appointment, he sent us for bloodwork to confirm that it really was MCAD and not a false positive. It wasn't. He referred us to the metabolic specialists at OHSU in Portland and they got us in surprisingly fast. The NP we met with was amazing and answered all of our questions. The most reassuring thing was when she told us that if she had to pick something for one of her own grandkids to have, MCAD was #2 on the list, behind a disorder that was treated by just giving a biotin tablet daily.
So far, we haven't had any issues due to the MCAD other than less sleep than I got with E. At just 5 weeks, E was already sleeping 5-6 hours at a time so I was able to get a good bit of sleep. With the Nugget, I had to set an alarm for every 2 hours to wake me up to feed her in the middle of the night. Now, we're up to 3 1/2 hours between feedings but that still isn't quite enough for me to well rested and/or pleasant on a regular basis. With MCAD kids, the general rule of thumb is that, starting at 3 months old, they can go 1 hour for every month of age. So at 3 months, 3 hours between feedings, 4 months/4 hours, etc. It's exhausting but she is absolutely worth it and it's not forever.
The nugget has gained so much personality in the last few weeks. She's smiling and giggling. She responds to our voices, especially dad's. And we just recently discovered that she loves to look at and talk to E's stuffed Pikachu.
I can't wait to see what comes next!
I realized last night that I never wrote about her birth...(poor second kid) so I'm going to do it now.
The nugget was born via repeat c-section on Monday, Feb 20. This time around wasn't as smooth as with E. With E, the spinal block was super quick and painless, I didn't even notice. This time it took several, painful tries before the anesthesiologist found the right spot. With E, recovery while at the hospital was a (relative) piece of cake. This time, my uterus wasn't contracting like it should have and I wound up with some hemorrhaging. Luckily, the nurses were on top of it and caught it before it became a major issue. Unluckily, meds didn't work and the doc wound up using a balloon catheter to apply pressure to get the bleeding to stop. That hurt worse than anything else. Thank god for pain meds and sweet nurses! I got really lucky that I never felt any of the effects of the blood loss, the nurses were impressed that I never got pale or weak, so there's that at least, right?
Once all of that was under control, the rest was a breeze. We went home on a Wednesday and everything was good.
Then the lab that does the newborn screenings called on Friday around 5pm. The lady on the phone couldn't tell me anything other than Nugget's newborn screen came back positive for something and the lab needed her pediatricians name and number, which they didn't have which is a whole different issue, so they could get the results to the doctor, but to make sure Nugget was eating every 2 hours no matter what. Thanks, that's not going to freak out a new mom at 5pm on a Friday...ugh. Thankfully, her pediatrician is amazing and called us at 6:30pm Friday night, so I didn't spend the weekend freaking out. He explained that her screen came back positive for MCAD, a metabolic deficiency. He gave us a site to read a bit more about it and told us to keep feeding her every 2-3 hours and some warning signs of trouble to keep an eye out for.
At her first doctor's appointment, he sent us for bloodwork to confirm that it really was MCAD and not a false positive. It wasn't. He referred us to the metabolic specialists at OHSU in Portland and they got us in surprisingly fast. The NP we met with was amazing and answered all of our questions. The most reassuring thing was when she told us that if she had to pick something for one of her own grandkids to have, MCAD was #2 on the list, behind a disorder that was treated by just giving a biotin tablet daily.
So far, we haven't had any issues due to the MCAD other than less sleep than I got with E. At just 5 weeks, E was already sleeping 5-6 hours at a time so I was able to get a good bit of sleep. With the Nugget, I had to set an alarm for every 2 hours to wake me up to feed her in the middle of the night. Now, we're up to 3 1/2 hours between feedings but that still isn't quite enough for me to well rested and/or pleasant on a regular basis. With MCAD kids, the general rule of thumb is that, starting at 3 months old, they can go 1 hour for every month of age. So at 3 months, 3 hours between feedings, 4 months/4 hours, etc. It's exhausting but she is absolutely worth it and it's not forever.
The nugget has gained so much personality in the last few weeks. She's smiling and giggling. She responds to our voices, especially dad's. And we just recently discovered that she loves to look at and talk to E's stuffed Pikachu.
I can't wait to see what comes next!
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