I'm not going to lie. Today was hard. It ended well, sorry to ruin the ending for you, but it was not easy getting here. Penny decided to be very clear today about how she's adjusting to her new life. She wasn't a fan. This morning started with a poopy diaper (good start believe it or not) but Penny got so angry with me for changing her diaper that she decided to have a major desat and brady episode (turned blue). This was not the first time but it was definitely the most severe. I calmly called to mom to turn up her oxygen and Penny calmed down and if that had been all it would have been fine. That was her MO all day. Fortunately, she gets a home health nurse visit twice a week and the nurse came at just the right time. I was nearing my wit's end trying to figure out what to do to make her calm down when the nurse came in and explained that I was trying too hard.
Poor Penelope was just trying to tell us that she's had a little too much stress with all of this change and the only way she knows how to tell us that is to scream until she turns blue. I imagine that would be a pretty attention grabbing tactic for anyone to use, but I wouldn't recommend it. She's just simply overstimulated. New sights, smells, sounds, experiences...etc on top of all of her negative experience she had with new things while in the hospital. So the only way to calm her down is to treat her like the preemie that she is and make her environment as "womb-like" as possible. Penny and I spent the day in a dimly lit, humidified, quiet nursery while Lydia was cared for by two grandmothers and her daddy. To each her own right? Even though Penny was still pretty volatile, she seemed to be back to herself by this evening. She was happily looking at her mobile and moving her arms and legs.
The best part of the day was the bath and g-tube dressing change. Now, this has been far from the case for the past two nights. In fact I was so dreading it last night that I even cried! Last night went better than the first, and tonight was definitely the best of all. In fact, she barely even cried, not to mention playing chameleon. It took two people, one to hold her securely and hold in the paci, and one to bathe and change the dressing, but it went amazingly well. I was so grateful. To have such a positive ending to such a difficult day was a huge blessing. You'd think somebody might be praying for us! Hmmm....I think so. If you happen to know someone who's praying for us, tell them thank you.
Specific Prayer
- Penelope's adjustment
- Our understanding of what she needs
- Our adjustment
- Our
search for childcare for the school year (they're MahMah will have them
tues-thurs but we need someone mon. and fri. who's not exceptionally
germy or afraid of blue children)
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