Thursday, December 27, 2012

Prelude to merriment

When I thought ahead to this Christmas, back when I was expecting Georgia to arrive in mid-December, I pictured snuggling with a newborn by the fire. I envisioned baking cookies with the boys while the baby slept, safe in her wrap. I pictured family and friends stopping by to visit and catch a glimpse of our newest family member.

I did not anticipate sleeping for a week on the floor of the Children's Hospital. I didn't think I would be cautiously holding a baby, careful not to bump her IV tubes. I didn't expect to feel guilty for crying over my sick baby when there were so many other babies who were so much sicker, whose mothers were somehow managing to keep it together.

We knew that Georgia was struggling to gain weight several days after she was born. She had lost the typical 10% that babies do when they are born, but then she didn't go on to gain it back. Any growth was extremely slight, and our doctor was concerned. The tricky part was that Georgia never looked like a sick baby. She was a great eater and had lots of good diapers, so we knew that there were no input/output issues. But she was little. At 3 weeks old, she was still significantly below her birthweight. Our doctor sent us to CHEO.

We were seen at CHEO over the course of several days, initially in the Emergency Department. They ran blood work and a urine test, and sent us home to await the results. We were called back because something came up positive, but I was assured that it was likely a contaminant from the test- they would repeat them. Unfortunately, the second tests came back positive as well. We were called back again, this time to be admitted to the hospital for a full work up.

This meant more blood tests, lumbar punctures (two, because the first didn't work), ultrasounds of the kidneys and head, X-rays that looked at the abdomen, and a 7 day course of IV antibiotics.
We know now that Georgia had a UTI/ bladder infection, caused by group B strep. She has responded well to the medication and her weight has increased. She now weighs 7 lbs 8 oz at 5 weeks old. While newborns rarely get fevers from infections (their immune systems are not mature enough to have such responses) they do use all of their energy to fight, causing their weight to stagnate.

We were discharged from the hospital on Christmas Eve, and will be followed by our family doctor every 2 days for the next while to ensure that she continues to do well.

The fact that this could have been so much worse is not lost on me. Group B Strep can be fatal to small babies. 40% of women are natural carriers of this bacteria, and it doesn't cause issues in the mothers, but it can be catastrophic to newborns. I am so grateful that our doctor followed Georgia so carefully. I don't know that many physicians would have caught it- so many see babies when they are first home and then not again until they have their shots at 2 months old. That would have likely been too late for Georgia.
But they did catch it. And we were able to bring our daughter home with us on Christmas Eve, to celebrate with her brothers.

I never did bake those cookies with the boys, but that seems less important now. We are home with all of our children, and we are grateful. I am mindful of the mothers at CHEO who did not get to come home with their babies this Christmas and hope that they manage to maintain their strength and courage.




Ben and Georgia on the first night at CHEO.




My sweet girl and her pesky IV.




It wasn't all bad... The Ottawa Senators stopped by to boost her spirits (and those of her dad).




Santa found her at CHEO and brought her a special toy.








One day, when she is trying my patience as a teenager, I will remind her of the many nights I slept beside her hospital bed on a cot on the floor.












Finally home. Counting our blessings.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

The lovely Georgia!

Here are some of the pictures from Georgia's newborn photoshoot that we had done on Thursday. She was 8 days old at the time- and super tiny- remember, she wasn't actually supposed to be here until December 10th!





Sunday, November 25, 2012

Off to a good start.

We brought Georgia home today. She is so tiny and has a bit of jaundice, so we are keeping a close eye on things, but we are very happy to have her home!



Georgia meeting her big brother!

Grandma and Grandpa meeting Georgia for the first time

 Cuddles with her big brothers.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Introducing Georgia Britton!

Georgia Sarah Britton was born at 1:32 on Wednesday, November 21st. She weighed 6 lbs 13 oz.

We are hoping to be able to bring her home from the hospital today. The boys came to meet her on Thursday and they think she is pretty neat!


















Saturday, November 17, 2012

Getting ready...

With the arrival of our newest family member fairly imminent, I thought I would post some pictures of her room. 

Auntie Sarah is doing a painting for her room, but it isn't quite ready yet so I'll post what we have. Thank you Grandpa for making the curtains!





Monday, October 29, 2012

Montre et raconte

One of Jack's homework assignments for October was to prepare a show and tell (montre et raconte) for the letter of the week. His letter was "H". Students had to decorate a bag with their letter and then hide the item in the bag. Jack decided to do "le hockey", but he chose to also put other vocabulary words on the bag as well.






 

He will present his montre et raconte in class tomorrow, and students will try to guess what
he has hidden in his bag.





Friday, October 26, 2012

Frankenstorm? We laugh in the face of Frankenstorm!

Ok so mostly I just wanted an excuse to use the word "Frankenstorm" in a sentence. And no- I didn't make up the name. I think Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper or some other bored news reporter did.

It's looking like this Halloween may be a damp one, so we're doing what we can to have some Halloween fun before donning on raincoats over our costumes and heading out next Wednesday night!

The boys helped me make some spooky Halloween cookies yesterday!

















Thursday, October 25, 2012

Rory, Rory, Rory...

Rory has had an interesting few weeks. He had a really bad virus last week and needed to spend some time at CHEO getting rehydrated. The doctors and nurses were so wonderful with him and we really are so blessed to have such a world class facility in our area. (And it doesn't hurt that Grandpa works there, so Rory gets a little extra attention, I'm sure.)



Rory being distracted by an Elmo video on Daddy's phone.

He was so brave and even sang some Halloween songs for the nurses as they were putting in his IV.

Here we are a week later, and Rory had his first visit to the dentist!

He is quite the trooper. The dentist told me that Rory was the best 3 year old patient he has ever had! He had a fall a few weeks ago (one too many monkeys jumping on the bed...) and banged his front tooth. We were a bit worried about that, but it turns out these little people are pretty resilient.



What a kid.




Sunday, October 21, 2012

Getting into the Halloween spirit...

We have had a quiet couple of weeks because poor Rory came down with a cold that was immediately joined by some kind of a stomach virus. It lasted two whole weeks. But he is feeling better and so we decided to go on a family field trip to get us out of the house and into the Halloween spirit!

It was a bit of a drive, but on Saturday night we headed to Morrisburg to see Pumpkinferno at Upper Canada Village. Upper Canada Village is a Parks Canada facility and they have been very successful at making use of the grounds in the off-season. They have been doing "Alight the Night" at Christmas for a while now (we have yet to check it out but they transform the village with Christmas lights and I have heard it's incredible) and they have recently started a Halloween program that is pretty spectacular.

Upper Canada Village - Pumpkinferno!

I'm always a little hesitant to take the kids to Halloween events because there is a fine line between fun and scary when you are 5 and 3. Pumpkinferno was perfect for all ages, though. More beautiful and mesmerizing than scary.

A few tips if you decide to go with little people in tow-
  •  Buy your tickets in advance online. There are two line-ups when you arrive. One to buy tickets and one for pre-paid ticket holders. The first line takes about 2 hours to get through, but if you already have your tickets, you're in within 15 minutes. 
  • Be there when it opens at 6:30 or a little bit before. The 6:30 crowd was mostly young families. There was a much older vibe (adults and teens) when we came out at 8:15. And the line up was significantly longer the later the evening got. When we were leaving, there was a 3 km line up of cars waiting to get in and park. Those country roads don't know what hit them!
  • If at all possible, don't bring a stroller. The grounds are totally accessible by stroller or wheelchair, but there were areas on the tour that were pretty crowded and a stroller would have made getting around a bit of a nightmare. Baby-wearing or a holding hand rule is the way to go, in my opinion.  
  • Don't use a flash. Seriously. This may seem obvious, but I can't tell you how many times I saw people using their flashes and then looking at their screens and saying "It didn't work!" or, better yet, trying to take pictures of the glowing pumpkins using their smart phones. Make sure the settings on your camera are appropriate for night time photography. I don't pretend to understand this, aside from that the ISO needs to be high. Or something. Ask Ben.
  • Make use of the many benches! This was mandatory for my participation in this event as I'm 8 months pregnant and supposed to limit the amount of walking I do. There were lots of benches strategically placed along the trail, which made the entire tour much more enjoyable not only for me, but also for the kids. Walking from attraction to attraction is great, but when you're 3 and 5, sometimes you just want to sit down and really look at the pirate / Chinese dragon / western saloon / etc. Take some time to stop and smell the pumpkins. 

















Happy Haunting!