The Lessons I am learning...

To be humble because you never know what choices you will face that you never imagined YOU would ever need to make, to never rush the precious moments because you never know when it might be the last and to be extra thankful for the little things.
These are the lessons I have been learning through the past few weeks of living life with our new Little Lexi. I know the last update on her was weeks ago...and I think I let myself dwell in the discouragement part of it for long enough.  As far has her eating and breastfeeding, there has been little change in over 4 weeks. Although I have made some changes to how I am handling it and what I am doing to get us by. I was on a grueling regimen for a few weeks filled with trying to nurse her, warming bottles, giving her bottles and then pumping...but I have now scaled back to a little less demanding plan. The bottom line...I was just worn out from all that and each and every time she refused to nurse, it hurt my heart just a little more. 


I finally let myself let go of that pressure and she is getting about 90% of her nutrition through a bottle now. BUT she has still yet to have formula---by my sheer determination and the generous donations of others, she has exclusively had breastmilk for the past  16 weeks of her life. My goal is she will continue to be fed only breastmilk as long as we can keep this up or until my milk supply completely changes. This is where the humbling has come in. I teach breastfeeding education, I offer breastfeeding consultation as part of my services, I breastfed Austin until he was 29 months old amid many negative comments....Breastfeeding is what I do and its who I am. But here I sit not able to breastfeed my little girl...humbling let me tell you.

Last week we also found out that Lexi is dealing with a urinary tract infection. You can imagine my shock when she developed a 102  fever and then we found out it was a serious infection...she is only 3.5 months old!! She was immediately started on a 10 day course of antibiotics ( which was horrifying to me for so many reasons but thats for another post!) and then changed to another one a few days later once her culture came back showing that she needed the strongest of antibiotics to kill this bacteria. We were also counseled on some further testing for her at the local childrens hospital. The concern is that babies this young do not develop UTI's unless there is an issue either with the urinary tract or the kidneys. This can rage anywhere from something like urinary reflux to something more severe with the kidneys. I talked with my pediatrician again this week and he really believes she has an issue with urinary reflux or something related to that. Because I myself have had urinary reflux issues (that eventually led to damage to my bladder)  Lexi has over a 65% chance of having similar issues.
This has been so sad for me to hear--the last thing you ever want is to think  your child could have medical issues that were passed on by you... BUT there is no time to dwell on that!


So the plan is to finish the course of antibiotics, have her catheterized in the office again and then about 4 weeks later she will undergo two types of testing to look for  the cause. In the mean time, I am going to continue to research all the possibilities of what may have caused this to make sure this testing is absolutely necessary and what the treatment options may be,  IF they do the testing and find certain problems. I want us to make the best choices for her and not put her through anything that could have lasting effects or cause more issues in the long run....oh the tight wire of making the best medical choices for your kids!

ON the bright side of all this...let me tell you about all the great things our little girl is doing! ( I want to end this post on a positive note!)

- At exactly 3 months I realized she was rolling over on both sides! I honestly dont know when she started this, but thats when I really noticed it! We have had her sleeping on her tummy from pretty much day one and now that she can roll over so well, she often wakes her self up by rolling over! 

-If you place her on the floor--she will be across the room within seconds. She already knows she will need to be quick to keep up with her brother! 
- She has started playing with her toys--grabbing at rattles, grasping at teethers and enjoying the tray on her swing. Tonight she also grabbed on the cup I was drinking on and almost spilled it on herself--aackkk...where did my newborn go already?? 

--Although she spends most of her time in a sling of some sort when we are out and about, she has begun to really like her stroller ( as you can see in the pictures!) 

When we arrived at the Zoo Last week

What she looked like as we left the zoo!

This is what she looked like "under" the hat covering her head!

   


--She has outgrown the "napper" part of her pack-n-play and will soon be too big for her bassinet. I honestly have not thought about where she will sleep next...we did not get her a crib!! We had this beautiful crib for Austin that he never slept in once. So this time we did not buy one and she has been sleeping on her own since week 2 in the bassinet of her pack-n-play...go figure!

This is what we found after one of her naps last week. Often she will wake up and just talk to her self and roll around. Well she got her self stuck UNDER her napper and her headband bow was covering her eyes...and she was still happy!

-She really is the most delightful baby. She smiles at EVERYONE all the time. Her eyes are still big and blue ( and I am praying oh so hard that they stay that way!) and as long as she is fed, changed and rested, she really is such a happy baby. She LOVES Austin...the way she lights up when he is around just makes me sooo emotional. She has been such a wonderful addition to our family and I am trying to not take any of these precious moments for granted!

Daddy and his Kiddo's...what a bunch!