I wanted to direct y'all to this blog about preemies and this little comic book by parents of a micro-preemie.

http://thepreemieexperiment.blogspot.com/

http://team-spectacular.com/?page_id=456

Whewweeee!

My favorite picture of Elizabeth taken in November

She loves her bouncer.

mmmm feet!

Elizabeth back in September

I have no time to blog anymore! Elizabeth is such a little tornado of energy. She chases the cats constantly, mostly Mona, but every once in awhile she gets after Luci too. She's crawling like crazy, cruising along furniture, standing and falling quite a bit as well. Mostly she stands aided by furniture or Mommy but every once in awhile I see her stand without any support. It's phenomenal. She's babbling constantly, telling me all sorts of stories, even if I don't understand what she's saying. She clearly says Dada, Momo, Ma, Ba, and ata or agan. Momo maybe her trying to say Mona, ata I believe is kitty, and agan may be again, or attack. I'm not sure. Diane has also heard her say kaka, and encore or something close to it. I've heard her say uh oh, ki ki, ki ka, la gah, yeah and occasionally weee. It's a hoot. She wears me out. It's been hard the last couple of weeks with her though. She hasn't been sleeping through the night. She wakes anywhere from three to six times a night, or more and it's driving us batty. I have absolutely no reserves of energy. Diane and Real offered to watch her for us last night, and tonight so we could sleep. I'm taking my French class tonight, I skipped it Wednesday night because I could barely comprehend English let alone French. Elizabeth had been awake some seven or eight times the night before and I was burned. We have no idea what's waking her up, she sleeps through the night with no problems at her grandparents. I'm doing better mentally, I'm seeing a psychologist, and taking paxil. I had been having a ton of problems coping with her early birth, the long NICU stay, and all of the stuff that happened with her in the NICU, and it finally blew up in my face back in August. I was having nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety attacks, and severe depression, along with suicidal thoughts. Plus all of this fresh trauma was bringing back old traumas from my past. Not pretty. So I got back onto Paxil at the beginning of December and I'm feeling much, much better. Knitting helps too, of course. I'm trying to finish up a bonnet for Elizabeth before I move on to her hoodie. And I want to make a devil horned earflap hat for myself, and a scarf to go with my heavy winter coat. Plus a hat and scarf to go with my light winter/fall coat. And I have yarn that I want to turn into a sweater for myself. Mom bought me this lovely yarn in the Netherlands at an outdoor market and gave it to me when she visited this summer.

Saw something on tv a couple days ago.

I was watching daytime tv something I rarely do and came across a talk show called The Doctors. I've seen it once before and it was okay. Well this episode was relevant to my interests because they had a family on who had a premature baby girl and they were darn near financially ruined by her early birth, and NICU stay. Well one of the docs made a comment about socialized healthcare and how it's great that places like France and Canada have it, but that the care is not as good as it it is in the US. My first thought was ,"Wait a minute, Elizabeth had the best healthcare in the province let alone Canada!" Heck Ste Justine is one of the top hospitals in North America for premature babies. Well it got me to thinking. Nic and I were damned lucky that I got my permanent residency when I did because if I had to deliver Elizabeth in Plattsburgh she probably wouldn't have survived. Chances are I would have delivered in the car during the 1 hour drive down, not including the wait time at the border. Even if I had made it to Plattsburgh, Champlain Hospital doesn't have as high a level of NICU as Ste. Justine so chances are again she wouldn't have made it. Plus given her case I doubt anyone would have thought of putting her in the coma for the status epilepticus which really was the closest point that she came to dying out of the four times that she was close to it. All in all I'm pleased and impressed with the care that Elizabeth received and is still receiving. Yes it's hard to get your foot in the door for healthcare here but once you're in, you're in. Yes there are hellishly long waiting lists for surgical procedures but there are people languishing on hellishly long waiting list for procedures in the US too. Now onto the financial ruin part. This family is and was in a horrible situation. I skimmed their blog and their little girl didn't make it. In my mind it takes a lot of courage to go begging for help like they did. It would be hard for me to swallow my pride and go on national tv to do that. There's been some controversy though over what they've done on other preemie blogs and I understand that outrage very well. Families are crumbling not just because of the medical situation but because of the financial strain of making sure their child is adequately cared for. Hell we're feeling the strain and her surgical procedure, check ups by numerous specialists, physical and occupational therapy are all covered. And that's not counting the base price of 2000$-3000$ a day costs of when she was in the NICU. I don't want to know how much it cost to keep her in the coma on a continuous EEG. The majority of the ancillary stuff is not covered in Elizabeth's case. Her colostomy bags aren't covered under Nic's private insurance, and neither is the O2 bottles, concentrator rental, and all of the tubing that goes with it. Her formula isn't covered and that's 20$ a can since it's a special formula. Her meds have to be paid for up front, and then they get reimbursed. So it's like why are they getting all this help and yet there are hundreds and hundreds of other families who desparately need the help to and are getting nothing. I hope though that the money they received goes to really helping them get out of the financial hole and not wasted. I'm not even going to touch the emotional cost of all of this adventure. So after that semi rant I return you to my regularily schedule broadcast of Elizabeth cuteness.

Almost 4 am

It's almost 4 am and I'm wide awake after feeding Elizabeth. Must go to bed. On a knitting note, I finished her blanket and it is so cute. I'll have to take a picture of it and post it. I took Louis-Alexandre's sweater out of hibernation and now I'm almost finished it. I have like five more rounds to knit and it's finished. Thank god. I hope it fits him. I'm now working on a pink bonnet for Elizabeth, and I'm going to make a hoodie for her in a blue/tealish yarn if I have enough yarn to do it.

She did something cool!

On Monday Elizabeth was on her belly for tummy time and she flipped herself over onto her back. She did it three more times on Tuesday. She hasn't done it since then but I'm thinking this is just the beginning for her to be rolling over. She plays with her toys now especially the ones that hang down from her little floor mat gym. Her neck is less stiff and she'll turn her head side to side with more ease now although it's probably not as good as it should be. Her back is better but she still likes to arch it a lot. It's all a work in progress with her. We see the neurologist and the pulmonologist in two weeks so we will know better what's going on with her brain, and her lungs then. I'm really curious as to what the neurologist will think when they see her. It's amazing to see how much she has changed just in a week. She's smiling more and more and "talking" more too.

Update on life with Elizabeth

Life is good. Elizabeth has been home since March 10th and things are starting to run smoothly with her home. Now that I've said that Murphy's Law will kick and things will go nuts here. The other day she actually took a long nap which she's never done. I got to do some cleaning in the kitchen which was great. I even vacuumed for the first time since she's been home today. She hated the sound of the vacuum but it really needed to be done. I was tired of tracking cat hair all over the place. She's getting so big now. She weighs almost 12 pounds right now.

Just for size comaprison.

Less than a day after she was born:

2 days ago.

Like I said, she's huge. She's smiling, and laughing now. She even tries to talk with me which is a great source of amusement for both of us. If I say okay she tries to say it. It's amazing how fast she's grown and changed just over the space of almost two months.

I forgot about this blog

Huh I completely forgot about my knitting blog. Well I haven't worked on a lot recently. Just a blanket for Elizabeth. A really simple double moss stitch edged blanket with stockinette and reverse stockinette blocks in the middle. I needed to come up with something easy to pick up and put down while at the hospital because I never know when she will want to be touched. I still haven't finshed Louis-Alexandre's sweater. I have half a sleeve to finish and I just can't concentrate on it. I did finish Elizabeth hat and booties back in late September not to long before she was born. Sometime I'll post pictures of them.

Elizabeth is doing well enough right now. She's stable and not putting on any more water weight at the moment. It's about all I can ask for. Hopefully she looks less marshmallow like. She is one strong baby, a reall fighter just like me I suppose.

Oh just an fyi. I know the ticker widget is still on my page for Elizabeth's due date. I just don't feel like removing it. I guess it's a bit of self torment going on.