1st Pediatrician and 1st Cardiologist Appointments

When I was still pregnant, I had prepared myself to give birth to Quasimoto. I imagined all sorts of things that could possibly be wrong with Sean. I steadied myself for all sorts of physical inabilities and cognitive issues. I also prepared myself for a whole host of cardiac problems. It didn't matter that the ultrasounds didn't show any deformities. It didn't matter that every fetal echo showed mild tetralogy of fallot. None of it mattered.

My baby has a genetic anomaly and a heart defect. That's all I cared about. Yes I was always happy to hear "if he has to have it, it's good he has it like this". A friend of mine compares that to having cancer. She heard "if you have to have cancer, this is the one you want." She laughs and says "who wants cancer?"

And it's true. I don't want my baby to have a heart defect. I don't want him to have down's. But..... I need something to celebrate. Something positive to look at. My silver lining.

And my silver lining today is..... "if he has to have it, let it be mild."

We went to Dr. Faraci for the 1st time today. He is the head of the pediatric practice we've been taking Meredith to since she's born. He was in the Staten Island office today so that's where we went. Dr. F told us that the hospital had called him regarding Sean. And of course my first comment was "at least someone at the hospital called someone they were supposed to over there". Because as we all know, they certainly weren't calling anyone or the right people for me.

Dr. F gave Sean the once over. We discussed everything. Sean has good muscle tone throughout his body. He is pink. Do you hear that?!! Pink!!! Not yellow. Not blue. Pink.

He has gained 5oz since he left the hospital on Saturday. He was 6lbs 6oz when he was born, 6lbs 4oz when he left on Saturday & 6lbs 9 oz today. That to me is insane. I finally have an eater though. He nurses well and takes a bottle. So.......

He got a clean bill of health. Thank goodness. And then my poor baby got his first shot. He got his hepatitis B shot.

Dr. F called Dr. LaCorte (cardiologist) and got us an appointment right after we left Dr. F. We were intending to call him today for an appointment. It was one less thing to worry about. Right? We could get it out of the way.

We headed for something to eat and then to Dr. L. While sitting in the waiting room, Meredith was starting to show us that she was getting tired and bored. Poor kid. She found the netting from the stroller & started to play with it. It was funny. She'd get all caught up in it like she was on a fishing boat, pull it off and run around with it behind her. She's really quite the character.












We were called in & Felix, Dr. L's assistant, did the initial work up on Sean. His oxygen saturation was 100%, he got his first EKG and then Felix went to fill Dr. L in. I heard Dr. L and Felix outside the door talking. Dr. L didn't believe Sean had a "true" tetralogy of fallot because his oxygen saturation was so high. Dr. L came in and spoke to us. We discussed Sean's stay in the hospital, his delivery, etc.

Dr. L rechecked Sean's oxygen saturation and again it was at 100%. Dr. L said that Sean's o2 saturation was better than his own. Go Sean! Dr. L gave Sean an echo and while he did it, he explained to us everything he saw. I loved him for this. Not that any of it meant anything to me, but the fact that he did it, made us feel really good about him. Like he actually gave a crap about us.

Sean's hole is 9mm long along the ventricular septum. The septum itself is supposed to be 27mm (give or take). At 1/3 the entire length of the septum, it's a pretty sizable hole. The aorta is "slightly" over the hole. We originally thought that the aorta was completely over the hole. So it being only partially over it was great news. It means that Sean is getting mostly oxygenated blood to his body, with only a small bit of mixing of dirty blood. His pulmonary artery while narrowed, the narrowing was slight. The pulmonary valve looked good, the valves between the upper & lower chambers looked good, the upper chambers looked good & there didn't seem to be any muscle bundles in the right ventricle. All good news. Thank god!

Dr. L said that as long as Sean didn't develop any symptoms, we didn't have to see him for a month.

Yesterday I emailed Dr. Bacha, the surgeon, about Sean's arrival. We let him know that we would be following up with Dr. L. While we were leaving Dr. L's office, Dr. B emailed me a response & cc'd Dr. L. We have a team. We finally have a team of doctors that work well together. I cannot tell you how reassuring it is for me to know that we did the right thing. We met with our doctors before Sean's birth (against the advice of the cardiologist at Maimonides) to discuss our options. We met with them to ensure that we liked them & trusted them to care for our son. We chose to go with doctors that came highly recommended by other doctors we trust. And those recommendations were spot on. I am eternally grateful.

We did something right!!! We followed our instincts and now we can rest assured that our son is in the best care we could find for him.

How else is Sean doing? He's doing great! He is finding his way into our family. It's starting to feel like he's always been here. We are still trying to figure out what we're supposed to do with him. He's so young and so tiny. We can't remember for the life of us what we did with Meredith. I seem to remember nursing & holding her a lot.

He's nursing so well. I was so worried about how he'd nurse. And while it's taken us some time to get ourselves together, we seem to finally be developing our nursing routine. I think I went into this thinking that it would be very similar to nursing Meredith. It's not. Sean has his own style.

And.... guess what. He had a mustard colored seedy poop!! I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me. I struggled so long to get a mustard colored seedy poop with M. I think I only got it once or twice. And for those that don't know.... that's what poop of breastfed babies is supposed to look like (on average, not everyone's will look that way and a variety of colors can mean a variety of things). Meredith's always indicated that I had an oversupply & she wasn't getting enough of the fatty hindmilk.

Well I am now confident that Sean is getting hindmilk. I am confident that Sean's digestive system is doing it's job. I did squirt him in the eye last night, but he didn't seem to mind.

Meredith adores him. She's an amazing little helper. She does have her moments where she feels starved for attention, but we're slowly getting there. She is so sweet with Sean. She says "no cry Sean" when he cries. She tells the dogs "down" if they sniff to close. And she's very possessive of him. He's her Sean. No one, even kids, is allowed to go near her Sean. She flips.









How am I doing? Hmmmmmmmm I don't have the weepy post-partum hormones. I had them right away with Meredith. I think I just have so many things going on that I don't have time to process it all. I do know that I'm frustrated. I would love to just relax, but unfortunately we have doctors' appointments. We have Sean's Bris to attend to. We have a toddler to chase after.

I am a raging bitch quite frankly. I feel like I can't breathe at times. I feel overwhelmed. Almost like I'm just going through the motions. I haven't been able to take in the beauty that is my son. I feel like I am never going to get a break. Even though we have so much to be thankful for and so much to celebrate, I just want to be alone. I don't want to share with anyone what I'm really feeling. I'm tired of hearing that it'll get better. That even if Sean was "normal", it would be a big transition. I know all that. I am impressed with my little guy And now because Sean's here & obviously not Quasimoto, I have to adjust my gears a little bit. I was truly truly prepared for the worst, physically & cognitively. Yes I know we can't tell his cognitive ability yet, but given his physical positives so far, I'm cautiously optimistic.

I'm having a hard time adjusting to my life as a mother of 2. When I had Meredith I grieved my life as it was. I grieved not going out when I wanted. I grieved not being able to just pick up and go. I grieved not being able to shower whenever the mood struck me.

This time around I'm grieving my life with Meredith. We had finally gotten into a routine & a new, albeit adorable, monkey wrench was just thrown into the mix. We were having so much fun finally doing things & enjoying life. We were truly living.

I also feel like there aren't enough hours in the day. I feel like my house is filthy & I can't relax when I feel that way. So I try to clean up and then there isn't enough time to just love my kids or my husband. I feel like I'm exhausted before I even get started doing something.

I know. I know. I just had a baby. It's normal to be tired and need to take it easy. But I can't take it easy. Not when I feel like my feet are touching the most gross thing in the world. Not when I need to pump milk for Sean or nurse him. Not when I have to make sure to make sure time for Meredith and Rob. Oh and sleep. Gotta make time to sleep right?

It's all going to catch up to me soon. And when it does, I'm not sure how I'll handle it.

Now onto the funny mom moments. Today Sean pooped and I thought he was finished. Nope. He started to poop on the diaper. Rob got him a new one and when I thought he was finished, I put the new diaper on him. He again proved me wrong. He pooped on the 2nd new diaper. This went on 2 more times. I could not believe the amount of poop that came out of this child.

My 2nd mommy moment of the day..... Meredith and I were changing Sean's diaper. Well..... just as we pulled the dirty one out and I was getting ready to put the clean one on, my little man started to pee. In an effort to save Meredith from getting peed on, I had to cover his winky with my hand.

My 3rd & 4th mommy moment of the day..... As I was changing Sean into pjs and changing his diaper he started to pee. I got peed on yet again. As I tried to grab a burp cloth (i was folding laundry) to cover him, he managed to pee on me, the couch, his new diaper & his pjs. He now needed yet another new diaper and new pjs. While putting the 2nd diaper on him...... he peed again.

I am so not qualified to raise a boy.

Last night we gave Sean his 1st bird bath at home. He was not a happy camper. He screamed & screamed. But we got it done and he finally has clean hair. We finally got to see just how blonde it is.















Isn't it amazing that this little guy was in my belly like that? We have a picture of Meredith like this too. It's so surreal to see how they were curled up in there.




And as I dried Sean off & then nursed him, Meredith was playing with Dutchess and her toys. Meredith loves playing with Dutchess. Meredith squeals with such delight when Dutchess chases her. They tire each other out. It's great!










Then Meredith played with her dolls & put them all in her new pack n play. Of course it was time for bed very shortly after that, So we relaxed on the couch until Meredith fell asleep.



It's amazing how petite Meredith was on Wednesday and how big she got by Saturday.