Homecoming

We made it home from SurgeryTown with no incidents.

While Shrike greeted the dogs and unloaded the car, I got Peeper into a clean diaper and some clothes that we recognize.

We've just switched over to her 0-3 wardrobe, and retired most of the newborn outfits, but after spending the past few days looking at her in a "new" (yardsale, I'm sure) fuzzy sleeper that she'd not worn until Monday, and seeing her looking and acting just so wrong for most of the week, it was very important to me to have her in one of "her" outfits that was familiar to me, so that she looked like herself.

We then nursed for a while and went in the bedroom to take a nap.

I laid Peeper in her nest and was getting myself comfortable when she started coughing a bit and I realized that she was spitting up. A lot.

Not vomiting, there was no retching involved (sorry), just spitting up, but like her entire stomach contents.

(This is a child who normally does not spit up. At all.)

So much for the outfit.

We stripped her down and cleaned her up, and Shrike changed out the sheet on the nest mattress.

I lay down beside her on the bed, and Shrike joined us, and the next thing you know, I've whipped out a boob and all three of us are asleep - for about 2 - 3 hours.

It was wonderful.

We've been "practicing" with nursing in the side-lying position, in preparation for moving Peeper out of her nest and letting her fly free in the bed with us.

(The big advantage of this will be the ability to nurse and sleep simultaneously while lying down, rather than sitting up, with her on the boppy.)

She's pretty much filling the nest these days, and flops her legs out the side, and often gets herself turned 90 degrees over the course of the night (Once, Shrike thought I was just so sleepy when I put her back after nursing that I'd stuck her in there the wrong way!) but we are planning to wait until she's healed up from surgery, so she's a little more protected from the possibility of us flopping a hand down in the middle of her chest or something.

But, this afternoon, we were just fine all snugged up together, and she literally stayed latched on the whole time, sleeping and sucking.

We woke up around nine, and gave her medicine (New schedule: .5 cc Lasix 2x daily / 1 cc Captopril 4x daily / Tylenol every 4 hours as needed) and nursed some more.

A little while after she and Shrike had gone to hang out on the couch, she started crying. And crying. And crying.

Shrike changed her diaper and - wouldn't you know it - blood in her poop.

Before the nap, we'd thought we might have seen a few little specks of blood in a diaper, but this was definitely there. Not a lot, but no doubt about it.

And she was crying.

So, I called and talked to the pediatrician's on-call nurse. Again, she said that unless it became a lot or her stool turned black (older, higher up blood) or we couldn't get her settled down, that it didn't warrant an emerency room trip or anything, but we've now got an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow.

Our discharge instructions said to check in with her pediatrician, and they suggested that we call tomorrow to see if we could actually see a doctor when we go for her Synagis shot next week, so we'll go ahead and do that post-op visit and discuss the poop at the same time.

She said it could be related to the morphine having slowed things down, digestively, and now getting going again (so to speak) but her stool hs not been hard at all, just a little different color that usual, and she's been saving up and doing a lot at once, so I'm not sure.

Of course, I started mentally reviewing my diet from the past few days. I'm still avoiding the obvious dairy, but maybe it's time to start reading labels and cut out all dairy?

As much as I hate to think about this, maybe I need to look at the possibilty that chocolate is a problem for her?

Maybe I need to do an elimination diet to nail down the culprit?

She finally settled down, after "dancing" with Mommy, and did nurse again. She's had a couple more small poops with no blood, and she and Mommy are asleep on the couch right now, waiting for her next dose of Captopril and Tylenol (in about fifteen minutes) and then we'll be heading to bed.