Welcome to the world, Ellie Marie Fernsten. We have survived the first 5 weeks! Phew!
Ellie smiled for the first time just about now. She’s been a great sleeper so far and can sleep through her sister’s rowdiness. Yay! On 6/11/16, she slept from 11 pm until 6:45 am. What! She responds to my voice, which I love. She thoroughly enjoys bath time.
On day 5, she rolled to her side and tummy, but hasn’t done it since. So I’m pretty sure that was a fluke thing. She loves to spit up and has had projectile vomit two times already. That’s no fun!
Also on day 5, she took a bottle with no problems. Nursing has been quite difficult. I had her in the wrong positioning all along and it made my nipples RAW. So raw that they were bleeding and I had to start pumping to help them heal. She was also getting frustrated a lot and would take a long time to latch. And it was assumed that she had thrush. At her 2 week check up, her doctor, who is the same doctor Madeline has had and who I thought I loved, glanced in her mouth and did all the routine things and said everything was great. Right before she was about to walk out the door, I asked, well, what about all the white on her tongue? Is that thrush? And she glanced quickly and said, “Oh yeah, that’s thrush. Not really a big deal at all, hohumdeedum, you can give her medicine for it if you want to, but it should go away on it’s own, don’t worry about it.” She did not tell me how long it would take to go away, she did not tell me to continue or stop nursing, or the fact that it can be passed back and forth between us if we nurse, she did not give me directions on the medicine, what kind of medicine, or for how long. NO INFO. I was just stuck doing my own research on the internet, which can give you way too much information that you may or may not need to know, which then gives you anxiety and you are at a loss what to do. After a week went by, the white on Ellie’s tongue was still going strong and I tried to wipe it off with a wet paper towel, but nothing really came off. So I figured, okay well this is thrush, and it’s not going to help my already cracked and sore nips, so let’s start this medicine. I e-mailed my doctor and a day went by and she didn’t respond, so I finally had to call the advice nurse to get the medicine sent in to the pharmacy. I was already headed over there for my own check up, so I wanted to grab it while I was already there. A few days later she e-mailed me back and was like, okay hey I sent in the request for you, you should be able to pick it up at the pharmacy… I’m like SERIOUSLY?? Did you not see that I called in and got it taken care of already?! Ugh. More strikes against her. So we started the medicine. 🙁 🙁 🙁 I DID NOT want to give my tiny brand new infant this medicine FOUR times a day that has sugar and dye in it!!! Also, the flavor was cherry mint. Whoever decided that was a good flavor for medicine?? Anyway, I really wanted this thrush to go away. So I did my best at giving it to her as much as I could, but they said to give it to her on a full tummy. So it was tricky to give it her 4 times a day. OH, also, the pharmacist said to give her XmL 4 times a day. So that’s what I was doing. But then I was reading the box and it said to give her XmL (I can’t remember the exact dosage) 4 times a day IN EACH CHEEK. So, I should have been giving her double? It had been a week and there was no improvement, so I figured it was only because I wasn’t giving her the correct dosage. But then I had my doubts that it was even thrush. I just didn’t know!! I tried to give her the medicine for another week, and nothing. So I stopped. I was fed up. We went in for her 2 month check up with A NEW doctor that a friend recommended. I was so bugged by the other doctor that I wanted a new start. We walk in and I instantly tell him everything about the thrush, the medicine, and everything and he looks in her mouth and says, “Uh, yeah, that’s not thrush.” I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me… He’s like, you would see other signs, like rash on the bum, white patches on the cheek or lips, and since the medicine made no difference, I’m pretty positive this is not thrush. Go home and take a wet washcloth and really rub her tongue it will come off. And I want you to start nursing right away.”
OH MY GOODNESS!!! I was first, very grateful that it wasn’t thrush and we didn’t have to worry about it anymore, but also SO MAD AND ANNOYED at the other doctor for quickly misdiagnosing thrush on my baby. I pumped and bottle fed for 2 months!!!! My nipples were healed, but I kept pumping because I wanted the thrush to go away before I started nursing. Ugh. I was so annoyed. But looking back, the first two months pumping was really awful and stressful and a lot of work and I lost a lot of sleep because of it, BUT, it was actually a blessing, because I was able to save up a lot of milk in the freezer, I got Ellie used to a bottle, and most importantly, Madeline was able to feed Ellie a lot and that really helped them to bond and made Madeline feel so important. She LOVED feeding Ellie. And I’m actually really sad that she isn’t anymore. But I AM SO happy to be nursing and not pumping. So it was terrible, but a blessing.
We love having this sweet little baby Ellie around!
