Alanna's two week checkup
Jun. 27th, 2007 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
celticdragonflyYesterday Alanna was two weeks old. We took her to the midwife for the two week checkup. She immediately spit up on Lisa's shoulder, but then she's done worse than that to Lisa already, and she didn't mind. We took her upstairs to the scale and weighed her. Lisa looked at the scale and said "she's supposed to be back up to her birth weight about now." She has instead gained almost a pound past that. 10 lbs 13.5 ounces. That's my big girl.
All the tests in the state heelstick thing came back normal from the first one, they had to redo it this time - it's done before 48 hours and then again at 2 weeks. Poor baby. I was hoping I'd get stuck, too, to check my hemoglobin, but the supplies for doing that were backordered. My gums do look pretty pale, so I got more iron supplements from her and will keep taking them, and we can recheck me later.
One odd thing is that she still has the heart murmur that Lisa heard when she was a day old. Usually those go away within the first couple of days. It doesn't seem to be causing any problems for her. She's nicely pink, we've never seen her lips go blue or anything like that, no breathing problems, and she's clearly gaining weight well. So we'll just keep an eye on it. Apparently this is the year for it - they had another baby recently with a heart murmur, too. Lisa said the parents' doctor had no idea what to do about it, so they're looking for a specialist. I suggested that Lisa ask them what specialist they find, and then if Alanna is still having this at the 6 and 12 week appointments, maybe we take her to the same doctor, because I don't think our family doctor would have a clue what to do either. Lisa agreed, and said since it's not causing any problems they wouldn't do anything right now. Alanna got to be a useful teaching tool, as Lisa had another one of the midwifery students come listen to hear the murmur. I think this is cool.
After the appointment, we went to a late lunch.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fordprfct was along to drive for me and take care of the bigger kids while I was in the appointment with Alanna. We went to the Crackerbarrel over nearer home rather than nearer the birth center, thinking we'd avoid rush hour traffic afterwards. It'd been raining a bit when we got there, and we'd gotten a parking spot right by the end of the porch. While inside it started pouring great loud sheets of rain, and just kept going. We took our time with lunch, since Alanna was peacefully asleep in her carseat, and then went out to the porch afterwards, and encouraged Maggie and Jamie to run races up and down the length of the porch. They've been SO cooped up lately, what with us dealing with the new baby, the incredible ongoing rains this spring, and the recent discovery that once again, despite *repeated* treatments from the pest company, we still have fire ants in the backyard. So they ran and ran, with Jamie occasionally poking a bit too much of himself out into the edges of the rain. I was hoping it'd clear up a bit. I took Maggie back inside for a bathroom stop, and when I came out it was actually heavier and windier. We figured it wasn't getting any better, time to get the kids into the van. I'm glad we had the van - I could open the side door and climb right in with the kids, and be there to open the other side door and just take Alanna's carseat right from Miles. We got wet, but it could have been much worse.
The worse part was driving home. Started to go as if up the 35 - uh oh, rush hour and pouring rain, THAT looks slow, so I suggested taking Meacham across to Saginaw. Nice idea, until everybody was turned around to go back because the road was flooded. I should have let him go up 35 - going around via Beach took forever, and it was partially flooded, too. It took us an hour to get home! We'll have to tell Alanna someday what a very, very wet spring it was when she was born.
All the tests in the state heelstick thing came back normal from the first one, they had to redo it this time - it's done before 48 hours and then again at 2 weeks. Poor baby. I was hoping I'd get stuck, too, to check my hemoglobin, but the supplies for doing that were backordered. My gums do look pretty pale, so I got more iron supplements from her and will keep taking them, and we can recheck me later.
One odd thing is that she still has the heart murmur that Lisa heard when she was a day old. Usually those go away within the first couple of days. It doesn't seem to be causing any problems for her. She's nicely pink, we've never seen her lips go blue or anything like that, no breathing problems, and she's clearly gaining weight well. So we'll just keep an eye on it. Apparently this is the year for it - they had another baby recently with a heart murmur, too. Lisa said the parents' doctor had no idea what to do about it, so they're looking for a specialist. I suggested that Lisa ask them what specialist they find, and then if Alanna is still having this at the 6 and 12 week appointments, maybe we take her to the same doctor, because I don't think our family doctor would have a clue what to do either. Lisa agreed, and said since it's not causing any problems they wouldn't do anything right now. Alanna got to be a useful teaching tool, as Lisa had another one of the midwifery students come listen to hear the murmur. I think this is cool.
After the appointment, we went to a late lunch.
fordprfct was along to drive for me and take care of the bigger kids while I was in the appointment with Alanna. We went to the Crackerbarrel over nearer home rather than nearer the birth center, thinking we'd avoid rush hour traffic afterwards. It'd been raining a bit when we got there, and we'd gotten a parking spot right by the end of the porch. While inside it started pouring great loud sheets of rain, and just kept going. We took our time with lunch, since Alanna was peacefully asleep in her carseat, and then went out to the porch afterwards, and encouraged Maggie and Jamie to run races up and down the length of the porch. They've been SO cooped up lately, what with us dealing with the new baby, the incredible ongoing rains this spring, and the recent discovery that once again, despite *repeated* treatments from the pest company, we still have fire ants in the backyard. So they ran and ran, with Jamie occasionally poking a bit too much of himself out into the edges of the rain. I was hoping it'd clear up a bit. I took Maggie back inside for a bathroom stop, and when I came out it was actually heavier and windier. We figured it wasn't getting any better, time to get the kids into the van. I'm glad we had the van - I could open the side door and climb right in with the kids, and be there to open the other side door and just take Alanna's carseat right from Miles. We got wet, but it could have been much worse. The worse part was driving home. Started to go as if up the 35 - uh oh, rush hour and pouring rain, THAT looks slow, so I suggested taking Meacham across to Saginaw. Nice idea, until everybody was turned around to go back because the road was flooded. I should have let him go up 35 - going around via Beach took forever, and it was partially flooded, too. It took us an hour to get home! We'll have to tell Alanna someday what a very, very wet spring it was when she was born.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Fire ants
Date: 2007-06-27 04:46 pm (UTC)One good side effect of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was a significant reduction of fire ants in the affected area, especially near Lake Charles. Usually a fire ant colony will just float away on a flood and settle elsewhere. Turns out they sink in salt water! The extension folks were trying to treat any stragglers while they had the upper hand. Now, if they could only get the salt content of the soil low enough to grow rice again....
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-27 05:11 pm (UTC)