Getting Better

In general, I think things are getting better on the two under two front. Despite a case of explosive diarrhea over the past few days, Jillian has been in good spirits and a little more willing to play on her own rather than with and on me. She has also been getting better sleep during the day and at night, which has cut down on the night terrors she tends to have with overly tired.

Hayden continues to prove herself the opposite of Jillian in terms of newborn behavior. Jillian never napped by herself for more than 15 minutes at this age, and had to be swaddled in the swing at full speed with white noise and a pacifier to sleep for a few hours. Hayden does the same sleeping in the crib with none of those interventions. For the most part she falls back to sleep at night right after feeding, and Jeramy wakes up with the girls in the morning letting me get a couple extra hours of sleep. I do get kind of grumpy at times though about any husband or dog related sleep disruptions, so I wouldn't say that I'm in good spirits all of the time. But it is getting better, and I have a good supply of caffeine on hand for when it is not better.

If anything Hayden's tendency to sleep all the time almost worries me. She is awake for feedings, most diaper changes, and then maybe two couple hour stretches during the day. I'd describe her as a lump at this point. Jillian was a surprisingly strong newborn. Her legs especially. I have a picture of her at two months old standing on the ground using only my finger as support. I'm sure Hayden is probably just fine, but it sure is a shock after Jillian.

In other Hayden news, it seems that she failed her routine newborn screening for cystic fibrosis. We are not overly worried about at this point for a couple of reasons. One, only a fraction of babies who fail the screening ultimately turn out to have CF. And second, both Jeramy and I were tested to see if we are carriers of CF by our RE. Jeramy who has a family history of CF (his cousin's son has it) is a carrier, but my test came back negative. Now that doesn't mean that CF is an impossibility as I could be a carrier of one of the rarer mutations that are not covered by that test, but it does greatly reduce the chances of me being a carrier. CF is recessive, so both Jeramy and I would need to be carriers to pass it along, and even if both parents are positive the chance of transmitting it is 25%. So all this means that we have to take Hayden in for the more accurate sweat test next week. Most likely, Hayden failed the newborn screen because she is a healthy carrier of CF like Jeramy. But I do admit that I'll feel better once we rule out her having CF completely.

Oh and have I mentioned that Jillian is all about her little sister? She loves to push her swing saying "weeeee" despite all of our discouragement. She also climbs up in our laps whenever we are holding or feeding her, and especially likes it when we let her "hold" her. For the most part she is very gentle with her although I dare not leave them along together. If I do "this little piggy" to Jillian she does Hayden's piggies at the same time, and she also spends much time pointing out all of her sister's facial features to me. These heart warming moments are important in offsetting the heart breaking moments when everybody in the house (myself included) is crying at once.

Well my afternoon break (Jeramy has Jillian and grandma has Hayden) is almost over. Hopefully I can report back next week with more positive news. Like a little longer stretch of sleep or in a few more weeks maybe even a smile.