Yesterday was such a busy day for us. I started off the day baking some cupcakes for Lauren's little party we were going to have for her yesterday evening. I was hoping to get the cupcakes decorated before Lauren's doctors appointment, but that just didn't happen. Lauren had an appointment with her GI doctor. She is 17 pounds 4 ounces. She has been on Enfamil Enfacare formula since she was about 5 weeks old. While she doesn't get it during the day now, she does get it during her night feedings. We were mixing it up the ready to feed with the dry formula to make 26 calories per ounce instead of the regular 22 calories that it is. Her GI doctor has now switched her to Pediasure with fiber. There are a lot of pluses for the Pediasure. She will now be getting 30 calories per ounce at night, it has fiber so we hope it will help with her constipation and we can get the enteral Pediasure which is thicker so it will hopefully help with her acid reflux. We did have Lauren's bed elevated and she would then be strapped into a Dani-sling at night to keep her from rolling to the bottom of the bed. Now that she is older she no longer wants to just sleep on her back plus she learned how to un-Velcro the Dani-sling and would roll to the bottom of the bed. We ended up taking the Dani-sling out and lowering her bed back down. She has done good with it. Some nights she does have more reflux problems than other, which would cause me to stop her feeding, so hopefully the thicker consistency will help with that. Speaking of reflux, way back, when we were being seen by the feeding clinic, I asked if Lauren's acid reflux medicine could be switched. She was released from the hospital on Pepcid, but there isn't a generic for Pepcid, so it was rather expensive to get it filled. We also had to get a 3 month supply at a time since it is considered a maintenance drug through our insurance. I had asked if we could possibly be switched to something that had a generic and the feeding clinic said that because of her extreme prematurity, she needed to stay on the Pepcid. I didn't push the issue since it was obviously something she needed. Prior to her appointment I knew she needed a new prescription written so I decided to talk to Dr. Kessel about switching her. She said she didn't see a problem and wrote her a prescription for the generic form of Zantac. It isn't as strong as the Pepcid, so she needs 3 doses at 1 1/2 ml during the day instead of the 2 doses at 0.8 mls of Pepcid. So, I was happy about that change and it is much cheaper. So, overall it was a very good appointment. We don't go back until November, so I am hoping for a good weight gain then. Our home health company called today and said the Pediasure should arrive by early next week.
So, after the appointment we went to the NICU to visit our old friends. Well, let's just say we were a little disappointed. The front desk lady wouldn't let us back, but they did call the NICU. One of the nurses that only had Lauren maybe twice answered. I knew she probably wouldn't remember us because right after Lauren was born she went out on Medical leave for the duration of Lauren's hospital stay. Anyways, she ended up coming out to the main waiting room to see us. I was surprised that she did remember us and even asked questions specific to Lauren. She was our nurse when the doctor told us we needed to consider signing a do not resuscitate on Lauren and she remembered that. She said that they were having a problem with a family in the NICU not following the rules. Can I just say...WHY WOULDN'T YOU?!? All of the rules the NICU puts in place is for the benefit of the babies in the NICU and for the parents to not follow the rules just makes me mad. Anyways, so they currently were not allowing anyone that wasn't a parent or staff back to the NICU. She said once that certain family was discharged things would go back to the way they were. Overall, it was a good visit with her. We do miss every one of the nurses in the NICU. They all hold a special place in our hearts. So, after the NICU is was pizza for dinner and on to decorating the cupcakes, which didn't take too long.
After that we ate our decorated cupcakes and opened some presents. Kristen kept saying all day, "It's sissy's Happy birthday." Lauren wasn't as enthusiastic as I thought she would be at opening her presents. Kristen sure was though. All in all her birthday was hectic but good.
After the kids went to bed I started baking the cakes for Lauren's BIG birthday cake. Well, not to big, but bigger than cupcakes. The cake is a 10 inch cake with a 6 inch on top. I decided since Lauren loves chocolate to try something different from the pound cake I normally fixed. I looked up a recipe online. When the cake came out I cooled it in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes like it called for. I then tried to get it out of the pan. The pound cake I use just pops right out. Well this didn't. Some of the cake stuck to the pan so I couldn't use it. I was so disappointed because it was 9:00 at night and I really wanted to get my cakes baked, cooled and wrapped up and go to bed. I ended up having to go to Food Lion to get extra baking ingredients, because I had just enough to make two cakes. So, to make a long story short, at 2:30 in the morning I had two chocolate cakes I could use and was finally able to get some sleep. Today has been an equally busy day. I decorated the birthday cake, which took me around 3 hours, not counting the time it took to make the icing. Went and ran errands and tidied up the house. I am very tired and my bed is calling my name.
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