Our Greatest Adventure Yet
Ever have an adventure that changed your life forever? Some of you may or may not know, but our greatest adventure yet started on December 13th. Our baby girl, Kaylee Marie, was born 1 month early after 15 hours of labor. Upon birth, she was admitted to the ISCU at Evanston Hospital, as we knew from prenatal testing and ultrasounds that our baby girl was diagnosed Down’s Syndrome and would need some additional tests and also she would need surgery for what is called a duodenal atresia. Talk about a scary first few days when your newborn has to get operated on. From our initial appointment with the surgeon, the thought was that this could be repaired arthroscopically, so you can imagine my face and the amount of shock when we go to see her post-op and find an incision that almost spans across her entire stomach. After a week of just being on IV nutrition, she was finally able to drink some breast milk that I had pumped. She started at only 5 mL to cautiously see how her intestine would do and she handled it well. She was able to quickly progress to full feedings within a week. We received a surprise call two weeks post-op to bring in her car seat for the state mandatory car seat test because she was able to go home the next day. Initially, the surgeon had said 4-6 weeks in the ISCU and it turned out to only be 2. We were so excited, anxious, and nervous of the thought of bringing our little one home. We were about to actually be REAL parents and have her 24/7.
Being the adventurous outdoorsy people that we are, we are already trying to plan her first big trip. We have been debating since before she was even born on how early is too early to take our newborn out. The negative degree temps that we are currently having make it a bit more difficult to do outdoor things, so we have to stick to doing museums this winter (starting out small and working our way up to camping and full day outings once it warms up). Our first mini adventure was to the Wisconsin RV show this past weekend. She may have slept through most of it, but I still think she had a blast and agreed with mom and dad that the Airstreams were the best! So many people have said things will slow down when you have a kid and you won’t be able to get out as much. We intend to prove all the nay-sayers wrong and not let them stop us. Yeah, it may slow us down and some activities will have to get postponed or done differently, but it won’t stop us from adventuring. We just have to learn to be a bit more flexible (like packing at least 3 outfits, a ton of diapers, and plastic bag for when your daughter decides to pull out all the stops on a public changing table). We just got to get out and do it! I’m sure there will be mistakes or mishaps to laugh at (3 diapers and a new outfit later), but I don’t think there it is ever too early for your baby to start exploring the world around them. After all, babies like light noise and what better way to provide it then Mother Nature herself. And….the sooner we get her out and about, I feel it will make it easier as she gets older and also encourage walking and talking.
In the mean time until we can get her out and about more, our adventure is just that of parenthood…restless nights of diaper changes and feedings every 3 hours and the really restless nights when you just can’t figure out why your baby doesn’t want to sleep followed by having to be up at 5am for work/class. Any advice on how to get them use to day and night schedule is greatly appreciated! Also any tips on camping or adventures with a baby, let us know.