Life with Michelle

Michelle has now been staying with us for over a week. We are definitely getting a lot of parenting practice! We are learning some new skills that I am sure will come in handy later. After several unsuccessful attempts (she cried and moved too much) to trim her fingernails with baby clippers after she scratched her own face and our faces several times, I finally bit all her fingernails off. Surprisingly, she liked this and kept putting her fingers back up to my mouth. I don't even bite my own fingernails so that was pretty gross, but we are learning that a lot of gross things are possible out of love. I have yet to bite her toenails but that may need to come soon! Another example in that category is when we had to use the suction bulb to extract boogers. It took both of us to hold her down and attempt that. Michelle was not very happy but was breathing much better afterwards. Daniel, however, did not appreciate the fact that I wiped the bulb off on his jeans in between suctions.

Michelle is such a joy to have around and we love getting to spend so much time with her. She is funny and we love to see her little personality emerging. We have also learned to appreciate even more the work that Kendon and Wendy do for her daily care! She is now up to 7 pounds, 6 ounces which is definitely a gain since she arrived at NLCH, but not so great for a 1 year old. Therefore, we are still having to feed her every two hours during the day and every three hours at night. Her bottles are an interesting mixture of special formula, a few drops of vanilla to disguise the yucky flavor of the special formula, Karo syrup, and boiled bottled water. Also, she gets one bottle a day with medicine, one with an iron supplement, and one with a special vitamin mixture.

Probably the most difficult part of her care is that she receives a nightly injection of growth hormone. I had never before given anyone a shot and especially did not want to give one to such a little person. I practiced with Wendy the week before she and Kendon left for the U.S. On my first attempt, I didn't break the skin, freaked out and handed the shot back to Wendy. On my second attempt, I was determined to get it in. Wendy was very encouraging and supportive and told me that she was proud of me but next time I didn't need to use so much force. Oops, that explains why she was crying so much! I guess I was treating the needle a bit too much like a dart!

So far, the shots have been going okay but I still hate giving them. Daniel holds her arms and leg straight while I give the shot. I hold my breath each time and pray that I won't hurt her too much. She begins crying as soon as she sees the shot. A few nights ago, I was holding her leg and giving the shot and she kicked her leg right as the needle went in. She kicked the shot right out of my hand and there was the needle dangling from her leg as she was screaming her head off! I had to pull it out and stick her again. Yuck! I didn't want to have to give it again the next night, but it had to be done. I am counting down.... only eight more until Kendon and Wendy get back!

I could write a lot more about life with Michelle, but this has already become a much longer post than I intended. Here are a few pictures with captions below each one:

She had fun riding back in the laundry basket after we took the clothes down from the line behind our apartment.

Enjoying attention from all the boys on Saturday night when we had the older boys over to our apartment to watch the movie "Rudy"

All dressed up for church on Sunday.