Having finally got around to logging on and seeing how you were all doing, my first question was obviously going to be, am I welcome back despite being such a terrible slacker and leaving you all last August without news? I just couldn't keep up but I know how I wondered when I didn't hear from people who'd been on the thread so I'm really sorry. So amazing to have found the new thread and to see that just yesterday jw was asking about me. Very cool and a very lovely coincidence after all these months. Thanks for still thinking about me jw.
Eva is doing really well now (touching wood with every part of my body). She left hospital on 15th October so 11 days after her due date. She recovered quite quickly from the NEC but continued to have problems feeding so her progress to discharge was really slow. She spent such a long time on tpn (that's being fed by drip) that she had really bad jaundice. TPN is not good for the liver. On top of this she had a really slow bowel, shocking reflux, contracted a urinary tract infection and had terrible swelling on her genitals that took weeks to disappear. She had more blood transfusions and blood tests than I can count. The doctors monitored her so closely for a return of the NEC that the slightest amount of aspirate led to suspension of feed and twice-daily x-rays and this happened every few days. I feel as though I spent three months holding my breath.
But finally, finally she was on a full milk feed. She had a nuclear scan of the bile system to make sure it was just the tpn that caused the jaundice, and a nuclear scan of the kidneys which showed that she has Grade 2 reflux of urine. This means that the urine splashes back up towards her kidneys but doesn't reach them. Just in case she's on a tiny dose of daily antibiotics to prevent low level urinary infections causing damage to the kidneys should infected urine reach them.
We stayed a further six weeks in Hong Kong after she was discharged to have the security of a good hospital nearby, and then moved back to China towards the end of November. Since then I've been trying to reconstitute one household out of the chaos that was created by trying to run two in what is effectively two different countries, had visitors, done a ton of personal admin and got used to being a mother.
The good news is I love it. Eva is just a joy. She's always smiling and laughing, feeds well both solids and formula, and is curious about everything. She stares at people until they look at her and then she smiles at them. When first home she had colic and continued to have reflux but I was finally rescued from hourly clothes changes by Enfamil Anti-Reflux formula. Now she's a good sleeper (touching wood again) and spits up at far more manageable intervals and in small quanitities.
Re the rolling over jw, the paediatrician I saw last month told me that I shouldn't worry that Eva wasn't rolling over because not all babies do. Neither do all babies crawl. He said that the other aspects of Eva's development were far more important - for example how she reaches for things and can grip them. I then had lunch with a friend with two daughters neither of whom, I learned, had ever rolled over or crawled but who are both absolutely fine. Funny how I was more reassured by my friend than the doctor.
Eva still can't sit unsupported but she is desperate to. She always wants to sit on my lap or in the buggy and whenever she lies down she lifts her head and shoulders. She certainly does more sit-ups than I do. Her head and neck control funnily enough are more in line with her chronological age but everything else is with corrected age. I think. I still just read the basics about developmental milestones because I have a tendency to be a worrier and I don't want to communicate that to Eva. I've pretty much taken then attitude that as long as she continues to change I wont' worry about the rate of change.
That's all for now. While madam is a good sleeper she's an early riser which I am not and it's very late here and I want to catch up on some more of the thread before going to bed. Tomorrow I'll post some photos.
Happy to be back. Will try my bestest to keep up this time. Looking forward to reading your news.