Here’s Molli’s crib (her er Mollis krybbe):
Jeg er desværre for træt at skrive på dansk lige nu. Jeg vil prøve at skrive mere i morgen.
In addition to the omnipresent knit hat and the gown you saw her in earlier (below), tonight she was also wearing a bright red top, white pants, and white socks/booties. She was asleep when we arrived a little before nine and the nurse said she’d been conked out pretty much all evening.
I held her for an hour during which she mostly just lay contented in my arms. A little after ten, as the nurse came in and started prepping the stuff for the evening pusling, she began stirring to life. First there were some little squeaks and grunts and low-grade squirms. Her feet got twitchy and her tiny little hands clenched and unclenched. This went on for three or four minutes. Then her head began turning a little, the grunts increased, and her eyebrows wriggled to life. Though her eyes were closed, her eyeballs were clearly rolling around enthusiastically. Was she dreaming?
Now her eyes actually began to flicker open, and she began moving not only her hands and feet but her arms and legs, and next thing I knew that erstwhile sedentary bundle of baby was wide awake. It was time for her to eat and it was quite late and Trine didn’t have it in her to sit for another half hour, so we got her up into her crib and marvelled at her—it was the most awake, alert, responsive, curious, and perfect I’d ever seen her. She clutched at the “awnings” of her tent; she eyed Trine and me skeptically; she cocked her head and blinked at the stuffed ladybug I held before her. She looked all around her and wriggled wildly as we changed her diaper (more fun than ever with all those clothes on over all those stupid wires!). Trine and I could hardly leave. Molli was just absolutely perfect. She even smiled a couple of times—I realize those were just random muscle movements, but they still looked like smiles, so I’m going to take them as smiles, and I’m not going to let go of them.
She’s doing just fine out of the incubator. The nurse also reassured me on the three things I’d been wondering about: (1) What’s up with the crazy rolling, crossing, loony eyes? (2) How come her pulse suddenly spikes up out of the blue sometimes? (3) How come her pulse drops down to half the usual rate sometimes?
The answers: (1) All newborns have those crazy eyes for a while, since they’re still developing eye muscles and coordination, but it tends to last longer in preemies (and I’d noticed tonight it seemed less than it had in the past). (2) Premies can have sudden pulse spikes—as can full-term babies—as can adults—but since we’re not all hooked up to monitors we just don’t notice it. Also some of the sudden spikes are just hardware problems. (3) Doctors have observed that for unknown reasons most premies seem to lower their pulse whenever they begin taking a meal. No one’s sure why. It’s normal with premies, and staff will often just tickle a premie right after it’s “served” its meal to kick the pulse back up again.
Good night!
