Molli Malou is playing online computers beside me on her mother’s computer so there’s no time to edit and post pictures or movies. I’m a week behind and overloaded with an embarrasment of media to share, but it will have to be later. This is just a quick (and happy) update.
But it has a scary start.
The three of us drove in to visit Maddie this morning, very eager to be on hand for her morning “pusling” and 10:30 bath. We got to the hospital by a little after ten and hurried up to her room. We were all three excited to see her — Trine had been discharged, as most of you know, just yesterday, so it was the longest she’d been away from Maddie for some time. Molli Malou was excited to bathe her sister. I was excited at the prospect of having the whole family in one room for the first time since Christmas Eve.
We got to her floor and hurried toward her room and stopped cold. Through the window into her room, which one reaches before the door, we could see her roommate was gone (a little girl in an incubator, almost always accompanied by her mother). The room was much too large for just Maddie’s little crib and the paltry few things Trine kept on the window sill. It was a disturbing sight. Even more disturbing, a big red sign on the door warned: “ISOLATION!”
We rushed to the nurse’s station and Trine asked in a trembling voice what was going on with Maddie? Was she okay? Why was she isolated? Where was her roommate…?
Unfortunately the three nurses in the office did not smile fast enough or reassuringly enough, though one of them did begin to rise and murmur something about Maddie being fine, doing just fine, but…
The “but” was all it took to trigger family panic reaction. The nurse explained calmly that a stool test had revealed a minor stomach virus and that it wasn’t anything serious and certainly nothing to worry about, yadda yadda yadda, but it was too late. We were already adopting the posture of Family Under Siege. Trine pressed for details, fighting back tears, turning her back to Molli Malou to spare her the sight of her emotions. Taking that as my cue, I whisked Molli Malou away from the scene and down to the playground in the hospital lobby.
I was sick to my stomach, felt like I’d been sucker punched in the gut. I’d been reassured by the nurses, but the shock of seeing that tiny crib in that big empty room, and the rude aggression of that ISOLATION sign, was still with me. Molli Malou was oblivious to the whole episode, thrilled to be able to play on the big firetruck in the lobby.
A little before 10:30 Trine came down smiling and we all three went back up for a pusling and bathing that went just spectacularly. Maddie was wide awake the whole time, very active. She weighed in at 1991 grams, but that was bare-assed naked without even a single wire on her — and at one point the scale registered at 2001 grams. That was all six hours ago, so I think it’s now safe to say she has passed the two kilo milestone! She is now bigger than Molli Malou was at her smallest, so she is no longer the smallest human being we have ever taken care of!
Her oxygen saturation has been fine without any assist, so there was no need for x-rays. Not only that, but they’ve taken away her heated mattress so she’s running her own metabolism.
Her head is weirdly elongated, as if she’d stuck her head in a vice and someone had squeezed it almost flat. It’s a very normal phenomenon for those born as early as her and has no long-term implications, so feel free to giggle rather than shudder at any pictures in which her head looks… well, weird. It won’t last.
She has fattened up magnificently. There is not just flesh on her bones, now, but excess flesh. Her thighs are plump. Her chin is multitudinous. The little “dogtag sticker” they’d put around her ankle was so tight little rolls of flesh were bubbling around its edges. (Trine cut it off.) Her fur is just about gone.
She is very reactive, when awake: very alert. Her eyes melt me.
Molli Malou had some moments of jealousy but there’s nothing to be done about that. She obviously resented all the attention Maddie was getting. It isn’t ALL jealousy: there’s also has a peculiar sense of ownership and Molli Malou gets annoyed when she’s not the one holding, tending, or washing Maddie. (“She’s MINE!”) But as long as Molli Malou is a part of the game, she’s a very sweet big sister.
And yet the jealousy is obviously deep. Just a few moments ago here at home she ran off into her room and I finally went in to see what she was up to. She had put a tiara in her hair and her Snow White dress on. She was resplendent and I said so.
Actually what I said was: “Molli Malou! You’re beautiful!”
“Yes,” she said haughtily. “Beautifuller than Maddie.”
Zing!
Pictures and videos to follow after the little green monster goes to bed…
