Post-move update

Nice to know the Millie-pic bonanza kept most of you happy while we’ve been moving house. Not all of you though – some of the more impatient out there were demanding to know what had happened while we were packing, moving, waiting for previous occupants to leave our new home, opening boxes, resealing boxes of books, opening more boxes, resealing more bloody boxes of bloody books, having a quick cry, opening more boxes, resealing boxes of toy robots, opening “one last bloody box before I give up and go to bed without any supper”, going to bed without any supper.

But we have moved now, and our new home is – or will be – very nice, I think. We still have no internet connection at home but hopefully we can get that sorted by the weekend.

Hopefully.

Millie hasn’t been quite as well as usual. She had rather an unsettled weekend, very very
fidgety and a bit unhappy, plus her oxygen saturation levels (the amount of oxygen she’s managing to actually absorb) have been a bit unsteady. Not very unsteady, it’s not really anything to get worried about, but Millie’s normally very good on this particular front, and the doctors have been trying to figure out what could be causing it, given that all her other readings are fine, that she looks well and is putting on weight at a gallop (yesterday (Monday) she was 2lbs 11ozs – which I forget in grams, I’m afraid).

Millie has still been perfectly well enough to come out of the incubator and be held like a full term baby (albeit, swaddled up like a little kebab and with oxygen being blown in her general direction). That was lovely because you get to watch her little face – when you do the “kangaroo care” shown in the pictures, with her on your chest, you can’t actually see her very well. So we’ve done that for a few hours over the weekend, which mitigated some of the stress of the move.

Other things which helped mitigate the stress of the move were our very very very very good friends Nik, Mike, Inge and Si, without whose help we’d probably have ended up with a bonfire of books in our back garden to put those of the Nazis to shame.

Books and toy robots. Burning. Bwah ha-ha-ha!

Day 28

No Millie news to speak of yet today, although I have my camera with me in order to get some pictures of the Unbearable Cuteness Of Being that follows my changing her nappy in the evenings…look out for those tomorrow – or maybe not for a few days, since we’re moving  house on Friday and that’s going to throw everything to hell for a while. Wish us (and Pickfords) luck!

Day 27

More thanks…to my godmother, Pat, for the beautiful soft blanket and the cuddly dog, both with “Millie” embroidered on them – I seldom get excited over cuddly toys or “bed linen” but these are lovely – thank you! And, in fact, to everyone who’s bought Millie something and gone blatantly unacknowledged here – thank you!

My excuse is that we’re moving house on Friday 29th. Yes, we are. Yes, it’s terrible timing.
Yes, we almost wish we weren’t. No, the Lovely Melanie won’t be doing any heavy lifting – we’ve paid Pickfords a small fortune to do it for us. Yes, we’re very rich indeed to be able to afford that. No, it’s not coming out of Millie’s university fund. Oh, all right, yes it is, but I promise to put it back before she’s old enough to realise.

There are some more photos I could put up on here, but I think I might save them for later in the week.

Millie had an uneventful weekend – except for coming out of the incubator for a cuddle with dad (me). She was unusually talkative, seeming to be muttering to herself for a good ten minutes before she settled down. Probably something about this strange new furry grey surface she was lying on.

The doctors also think Millie might be able to come off the C-PAPP for good in a few days time. The C-PAPP is a machine that blows air up Millie’s nose to help her breathe, like a ventilator but not breathing for her, just with her. Millie currently spends roughly two hours with it up her nose to every 6 hours without it (and she hates it – I mean, really obviously hates it!), but if she carries on doing as well as she is then she might be left to breathe entirely by herself. But we’ll see. She’s still very small and breathing by herself is still relatively hard work for her.

No posts about Millie’s weight for a few days either. It actually went down by about 30 grams, which was obviously worrying. The doctors said this wasn’t unusual and was nothing to be worried about: it was most probably caused by the switch away from the long line to being fed milk completely by mouth; this uses up energy to digest the milk, and with Millie still being so new to digesting milk it wasn’t something to get concerned about unless it continued.

It didn’t continue.

Millie’s put it back on and is back on course for reaching the magic kilogram weight. But it does go to remind us how much of a roller coaster ride this whole business remains…

Day 26

Four generations of Carters.

Yes, four generations in one room. Quite remarkable, really.

Day 23

We’ve been getting so many messages of support from all over the world – our thanks to all you lovely people out there following Les tribulations de Millie. The membership cards are in the post, I promise, and the “I’m A Millie Maven” badges with them. 😉

No new weight figures, Lewisham don’t measure it every day, but fingers crossed we should reach a remarkable one kilogram today or tomorrow…

Oh, and Millie was three weeks old yesterday, another milestone which rather slipped by. Millie’s a bit like the Queen (in more ways than one) since she has two “birthdays” at the  moment, one is the actual birthday – every Thursday – and the other is how long she’s been
growing for – her “gestation birthday”; that’s every Monday, and this Monday she’ll reach the magic 30 weeks!

Frankly, I think we’ll all be glad to see the back of her “20s” – they’ve been, ahem, a bit stressful.

Yesterday was something of a fidgety day for our little girl (though not, in consequence, as “fidgety” as it was for the Lovely Melanie). It was nothing serious, I think, just a general
dissatisfaction with the accommodation, the nappy-changing and the room service (“Milk, milk, bloody milk – do you not have anything else, woman?!”). But if a little bit of grizzling is the worst we have to deal with before Millie comes home then I’ll be a happy happy man indeed.

No, yesterday was just a bit unsettled for the poor girl; apparently babies simply are unsettled sometimes, even very small babies. The only thing that she did enjoy was coming out to lie on her mother’s chest for a couple of hours; she was quiet and content for that whole time. And two hours out of the incubator is a personal best for Millie.

I was going to take some more pictures, but Millie had a load of gummy milk round her mouth – that stuff can be the devil to shift without really annoying a tiny baby – and wasn’t looking her best, so I thought I’d try and get some tonight when not only are Nan and Gramp Carter coming up from Swindon, but so, for the first time, is Great Nanny Carter!
Let’s hope Millie has a more agreeable time of it today because that gummy milk’s coming off regardless, my girl!

Day 20

A quiet day yesterday. Sometimes there just isn’t that much to write about.

Millie and I did make the most of it by having a nice bit of father-daughter time: I rested my hand on her head and just chatted to her about all the stuff I wanted to show her when she was older. Millie had her eyes wide open for the whole 20 minutes, too; not just eyes roving randomly around, but looking steadily in my general direction while I chatted away.

Even if we lose her now, I’ll always have that moment.

Day 19

Now we are two. Two pounds, that is. Millie now weighs 920 grams!

And she’s not only broken that psychologically important barrier, she’s also had the “long line” in her leg taken out.

The long line is an intravenous drip she’s had in her leg since she was born, supplying her with food, vitamins and the like; up till now what nourishment Millie couldn’t manage to take by mouth was being topped up by the long line, but it was decided today that she was taking enough milk by mouth that the long line could come out.

Most of those who’ve seen Millie will agree, I’m sure, that the long line was a particularly unlovely addition to her physique, not to mention yet another possible source of infection.

Well, not any more!

And speaking of infection, following an all-clear from any of that malarkey they’re also going to be taking out the needle in Millie’s arm today (I know what you’re thinking – “How can such a tiny scrap of humanity have so many needles in her? Where do they find the space? How do they find the veins??”). That one was kept there to allow them to administer drugs whenever necessary without having to stick more needles in, and once this has been taken out then little Millie will be free of needles for the first time since she was born. So that’s another milestone right there.

Again, we’re still far from home-free yet, but all of this is very very good news for Millie. I mean, good grief, even her mother says it’s “encouraging”, which must mean it’s stupendously good news, because the Lovely Melanie has been steadfastly refusing to see the bright side of
almost any Millie news…