The Gift of Life

Erin’s been quite talkative these days. Her speech is not limited anymore to just cooing. She gurgles a lot and I think an emerging “Ba” is on the way as she loves making bubbles with her saliva. “Gi” is also now part of her vocal gymnatics repertoire.

The other day, J reckons he heard her say “Daddy.” Now, that can’t be really true, right? I spend almost the entire day (24/7) with this kid and her first word is “daddy” ?! Maybe J heard something else, like the “gi” syllable which does sound like the last syllable of daddy. Anyway, whatever it is, I have yet to hear it for myself to believe it. So far, nada!

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Yesterday was Erin’s cousin C’s 18th birthday. Lunch was held at the second floor of the Canberra Football Club in Deakin. It was eat-all-you-can Yum Cha at AU$15 per person. The food was delicious but their service was terrible. The place was packed at 12 noon. And since our tables were located in the farthest corner from the kitchen, the food couldn’t get to us. I think we were able to start really eating at past one when some of the other customers had left.

While waiting for the food, the little girl got passed around to other family members and friends. And she did not cry! Looks like this kid is turning into one social butterfly! And she doesn’t cry anymore in her car seat (except of course, when she’s already tired). Thanks to endless playing of nursery rhymes and toys dangling everywhere.

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The three of us haven’t been getting much sleep these days. Erin’s eczema still flares up every now and then. What’s worse is that these episodes occur late at night or at early dawn when we’re all supposed to be sleeping. We know it’s occuring when she suddenly wakes up, rubs her face and starts screaming. J and I don’t have eczema so we don’t have the slightest clue as to how she’s really feeling. But I reckon it’s so damn itchy judging from her terribly loud cries. After applying creams, the most that we can do is just wait for the rashes to subside. And it’s only then can we go back to getting some shut-eye, which isn’t easy, by the way.

I realise eczema is actually pretty common in kids, especially after talking to family and friends. Extreme weather temperatures (either the cold or the heat), I think, are majorly the culprits. So I’m guessing this’ll be back to haunt us in the summer time. Oh dear…

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Shameless Plug
Thanks to my brother D for ‘photoshopping’ one of Erin’s photos. He’s a graduating Fine Arts student at the UP in Diliman and he’s trying to build up his portfolio. Here’s his ‘Erin’ project:

The little girl developed nasty red rashes all over her body last Monday night. This gave us quite a scare because she kept on crying and had difficulty sleeping. We stripped her of her clothing and discovered that the redness was mostly found on her face, neck and tummy. She didn’t have a fever, which was a relief. But just to check, J rang up Health First to help us in determing what was really bothering Erin. They just said that if she didn’t run a temperature, it could be just the heat that’s making her uncomfortable.

But that wasn’t enough for me. I was still worried because it could be an allergic reaction to the milk that she got from me. You see, our dinner had some eggs in them so that could also have been the culprit. And since it might have been an allergy, she could have trouble breathing later on. So, to put our minds in ease, we left home at 12:45 AM to go to The Canberra Hospital.

When we got there, there were quite a number of people waiting to be called. We were informed there was only one doctor on duty to see all six/seven patients. You heard me, just one! And this was for the emergency department, mind you. (It was appalling to know that there is such a huge shortage of skills in a first-world country such as Australia. )The nurse though, seeing that infants needed more immediate attention than the rest, took the time to examine Erin. Her impression was that it could be just eczema. She reassured us that it was not meningococcal in nature or anything of that sort. She gave us 2 options — wait for our turn (which was like a 6-7 hour wait) or go home and just see our GP in the morning. Duh! We chose to go home.

We decided to just observe Erin in the meantime. We gave her cooler clothes to wear, lowered the thermostat, and applied moisturizer liberally on all her rashes. In the morning, they all subsided. Thank God!

We saw our GP this morning though, just to get a final diagnosis. And it is confirmed that it is atopic eczema. All because of the chilly weather this season. The heat and milk from me could have triggered the flare-up last Monday. So, we’re being careful these days. We’re also told to stop using harsh soaps (sorry J&J!). The GP also prescribed us a low dose corticosteroid during flare-ups.

Well, it’s no wonder she developed this. I read somewhere that kids whose parents have asthma (J has it), hay fever (I do) and other allergies are susceptible to getting eczema. Poor Erin! Hay naku, I’ll be really glad when this winter season is over. I am sooo looking forward to Spring!

Last Saturday’s mass turned out to be quite nerve-wracking for all of us because we had to bring Erin along with us as she was going to be presented to the parishioners and welcomed into the Catholic community. It was a very cold night and we were afraid that Erin might feel uncomfortable and end up crying the whole time in church. Good thing her aunt J was there to help us make her go to sleep while the presentation was going on.

It was a full house at the Holy Family Church at Gowrie because some kids were also having their first communion that night. Good thing we were able to get some seats. And since the church was fully packed, there were lots of people who came to bless Erin as she was being presented. As in, pila talaga!

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Erin officially became a Catholic last Sunday, the 27th of May. She was exactly ten weeks old. There were three other kids who were also scheduled to be baptised that day. And out of all of them, Erin was the loudest! Hay naku, of all the time in the world, this little baby decided to make her baptism a crying session from start to finish. I’m sure everybody will remember her for this. hehehe…

At the reception venue, it was like playing ‘Pass the Parcel’ as Erin hopped from one set of arms to another. This time she was not crying anymore. Apparently, she was enjoying herself, being entertained by all the different faces that greeted her. She’s always like this whenever we attend a party. Hmm.. something tells me she might be a party-goer when she grows up.

As with every Filipino party, food was overflowing! We couldn’t have done it without the help of Mama, Ate J, Ninang E and some of our very good family friends. The yummy and beautiful two-layer cake by C was also a wonderful delight. C also did the cake for my baby shower last March.

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Poor Erin developed a cold today. It must be due to the weather here. Also, she’s been out of the house for three consecutive days. Her exposure to the freezing temperature must definitely be the culprit.

She’s been sneezing every so often and sometimes her nose get so stuffy she can hardly breathe. And because of this, she can only sleep for short periods. Nakakaawa talaga! I hope she gets better soon.

Who would have thought that our precious little Erin would develop jaundice just because of dehydration? I really thought that jaundice is an infection or it is something that results from blood type incompatibilities. Period. It turns out that newborns can also get it if they are not getting enough milk for nourishment. (Trivia: Protein helps break down bilirubin. Milk is a good source of protein.)

A midwife visited us last Wednesday afternoon (21 March) as part of the hospital’s discharge program to check on us both. Unknown to us, Erin had lost a significant amount of weight (300 grams) since the day she was born. This only meant that she wasn’t getting enough milk from me. This also explained why she had been waking up every hour to feed and she had been crying incessantly the night before. In short, the poor thing was hungry! This prompted the midwife to take another blood sample from Erin’s heel to check on her bilirubin level. She advised us to do top-up feeding as well which required us to feed her an additional 40 ml of formula milk and expressed breast milk every three to four hours while we wait for my milk supply to increase.

That same night though, the midwife called us up to inform us that Erin should be readmitted to the hospital for phototherapy and rehydration because her bilirubin level was at 300 plus. J and I went back to the hospital that night and Erin was stripped down to her nappy. She was placed in a bassinet made of clear hard plastic which was placed directly under the phototherapy lamp to help break down the bilirubin at a faster rate. It was very difficult for us to get any sleep that night because we had to make sure she was settled in the bassinet and we had to get up every three to four hours to feed her.

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