Yoomi, the self-warming bottle

What do you do when you are out with a hungry baby and you have a bottle of cold breast milk but no way to warm it?  Its quite the predicament, and we have been there.  BUT, no more thanks to Yoomi, the self-warming bottle.

Yes, this bottle really does warm the milk by itself.  What a novel concept.  We had been a couple places with Phoebe where we were unable to get hot/warm water to warm up a bottle of breast milk, so this bottle was intriguing to me.  My friend Alyssa mentioned it to me suggesting that some fun bottles might help "ease the transition" to exclusive bottle feeding after I had decided to stop nursing.  Well I must admit I enjoyed a little splurge of retail therapy :)

The company claims that it warms the feed to the temperature of fresh breast milk in 60 seconds, and I was eager to try out this claim.  The warmer device sits in the large nipple (or teat as the British company calls it).  According to the directions, you hit the button on the warmer (through the nipple/teat) and wait 30 seconds, then you turn the bottle upside down for 30 seconds and ta-da!  Your feed is warm.  Well, I must admit that it does take longer than 60 seconds to warm the feed, but it certainly does warm cold milk taken out of an iced cooler.

Turning the bottle upside down allows the feed to run into the nipple (teat) and around the warmer.  Now, I suppose if your baby was a very slow eater that it could warm the milk in the 30 seconds that it sits in the nipple when you turn the bottle over and then it would continue to warm the feed from the bottom of the bottle as it flowed into the nipple and around the warmer.  However, we did not find this to be true.  What I do is turn the bottle upside down for a minute and then turn the bottle right-side up.  I continue this flipping for several minutes.  As the feed runs over the warmer it does warm the whole bottle.  Its pretty sweet.  I would say it has allowed me to be more mobile and not worry about how to warm a bottle.  For awhile we were taken a thermos of hot water with us to warm the bottle, but this has simplified our lives a bit.  (I also would worry about the hot water spilling out of the thermos and burning someone or getting things wet.)

I'm not 100% sure how the warmer works.  You have to "charge" the warmer before each use.  You charge it by placing it in a pot of boiling water for 25 minutes and then letting it sit/cool for 75 minutes.  Once it is charged it will stay charged until you use it.  So I will typically re-charge it after every use and then its ready to go whenever I might need it.

You can read more about it here.

The Yoomi bottle is certainly not a necessity; I would definitely consider it a splurge item.  But I will say that we have enjoyed it and that a little retail therapy can go a long way :)  And because someone gave us A TON of used bottles from their children this is the only new bottle we've bought or had given to use, so I don't feel as bad.

Ok, this is a much later thought that I am adding after I finished this post, but someone was just telling me that they feed their baby cold breast milk straight from the cooler.  I feel a bit stupid, but I didn't know you could do this...  I don't know if Phoebe would take it cold or not. I guess it depends on the baby, but she'll get warm milk now that's for sure.

Cece's Visit + Pictures

Cece came down to see Phoebe this past weekend and to stay with me while Chris was out of town for RUF's fall conference.  It was great to see my mom and of course mom LOVED getting a chance to hangout with Phoebe again!  She came in Thursday night and stayed with Phoebe Friday morning so I could go get some more breast milk (its a little bit easier not toting around a baby...) and then babysat her on Saturday night so I could go to my 5yr nursing school reunion.  (And just for the record that was awfully lame.  Emory nurses must have a lot better things to do on a Saturday night.  There were only 4 of us from my class there....shows how much spirit we've got)

Some pictures Cece took:

Not loving my bath right now... 

All warm...much better

I love my frog

Woah...the flash sometimes startles her

Smiles

Sleeping in the park after my walk with Cece

Coolest baby in the park

All smiles for Cece

Timeout- Team Bowen

Last weekend Chris and I called a timeout went out on a date!  Well, actually we had two timeouts and two dates!  The first one had been planned for awhile.  Over the summer when Wicked tickets went on sale at the Fox, Chris (knowing that I LOVE Wicked) had the foresight to say "Jen will probably need a few hours out of the house to do something fun," so he bought tickets!  Actually the day the tickets went on sale Chris went down to the Fox around 7am to get in line at the box office.  He was the first one there and since they started selling tickets at the box office one hour before online ticket sales started, Chris was the first person to purchase tickets!  (First "regular" person to purchase tickets anyhow- season ticket holders and Friends of the Fox excluded)

So last Saturday Mamo and Papo came down from Chattanooga to babysit Phoebe while Chris and I went too see Wicked.  It was fabulous and I love the Fox, so it was a fun afternoon!  Chris had never seen Wicked before; he really enjoyed it and now he knows all about popular.

2nd Timeout-

A sweet lady from our church, knowing that I had enjoyed the book, The Help, offered to watch Phoebe while we went out to see the movie!  So she babysat Phoebe Monday night when Chris and I went to the movies!  We both liked the movie and had a fun evening out.  I must say I did miss Phoebe though!  It was the longest time I'd been away from her!

I'm sure we'll need many more timeouts as we continue on this adventure, but our first two were certainly fun!

7 Weeks

So I had been meaning to do a 1 month post and then post monthly updates about Phoebe from there, but I've pretty much missed the 1 month mark now so I'll do 7 weeks and then probably another one at 3 months to get back on track.

SO MUCH has changed in the last 7 weeks; its hard to believe!  Its crazy how much we love her!  She's so sweet and so much fun!  A much welcomed addition to the team.  I'm so glad I'm able to stay home from work for 12 weeks!  I can't imagine going back right now.  Its also crazy how little I get done now.  Its not a bad thing, but between pumping and feeding, playing, and just watching her, it seems to take me at least twice as long to get through my to-do list as it used it!

We went to the doctor last Monday (just shy of 6 weeks) and Phoebe weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 21 3/4in long.  She was in the 25th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for length.  At about 6 1/2 weeks she started fitting into some of her 3 months clothes, but most of the newborn clothes still fit too.  We're trying to get some wear out of the summer 3 month clothes before it turns cool!

We've been trying to follow the recommendations/scheduling from On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam.  The general gist of the book at this point is keeping an "eat, play, sleep" schedule.  So after she eats we have playtime and then naptime and then the cycle starts over.  Of course during the first few weeks it was challenging to keep her awake after she ate, but she's doing much better now.   We certainly don't hold to the book perfectly all the time, but its worked out pretty well so far.

Eating:  Phoebe is eating well.  She's taking 3 1/4ozs at each feeding and eating 7 times a day right now.  I'm still pumping for her and I actually have been pumping out more breast milk since I stopped trying to nurse her- probably because of the decrease in my stress level.  Right now I'm able to feed her my breast milk for about 5 out of those 7 feedings and donor breast milk for the other 2.  She's not picky about what she eats either.  I know some babies can be picky about certain things in mom's diet.  She'll switch back and forth between eating my breast milk, donor breast milk, or formula with no problem or complaints.  And she HARDLY ever spits up.  I can count on one hand the number of times she has spit-up, (4 or 5) so that's been a blessing.  I call Chris the burp wisperer.  I must admit I am not very good at getting Phoebe to burp, but Chris can get her to burp easily almost every time!  I really have no idea what I'm doing differently!  It was slightly amusing (and annoying), a few days ago I was working to burp her and finally handed her over to Chris and she burped just as soon as she was in his hands- he only patted her once!

Look mommy, daddy taught me how to hold the bottle all by myself!

Playtime:  We've really enjoyed reading to Phoebe.  One of our favorites right now is the Big Picture Story Bible.

So we'll read to her after she eats or put her down on her playmat, which she loves!  She'll just lay there and smile (as of the last week or so) and make some noises and hit and kick the little toys.  She's not purposefully hitting and kicking, they just happen to be in her way when she moves, but its fun because it makes noise when she does.  She also is starting to focus more and look at her mobiles.  Chris' biggest complaint is that the mobiles aren't mobile!  They don't move on their own at least.  The mobile we have on her bed does have a motor, but the ones on her swing and playpen do not.  So she'll look at it if you spin it and move it side to side, but you have to stand there to do it.  She also has a sweet lamb in her playpen that plays "Jesus Loves Me."  She likes to look at it and hear the music.  We have music playing through Pandora on the TV almost all the time, so she's certainly used to background music.

Rapping to Nelly (yes, really) with my celeb shades

Sleeping: Phoebe is sleeping 6 to 6 1/2 hours at night.  I'll pump and feed her at nine and then we both go to bed around 10.  Chris stays up and wakes her up at midnight to feed her and then puts her straight back to bed.  Then I'll get up with her in the morning to feed her when she wakes up around 6 or 6:30am.  I'm also getting up to pump around 2-2:30am.  I know this might be silly, but I'm just too scared to go all night without pumping since milk supply has been an issue.  Phoebe sleeps best when she is swaddled.  We don't do anything special when we put her down at night except swaddle her in a Summer Infant SwaddleMe blanket and give her her paci.  If she's not swaddled she startles herself and wakes herself up.  We don't swaddle her with the SwaddleMe blanket for her naps typically, and she always wrestles her arms out of the blanket we've swaddled her in so that they are up by her head.  She has been in a cradle in our bedroom, but last weekend we moved the cradle out of our room and into her own.  I'm not sure why we did this, I just decided it was time.  I wasn't having any trouble sleeping with her in our room and the first night I was actually sad she wasn't there.  (Even though I was sleeping anyways and didn't ever notice whether she was there or not when I was asleep...)  But we've started using our video monitor now, so that's been fun.
      Every once in awhile she's overstimulated or overtired and so I'll bounce her for 3-4 minutes and then she'll fall right asleep.   Did you know that the beat of a mother walking is 60 beats/minute?  This is what babies are used to in the womb and subsequently what they best fall asleep to as a newborn.  Bob Marley's "Buffalo Solider" is 60 beats/minute.  So yes, Chris and I will sing Buffalo Solider and bounce her to the beat.  This is a fun fact found in Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads by Gary Greenberg and Jeannie Hayden.  Chris and I have both found this book helpful, practical, and quite amusing.  I would reccomend it for new dads.

Nap time

Nap time.  I got my arms out...

Diapers: At 6 weeks we finally moved out of newborn diapers!  Quite a few of you have asked me about cloth diapers and how it's going and the answer is we haven't started them yet.  The original plan was to try to transition to cloth around 4 weeks after the initial shock and adjustment of having a newborn.  But 4 weeks was right in the middle of my breastfeeding troubles and I had no energy to jump into a new challenge.  Plus, the cloth diapers I had chosen to use, bumGenius 4.0 One-Size, are for babies 8-35lbs, and she wasn't 8lbs.  (I have 12 of these diapers thanks to my Northside friends!)  The One-Size diapers will grow with you baby, but because of this they are also a little too bulky for Phoebe's little bum right now.  So a few weeks ago I saw a sale and bought 6 size small bumGenius 3.0 diapers which supposedly fit babies 8-16lbs.  They are a little less bulky so they should be good to start out with.  I finally washed the diapers yesterday so we'll hopefully start using them this week.  I'll let you know later how its going...  Also, as far as cloth diapering goes I did a lot of reseach and read a lot of people's blogs about it before making the decision to use them.  (Thank you Anna for all those blog links...I'm still not sure how you of all people could reccomend so many cloth diaper blogs, but I appreciate it!)  But if you've seen or read other blogs about cloth diapering please leave a comment with the link below!  I'd love to check them out!

Personality: Phoebe has been a VERY laid back and easy baby (aside from not nursing...).  I mean I'm not sure what we're going to do if we have future babies with a different temperment.  We have been spoiled.  She is also very serious.  A lot of the time she has this concerned/serious look on her face; she furrows her brow like her daddy.  I'm not really sure what she has to be concerned about or contemplating at 7 weeks old... She really doesn't fuss much at all, she sleeps well and is very easy-going.  Around 6 weeks she started intentionally smiling and laughing some and that has been SO fun!  I'm having trouble being quick enough to catch it on camera though... She's also starting to coo and make more verbal noises, so that's been fun too.

Randoms: We had been crossing our fingers that Phoebe would keep all her hair and so far she has!  It has lightened up a little bit since birth so its not so dark, but almost all of it is still there.  No bald spot either.  Her eyes are looking even more blue than they did at birth so we hope they'll stay blue :)  A few people have said she looks like Chris and a few people have said she favors me, but we don't really think she looks like either of us.  What do you think?

Cousin Love- Phoebe at 4 1/2 weeks

Fun shoes

Fire

My two biggest fears (outside of harm to my family) are car accidents and fires.  (In that order)  In light of recent tornadoes in the southeast, tornadoes might be number 3 on my list of fears, but that is neither here nor there.

On Thursday morning I woke up around 6am and saw flashing lights out the window.  I looked out the window... "Chris, there's a fire truck outside!"  Chris: grunt.  Jen: Oh my goodness there's lots of fire trucks outside!  Chris: another grunt as he rolls back over and pulls the blanket up over his head.  Well I ran downstairs to see what was going on and the street is lined with firetrucks and it is actually blocked off so no one could get in or out of our little neighborhood.  The end unit of townhouse row across the street had caught fire.  Yikes!  (Sorry these pictures are from my cell phone, so they're not great...)

Thankfully, the owner wasn't home and the lady who lived next door happened to be staying at her son's house that night, so no one was injured.  It was still pretty dark outside at 6am so it was hard to see the extent of the damage.  I had thought that there were an awful lot of fire trucks (there were 8 trucks) and emergency rescue vehicles there- the front of the unit did not look like it suffered too much damage.  They had extinguished all the flames by the time I joined the crowd outside.  But yet there were still a lot of firemen going in and out with their masks and protective pants/coats.

Well later that morning after the sun came up and most of the fire trucks, policemen, and hazmat trucks had left, I saw that the fire damage was more extensive than I had originally thought.  It looks like the entire garage burned off, the cars were pulled out and completely charred and the side of the unit had evidence of some pretty significant burns.  (Its hard to tell the full extent of the damage from pictures, but it gives an idea...)  And of course there were piles of soot and ash everywhere.  They were not sure how the fire started, but will be doing an investigation.  Thankfully our units have firewalls between them, but there was certainly still some water and smoke damage to the unit next door.  There were fire/water cleanup trucks working on that unit for the next 48 hours.

That evening I asked Chris to check all our smoke alarms to make sure they were all functional with working batteries.  It was certainly a scary way to wake up on Thursday morning, but again we are so thankful that no one was injured and that the firemen were able to keep the fire under control to minimize damage and spreading.

Artificial Happiness

Last Wednesday I decided to stop trying to nurse Phoebe.  It has been an emotional ride, and Wednesday was an especially emotional day.  It also happened to be the day that I went for my postpartum appointment.  As I mentioned before, I pretty much cried all day.  Well, I did hold it together in the waiting room of the doctor's office because I didn't want to look like a complete fool (even though I'm sure my eyes were quite puffy...) but as soon as I got back into the exam room I broke down in tears again.  And then the doctor asked me how breastfeeding was going...not a good topic of conversation.  What was interesting to me was that she almost automatically wrote me a prescription for Zoloft.  There was no discussion of post-partum depression vs. baby blues vs. temporal sadness related to unmet expectations.  I told her I didn't want it, I didn't think I needed it.  She gave it to me anyway "in case I change my mind"

I know many woman who have struggled with both depression and postpartum depression.  It is a real disease; it can be very scary, and medication can be very helpful and necessary in those situations.  However, I do not think I am or have been depressed (in the sense that I would require medication) over the past few weeks.  I feel like I've had to work through a lot of emotions and expectations and sort through certain lies that I had taught myself to believe, and that wasn't easy and did bring up a lot of various emotions including sadness.  I know that these things and struggles with nursing could have easily led me down the path of postpartum depression.  I am thankful that I was able to talk to women who have struggled with this disease so I could know what to be looking out for in myself and my own thought patterns.  I thank the Lord that He spared me from this because I know that problems with breastfeeding can send women over the edge into a dark place.

I am certainly not against medication or anti-depressants when they are needed and prescribed appropriately.  I took anti-depressants for a period of time several years ago.  I do, however, think that there are lots of medications, anti-depressants included, that are over prescribed without appropriate conversations or diagnostics to help determine necessity or risks vs. benefits.

As I left the office with my Zoloft prescription in hand I was reminded of a book I read several years ago called Artificial Happiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class by Ronald W. Dworkin.  On page 2 of his book he suggests that "Doctor's have taken on the responsibility of curing unhappiness-- not depression, but everyday unhappiness-- through artificial means."  He suggests that this way of thinking has led to a significant increase in the prescriptions for and subsequent use of anti-depressants and other mood-altering drugs.  He goes on to give several examples of individuals who are in loveless marriages, emotional abusive relationships etc. who are unhappy for obvious situational reasons and turn to drugs like Prozac for relief.  They do feel better as a result of the drugs effects, but Dworkin refers to this as an "artificial happiness" because nothing in their circumstances changes.  The effects simply allow them to continue on in the same situations which are driving their unhappiness.

Anyhow, it's interesting.  You should check out the first few pages of the book on amazon here.  I don't necessarily endorse the book.  If I recall correctly the first third was interesting, but I don't think I actually finished the book.  Yet, the first few pages you can view on amazon I think are interesting and generate some good questions about the appropriateness wide-spread anti-depressant use.  Check it out and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below...

The final farewell

 Ahh, the post I've been dreading...

Well many of you have asked how breastfeeding is going.  Well as of last Wednesday it's not anymore, but first let me give you a brief recap of the past couple weeks.  A little bit over a week ago we went to see OT/ST and the therapist did confirm that essentially her suck sucks.  There are two components that allow a baby to get milk from the breast- suction and compression.  However, compression is all that is needed to get milk from a bottle.  She wasn't getting milk from me because she lacked the coordination and stamina to suck (she also had trouble getting milk from the SNS for the same reason), but she could easily compress to get milk from the bottle.  So the therapist gave us some exercises to do help strengthen and work on her suck.  We've been working on those while continuing to try to nurse.  And for a week each time I tried to put her to the breast she screams.  SCREAMS.  This is really not her normal temperament.  She's a very easy baby.  She's quiet and alert most of the time.  She goes to sleep easily at night and sleeps well.  She doesn't really fuss or cry much at all, except now when I'm trying to get her to nurse.

I can't handle the screams.  Each time I take it personally that my child is rejecting me.  I'm her mother.  I have what she needs.  I know that breast milk is the best thing for her.  Yet, she rejects it each time; it breaks my heart.  And makes me angry, angry at God.  The bible speaks of mothers nursing their children.  Its natural- its how our bodies were created to work.  I would imagine that people with cancer, autoimmune diseases, etc have had similar thoughts or frustrations about their bodies not "working correctly" at one point or another.  I realize that we live in a fallen world corrupted by sin and as a result of the fall our bodies (among other things) do not work as they were created to.  This is a prime example and reminder of that for me right now.  I have prayed and many other's have prayed for her to nurse.  Yet, the Lord has not answered our prayers.  However, I do trust and believe that God is Sovereign and although He doesn't always answer my prayers in the way that I would like I know that He is my Father, He knows what is best for me, and He gives good gifts to His children. (Matthew 7:11, Romans 8:28)  To God be the glory.

I've struggled with bitterness too.  You see, Phoebe was nursing just fine before we had to start supplementing her with formula from a bottle.  Granted she was sucking incorrectly, so she wasn't getting enough, but she was latching and sucking.  She was capable.  But then after getting the bottle for so long she started to refuse to latch when she's hungry and its time to eat.  I realize she needed the formula and it was a necessary at the time, but it does now make me bitter that she got used to the bottle.  I wanted her to latch and nurse so badly.  One because I equated it with being a good mother and two because I thought if she would latch and suck correctly, she would stimulate my body to produce more milk than the pump and increase my supply (which is still low).

So last Wednesday morning was the final straw.  I've had my ups and downs, but overall I've been pretty stressed and frustrated about her not nursing.  Wednesday morning I cracked and yelled at her for not being able/willing to nurse.  Well like I said want be a good mom, but I'm pretty sure that being frustrated and yelling at your baby doesn't fall into that category.  So at that point I decided that we were done.  I spent more waking hours on Wednesday crying than not crying.  I somewhat feel like I'm in mourning.  I'm mourning the loss of breastfeeding.  Not only did I want her to get the nourishment of breast milk exclusively for the first six months (as the WHO and CDC recommends) but I wanted that bonding experience for me too.

A week later, it still makes me sad that she won't nurse.  I mean what do babies do?  They eat and they sleep.  If I can't even feed my own child then what kind of mother am I?  Now, I know intellectually that this is silly and I'm sure it sounds absurd.  Yet, it's a lie I have struggled not to believe.

I also feel like I've failed.  (Even though its not all me.  I do realize that she plays a major part in breastfeeding as well.) I am a perfectionist.   I've never failed anything significant.  Maybe a silly quiz in school here or there, but nothing big.  If I wanted something or set my mind to something I've always been able to work hard enough to achieve it.  But with this, I've worked hard and I've given it all that I am capable of and it still hasn't worked out the way I wanted.  And that drives me crazy.  These past several weeks have revealed more of my sin and reminded me that I am not in control.  I can work all I want, but if something is not in God's plans for me or my family I cannot make those things happen.  (Proverbs 19:21)  I have a feeling this will not be the last time the Lord will have to remind me of this truth...

Over the weekend a friend asked me if I felt relief after I had decided not to try to nurse Phoebe anymore.  I answered no.  I was still just sad.  But now after almost a week I will say it has been somewhat of a relief and weight off my shoulders.  I've been able to enjoy my sweet baby girl and even take a few more pictures :)

Looking rather mischievous

Hearing Screen

I hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday weekend!

Thank you for your prayers yesterday.  Just a quick update about Phoebe's hearing.  She does have mild sensorineural hearing loss in her left ear.  They don't know exactly what the cause or problem is, but believe it is a problem in her inner ear or with her hearing nerve.  The good news is that it seems to be very mild.  She only has trouble hearing higher pitched or higher frequency sounds.  The higher frequency sounds she can hear, but only at a higher volume.  So a normal volume of talking would be 20 decibels.  She can hear all pitches at this level except the higher frequencies; these need to be 30 decibels for her to hear them out of her left ear.  The audiologist does not think it should cause any problems with speech development.  She wants to keep an eye on her hearing and test it again in another couple months to make sure it is not getting worse.  At that point she also talked about referring us to an ENT to see if he could determine the cause of hearing loss.

I am relieved to know what the problem is and that it is only a mild hearing loss and thankful that her hearing in her right ear is unaffected.

It's no use crying over spilled milk...

...unless its breast milk that you have worked incredibly hard for!  Then its ok to cry :)  And yes, I did dump over a bottle of expressed milk the other day and there might have been a few tears...

So, its been 2 weeks since I started my crazy pumping campagn to increase my milk supply.  Many of you have asked how things are going...  Well, not as great as I would like, but they are going.  I'm still not producing as much as Phoebe needs, but I am certainly pumping more than I was two weeks ago.  This past weekend I was discouraged because I felt like my supply had leveled off and wasn't increasing anymore, but the past couple days I've been able to get quite a bit more, so who knows.  Currently she's eating 2.5oz every feeding and I'm pumping probably an average of 1.5oz.

She is eating well now and on Tuesday August 30th she weighed 7lbs 7oz at our lactation appointment! She's becoming a fatty :)  And yes, we are probably doing insurmountable damage to her self-esteem by telling her this.  Look how she's filling out and at her little belly!

1 week old.
August 10th

4 weeks old
August 31

A big THANK YOU to my friend Liz who has given me some of her extra breast milk from her deep freeze, so I've been able to supplement Phoebe with breast milk rather than formula, which has been wonderful!  (Again I'm not saying there is anything wrong with formula.  It is a great option if you cannot breastfeed or choose not to breastfeed.  Who knows we might need to supplement with formula in a few weeks if my supply doesn't catch up to her needs.  But I do want to breastfeed and would prefer her to get breast milk if at all possible, especially during these early weeks.  Even the formula cans say "experts agree breastfeeding is best")

Also, a big THANK YOU to my neighbor Judi, who has come over multiple times to help me nurse her with the SNS (because it requires an extra set of hands), has come over and talked me through several breakdowns, and has gone with us to two lactation appointments and an Occupational Therapy/Speech Therapy appointment.

So now what?  Well I will continue to pump, but only 8 times a day when she feeds.  This should help with my sanity.  I'm still eating oatmeal, drinking beer, and taking the fenugreek (which makes you smell like maple syrup...and its not a subtle smell either).  I've added blessed thistle and alfalfa to my list of supplements.  (Thanks Camerie!) I'm going to try to take some more naps during the day too, in order to be well rested.

Speaking of my sanity, Mary and Joshua came over yesterday afternoon for a play-date!  Mama and Mary might have have more fun than Phoebe and Joshua...

I will post again later about how the actual breastfeeding is going and my desire and attempts to get her to nurse.  But in the meantime, if you think about it please pray for Phoebe's hearing test tomorrow morning.  She has failed her hearing test in her left ear 4 times now, so we are going down to Egleston to see an audiologist.