Her birthday is February 19, 2007. When I first got her on March 31st, she weight 8 pounds. I guess that is not too bad of a weight for a six-week-old baby in Haiti.
When we took her to the pediatrician for a check-up on April 4th, the doctor measured her to be 51 cm long (that is about 20 inches long).
She is Tamarah's half-sister, same mom but different fathers. They definately have similar facial features, but Erna is darker than Tamarah.
When the mom first dropped Erna off at the orphanage, she had been breastfeeding Erna, but she did not have much milk. Based on Erna's milk intake, once the got used to bottles, she was only consuming about 1/2 ounce of milk per feeding...this makes me assume that mom was not producing much milk. When I saw her try to nurse Erna, the mom kept hitting on her breast to try to get more milk (I guess).
The first couple of days with Erna were tough to say the least. The birthmother had told me that Erna was always crying because she had stomach pains. Poor Erna had a terrible amount of gas. At one point, she farted so loud that we thought that only a grown man could produce such a loud sound. Poor Baby!
I put Erna on formula that is specifically formulated for "gassy babies". Also, I had some baby stomach medicine drops. That seemed to help. However, because Erna was not used to drinking from a bottle, we struggled for a couple of days. She would cry because she was hungry, but she would not drink from a bottle. I had to use a medicine dropper to feed some formula to her.
The first night, she screamed because she wanted to suck...on a breast....at about 1 a.m., in desparation, I started to "dry-nurse" her. I breastfed my bio kids, so I have some experience in nursing. Immediately, Erna stopped crying and seemed happy. I had to do this for about two days, at that point, she figured out that "dry-nursing" meant comfort, BUT there was no milk. She figured out that even though she seemed not to like feeding from a bottle that milk was coming out. At that point, she changed over quite willingly.
The first night, she screamed because she wanted to suck...on a breast....at about 1 a.m., in desparation, I started to "dry-nurse" her. I breastfed my bio kids, so I have some experience in nursing. Immediately, Erna stopped crying and seemed happy. I had to do this for about two days, at that point, she figured out that "dry-nursing" meant comfort, BUT there was no milk. She figured out that even though she seemed not to like feeding from a bottle that milk was coming out. At that point, she changed over quite willingly.
The week following Erna's arrival is kind of a blur to me. Once we got over the nursing versus bottle feeding issues, the next issue was to get her to drink a "healthy" amount of milk and staying satisfied for a few hours, versus feeding every hour. It gets tiring not to sleep and constantly feeding a baby, 24 hours per day.
By time I left Haiti, Erna had gained 1/2 of a pound and she was eating about 2 oz. per feeding. Also, she was so used to being held that she would cry if she was put down. According to Luwanna, she cried because she had gas. According to me, she cried because she had gotten used to being held.
Her lab tests came back good, the pediatrician and psychologist, upon evaluating her in preparation of adoption, stated that Erna is a healthy baby.
I cannot wait to see her again over Memorial Day Weekend in May. I am hoping that Tamarah's passport will be ready by then and that I will be able to bring Tamarah back with me. I am also hoping that Erna's adoption will go relatively fast. It is so difficult to leave...I usually give the babies to my Haitian friend Mirlande and she gives them to the nannies. I probably would "lose it" if I had to be the one handing the babies over to the nannies. I am used to Mirlande taking the babies to help me out, so psychologically, handing the babies over to Mirlande makes me able to pretend that she is just going to have them for 30 minutes. (Isn't silly to play mind games like that?)
