Preterm Baby: Mimi's Story

Today I'm posting because of the "Preemie Awareness Day" with Mimi's Story.

This pregnancy was emotionally consuming since I found out about it. I was told to terminate the pregnancy THREE times because according to the doctors I was going to die because I had a pre-eclampsia with Mia 5 months before getting pregnant with her. Funny thing is that my blood pressure was never an issue during this pregnancy. Pregnancy was still labeled as high risk and I saw the doctor every 2 weeks since my prenatal care started. Also my doctor asked me to limit my activity level to the very minimum.

At some point during the second trimester, contractions started and they intensified in the third trimester. I also started taking L-Carnitine as according to my doctor, that was going to give the baby some extra fat. Because of the contractions I had several hospital stays, complete bedrest and was able to get two steroids shots

At 34 weeks, I was admitted again because I was getting 4 contractions in 10 minutes. The IV meds they gave me were able to keep them under control. However, I noticed Mimi wasn't moving. She would only move during a contraction. My doctor ordered a Biophysical Profile Ultrasound which measures 5 categories: Fetal movement, Fetal tone, Fetal breathing, Amniotic fluid volume and Fetal Heart Rate. Each category aims to get a score of 2 points. The result was: Very low level of amniotic fluid (oligohydramnios), no fetal movement after 30 minutes, placental calcification (looked like a placenta with 40 weeks of pregnancy), and the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her neck.

For this reason, my doctor decided to performed a c-section,  He told me we were going to wait 4 hours because I had a full stomach. Then, a couple of hours later, Mimi's heartbeat started to drop and I was rushed to the operating room.

Mimi was born at 34,2 weeks weighting 4 pounds and 6 ounces. She got pneumonia and anemia, and needed blood transfusions. As I have an unusual blood, I had already researched for a donor and he rushed to help us. She was also born with respiratory distress, jaundice and was tube fed for 3 days. On day 3 she was transferred to an isolate with free oxygen. She ate for the first time on day 4, and that's when I held her for the first time. Just as Mia, she was discharged after 6 days in the NICU and needed 3 daily trips back to the hospital for IV meds. She was still with a little bit of low temperature when she was discharged, but she was fine.

She was discharged with almost 4 pounds (in the picture you can see how her head is the size of my fingers) and I needed to combine breastmilk with a high calorie formula for the first month (just like I did with Mia). After month 5 she refused to be breastfeed anymore.

As far as long term consequences, she has vision problems since age 5. She is also very petite and skinny for her age, even though she eats extremelly good. She is growing just at a very slower pace.

My 100 Happy Days: Day #11

Today I was looking for things to decorate my desk at work and found this card from Mimi. It is from a year ago or so when her writing skills were not as good as now. It says: "To My mom, I love you a lot like a flower. You are more beautiful than my heart". It really brought a huge smile to my face...

Mimi, the 2nd Grader

I have always wanted to make "back to school" signs to take pictures of the girls on their first day, and I have never done it before. I started the tradition this year.

Mimi is 7 years old and this week she will start 2nd Grade. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up and she said "I want to be a veterinarian to be able to groom horses all day long" (her words).

She would always come up with the most unexpected answer to any question you may ask her. It's amazing what goes through her mind. I'm sure she will do awesome in 2nd Grade!!



Updated to add a picture in the classroom and another one with her 2nd Grade teacher...

This way to Floresdalle

As I mentioned before, I organized a joined party for Mia and Mimi as they were both too crazy about Frozen.  My original plan was to celebrate it in the middle of both birthdays (at some point in May), but the girls and the other kids were in the middle of exams and all the rush to end the school year, so I decided to celebrate it after the school year was over.

The girls couldn't wait and when the day came, they were so excited that it was funny to see.

I always try to keep the amount of kids to an amount that I can handle. This time I had 11 kids (including the girls), and I got some adults too. I got a "snow" look all around. This is how the goodies corned looked...


Of course, they wanted to watch Frozen... On the first picture below, you can see Luca's face... He was sooo into the movie, LMAO!!



Each one got to blow their own cnadles...


Here is the thank you note I made to thank everyone!


I haven't post the designs I made for this party on my business blog.  Once I do, I will update this post with the link.

Another school year comes to an end

All the exams and last minute rush are over... The school year ended and it's time for summer!

The girls received their final grades today and I am VERY proud. All did great, however special kuddos to Mimi who got (once again) the Certificate of Excellence as she got the highest grades of her entire class. Her teacher even wrote a letter for her were she wrote that she is her best student and a lot of other beautiful things.

Mia is also, once again, in the honor roll as she got all her grades over 95. Gaby also did great with all her grades over 81, however she promised she will work harder next year to have her final grades in the honor roll too. I'm really proud of my girls and also very proud of my mom who works very hard to help us to make this possible!

Im officially the mom of a 2nd, 3rd and 6th graders!! Here is a card I made with the girls and their teachers. I made individual ones to give out to the teachers with a present and they were very thankful. For posting purposes, I put a fake logo... The real one had the actual school logo.

Mimi is really 7

Mimi is this amazing miniature version of a lady who turns 7 years old today. She has such a BIG mouth with such a tiny size. I never get tired of repeating how she excels in just about anything and everything!

She never ever ceases to amaze me and I am very proud of her. I love you sooooooo much that it hurts!!

Happy Birthday, little princess!

For memory lane, here is a collage of her growing up. She's the only one of my girls that I can still hold on my arms... and I love it!

How to eat chicken

Here are the instructions how to eat chicken... by Mimi.

Another bragging moment...

Not only Mia is still in the honor roll for this new period with all her grades over 90, but Mimi got once again the HIGHEST grades of all her class. She got the "Excellence Certificate" which is given to only ONE student... VERY PROUD!!! Gaby is not in the honor roll this month but most of her grades are over 90, only a few are between 80 and 89.

Mimi's weekend

As expected, Mimi and Gaby organized a strike because they were not going to let me get away with Mia's quality time weekend. They requested one for each one of them.

This weekend was Mimi's weekend with mama, and we did a lot of things.  Opposite to Mia, she IS very bossy so she ask for lots and lots of stuff.  I tried to spoil her as much as time and money allowed. She was extremely happy.

Even though we did a lot of things, her main interest was spending time with the pups and helping with their feedings. She did an awesome job and just can't get enough of them.

Eating is one of her favorite things to do and, as I always say, it must be all going to her brain to make her smarter, because she is still my very petite and very thin baby.  On the first picture below she's eating one of mama's special wraps, then eating at Mc Donalds and then vanilla ice cream.


Just as I imagined, taking Mia to the movies to watch Mr. Peabody and Sherman was going to mean that I would watch the movie more than once. I watched my second round with Mimi.  Thanks Goodness is a good movie. Mimi also wanted to see the aquarium and I took her too. On the third picture, she got into one of those mini attractions you find on malls.. she wanted to pretend for 2 minutes that she was a baby again.


I got naughty bunny ears and tail to wear over my clothes at my work's Halloween party and she tried them on. I promise to embarrass her about it when she is older. She also got a new book about dogs, and of course she wanted to know ALL about chihuahuas.


At the movies the Frozen sign are still up, even though they are not playing the movie anymore... I am sure she would have made me watch it for the 100th time...

Mimi's first window

Mimi's baby teeth are not even close to be loose, and yesterday we noticed that a permanent lower middle teeth was coming in behind the baby teeth. As this is a new situation for me, I took her to the dentist for x-rays.

The x-ray showed that she doesn't have enough room for the permanent teeth to come out, and most likely all her teeth would need to be extracted. The doctor said the two bottom needed to be extracted today and that the others would be to be extracted with time.

For any normal child, this would be a reason to be alarmed, but Mimi is not a normal child.  She handled the situation as an adult, as usual. She kept her cool at all times and not one tear came out of her eyes. Her face was the face of somebody that was alert, not the face of somebody that was in pain.

Both teeth were extracted and she felt really proud. We ended up getting ice cream afterwards. Here she is with her double window and also wearing one of the eyeglasses for my party to come.

The buds with double eyes

All three girls have been complaining non stop for headaches and I knew checking the vision was in order. Gaby is the only one that has been prescribed with eyeglasses for reading, but Mia and Mimi were supposedly fine.

After lots of testing done, Gaby got new eyeglasses (only for reading again) and Mimi got prescription for eyeglasses full time. This doesn’t surprise me because they were born early and I knew this was something that could happen. Mia was sent for a more specialized test, but so far, it looks like she won’t need them.


And here is a close up of each one of my girls with eyeglasses...

Weight in for the girls

I weighted the girls today and here is the verdict.....

- Mimi is 41 pounds and in 22nd percentile for her age (my peanut)
- Mia is 63 pounds and in 85th percentile for her age
- Gaby is 103 pounds and in 95th percentile for her age

If you look at the picture, even when Mia is not completely straight, she is still way taller than Mimi and she is only 13 months older.  Mimi is really petite but I'm not so worried anymore... She really eats very well, and she IS growing... just in a lower pace than usual. Maybe her metabolism is just too fast and she will be one of those ladies than eat and eat and never gets fat.

Bragging time... ahem, I mean Grade time

I received Gaby's final grades and I am really proud of her. She is really smart but VERY lazy.  She sometimes forgets that she can't just be playing around with her sisters, but she's lucky because she is so smart that her laziness didn't affect her grades.  The average for all main subjects are above 91.  She's officially a 5th grader now!!

Spanish: 94
Math: 93
Social Studies: 93
Science: 95
English: 91

Mia and Mimi don't get actual numbers for the grades. They just get "Acomplished", "In process" or "Not accomplished". They got ACCOMPLISHED in every single section, and Mimi's teacher wrote to her: "You are an excellent student. Very organized and likes to cooperate". Mimi is officially a 1st grader and Cami is officially a 2nd grader!!

And this brings a question to me... Why are my girls growing soooo fast? Now, I don't have a child in preschool anymore, they are all in Elementary School... It's hard to believe!

The last bud out of preschool

I am a proud mom all the time, but there are moments where I am so proud that I feel something too big for my heart to handle. Today was Mimi's Kinder Graduation and that alone is something that should make me proud, however it was something bigger than that.

I was her graduation's godmother and each child is supposed to walk down the aisle with the selected godparent while the teacher talks about the child's accomplishments, main traits and even what the child said he/she were going to be when they grow up.

I know who my daughter is and I know her values, but when you have somebody else saying all of them to a microphone, it is simply an amazing feeling.  Her teacher when on and on about how amazing she is, how smart, how dedicated, how talented, how creative... It's just amazing to see and hear how she excels even among her peers.  While the teacher said one or two sentences about each child, she said almost 10 sentences just about Mimi.  Others may believe that she was her favorite, but maybe that was the reason.  After all, if a teacher is going to have a favorite, that one would always be her best student. She got the highest grades from all the class and she is ready for First Grade.

It was also funny to hear that ALL other kids wanted to be a doctor when they grow up.  As I used to be a teacher for young kids myself, I know that when kids are cornered with a question like that, normally ONE child answers one thing and then all the others answer the same thing.  I remember that I used to ask my students those questions by themselves for that reason.  Anyway, ALL kids wanted to be a doctor, but not Mimi... She wants to be a veterinarian.

They had two presentations... First they sang a few songs and then they danced with partners...


And of course, I did a graduation card for her.


Way to go Mimi.... Your mom, grandma uncle and sisters and VERY proud of you!

Mimi the First

My sweet little rascal turned 6 a couple of weeks ago. She keeps me on my toes but she also makes me proud every single day.  She is becoming a little lady and I am loving watching her grow. She has always been this tiny little thing with such a big mouth (to eat and to give orders). She’s so smart, passionate, dedicated and sooo funny!

All three girls have been in love with Sofia the First and that was the theme of choice for her party. Her actual birthday was mid week and it was also in the middle of the tests, so we had to push the party for a couple of weeks.

She was very excited and couldn't wait.  I did the same strategy I did with Mia's party:  A small party with just a few kids BUT with LOTS of favors and decor.  This way I get to spend more on each kid and get to do way more stuff.  She shares her birthday with a friend of mine (pictured above with Mimi) and we gave her a special hug at Mimi's party.

Here is the invitation I made for her...


Here are pictures of the decor and snacks...


And here are the goodies and favors...


Mimi was soo happy when we were signing happy birthday! The magic candles were a hit once again.


I also did a card to say thank you to all of those that helped to make Mimi's birthday EXTRA special. A friend helped cutting the ribbons for the walls (which is not a pleasant job, trust me), then another one who helped decorating until we almost passed out, then another who helped with the camera department, and then to all the ones that were present celebrating!! Thank you SOOO very much!!

Good things come is small packages

The new school year is here and it's going to be the last year ever of having a child in Preschool.  Mimi started Kinder and she is doing simply perfect.  I have heard that the youngest child is always the one that learns everything faster and reaches every milestone sooner.  I don't really know how true is that in other families but the way that Mimi excels in just about anything and everything is really amazing.

Mimi is still extremely petite for her age and she can be confused by a child that is 2 years younger than her, but as soon as you interact with her, you can tell that she ain't a baby.  She talks so fluently and with such authority that it makes you feel that you are talking to a child that is several years older.

She is a fighter and she will accomplish anything (and I mean EVERYTHING) that she sets her mind to.  I have always believed that this is something that comes from the very beginning of her existence.  She defied birth control and was conceived... then doctors said I needed to end the pregnancy because my life is at danger and she prove them wrong... then, she survived to low amniotic fluid and couple of rounds on her neck... and after she was born, she has managed to reach every single milestone earlier than expected.

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Mis is also doing really good at First Grade and Gaby at 4th grade. We moved and they are all in a new school and loving it. They would occasionally mention their old school but they have felt so at home in the new school that they are just fine.

In another note, Nikon decided to relocate their office and I'm not working for them anymore.  I explored the option of staying home with just the income from my designing business, however mama gotta bring home the bacon and one income is not doable.  I was offered a job as a Spanish/English interpreter and even though I have never done something like that before, I can't wait to see how it turns out.  I have a feeling that I will love it.

5 years ago...

... the biggest rascal of all was born!!

It's been already 5 years since the last time that I was pregnant... since the last time I had a baby kick inside of me... since the last time I was able to experience the joy of becoming a mom and looking at MY baby for the first time...

Happy Birthday to DA princess Amelia!! She is just the funniest little person you'll ever meet and she's so smart that it gets scary sometimes.

We love you from here to the moon!!

School Play

Mia and Mimi had a Christmas play at their school. Mia was not really part of the play because she didn't want to rehearse as "the sun was bothering her too much" (her words). She's too girly for that... For Mimi that wasn't a problem, so she was part of the play and got to wear a very cute handmade outfit.


A friend of mine went with us to see Mimi's performance...


Mia with her two bff's...


After the performance, Gaby got to play with my friend's pup...


They LOVED their Christmas Tree...

What's Mimi up to?

The last time I posted about Mimi it was a few months after she turned 3 years old. She is now 4.5 years old and she has grown SOO much. Well, she sounds older, she acts older, her face looks older, but she is still my little petite lady. According to the scale, she has gain some weight but according to my eyes, she is still the same. I can still say at places that she is 2 years old so I dont have to pay the fare for her and they never question it... very convenient for me :) We have weighted her a few times and it differs from one scale to the other, but one thing is for sure, she is still on the 20's, she is close to 30 pounds, but not quite yet. (Update: Have official height and weight: She is 32 pounds and 39 inches tall (3'3"). That is supposedly 11st percentile for her age.

Mimi is still VERY independent, however only when she wants. She likes to do everything her way, so even though she can perfectly feed herself since she was like 2 years old, sometimes she just wants to be babied and have somebody to feed her. She loves asking that to my grandma who has a weak heart for her. She still loves the water very much and she's not afraid of the pool or beach or going under water.

I have lost count of how many times she has needed stitches so far, but for the purpose of not forgetting the dates and keeping it here, she got two new ones. An scar on the right side of her nose (very scary moment when that happened back in August 2010), and then another one in her head (totally cured already and lost inside her hair) that happened in August 2011. I guess August is not her month.

Camila and her spent a few months with their dad in Ecuador which was a great experience for her, because got to meet her dad's family (like REALLY know them) and she got the oportunity to go to school there and experience something different. She started Pre-K there, because their school year is from April to November, instead of September to June like here or the states.

I picked her up on her birthday's weekend back in May and they made a mini pool party for her. It was a beautiful experience.

She officially started Pre-K here at the end of August and she is doing great. She is very advanced for her age and her vocabulary and fine motor skills are beyond what it is expected for her age. This is kinda funny because she looks sooo tiny but her language is so fluent that you have the idea that you are talking with an adult trapped on a babies body.

She loves playing Wii Sports and computer games, and her favorite things to do are coloring and pretend play (dolls and such). She is officially my little Princess and her favorite color is still PINK.

Here are some pictures from August 2010 up to now. In the first one you can see the scar she has now in her face, then doing a modeling job for Baby Time Slings, and then at Ariel Enrique's Pirate 4th Birthday party (Sept. 2010):

On this three, the first one is with Camila in our Annual Family Reunion (from my mom's side), then on the airplane on her way to Ecuador, and then eating a traditional soup from Ecuador:

Here she is being silly... The first one is at a park around February, and the second one is at another park in May when we were in Ecuador. The third one she was hiding in the bathroom door in the hotel we were staying before coming back to DR.

Here she is with her sisters at a pool day at home, then again being silly with Camila and my friend Perla... In the last one, she is just being cute....

Here she is on Father's Day eating a lollipop, then on her first day of Pre-K with Camila, and then being a goofy in front of a mirror...

Here she is flying on Gaby's birthday (while I was trying to avoid a heart attack), then playing Wii, and hugging Arnold (a plush dog with a story.... which will be for another moment).


Edited her height and weight :) First paragraph.