Danielle's 1st Photo Shoot!
Danielle in her 1st Organic outfit w/ matching blanket!
Danielle has had a wonderful 2nd week home. The days just keep getting better and better being able to spend time with both of the kids at home!
On Monday we took Danielle in for her Upper GI test to see if she has Reflux. She indeed does. She had to drink the nasty Barium thru a bottle, I watched on the screen, the Barium go down her esophagus and into her tummy and down thru her small intestine. It was pretty amazing to be holding my baby and watching her 'insides' digest on the screen above me at the same time. The doctor was just behind the screen watching as well. The test did not show any blockage which is great news! He told me that her stomach, her small intestine and her esophagus look perfectly normal. But as I witnessed what we did see was that as soon as the Barium reached her stomach it refluxed strait back up her esophagus and to the back of her throat, she then swallowed it again. So this is a pretty strong amount of reflux she is having. She also did not aspirate which is very very good news. They put her on Prevacid 2 times per day and she will more than likely grow out of the reflux. She has not spit up at all since last weekend but we can tell that she is indeed still refluxing, she does not have to spit up to have reflux. The medicine we can tell has started to work but we will not see the full effects for a week or so.
Also, yesterday Danielle had 2 appointments in Iowa City for her eyes and High Risk Infant Follow-up with the Neonatologist. Both appointments went great! Her eyes look better yet, they continue to regress (get better). This is great news and her next eye exam will be in 3 weeks. Then she will be over 45 weeks gestation and they will more than likely stop the accute checks, meaning the checks every 1-3 weeks.
Her High Risk Followup went great. The feeding specialist came in and watched me give Danielle a bottle. He was SO amazed and kept commenting on what a different baby compared to when she was in the NICU. He never saw her eat as good as she did yesterday for him and she was never that awake for him either. She is really a totally different baby at home, thriving so much!She of course gobbled down all of her bottle for me, and her weight is showing she is really growing great. She weighs 9 pounds 15 ounces now!!! Just a hair away from 10 pounds. I told him I took out the NG tube 2 days after we came home because she had been eating so well, he was like 'yeah, I would say she is doing great'. She is eating anywhere from 3-5 ounces every 3-4 hours now and most of the time sleeping 5-7 hours at night. They were impressed. They took her off oxygen while she ate, she lasted over 10 minutes before her sats dropped to the low 90's, so oxygen will stick around for awhile longer. They also tried her down on .25 litre, she did great on this but her heart rate got up to around 160 and they put her back on .0 litre. They like her heart rate to stay below 160 in order to take her down to .25. This was a little irritating, because she was more active etc when her heartrate went up, but we are perfectly fine with where she is at now and we know how great she is doing and that is the most important thing.
Dr. Seager is who follows Danielle. He did not have her while she was in the NICU but he followed Dylan and we really like him a lot so we chose him again. He was so impressed with her. She was holding her head up for him some of the time and she was cooing a little bit as he was interacting with her. He is very happy with her overall growth, weight gain, length and development. After all she is only supposed to be 3 1/2 weeks old right now. For a 3 1/2 week old she is in the 90th percentile for height and weight! This is WONDERFUL news!!! This is of course her corrected age and what they go by until she is 2. So she will go back for another followup just before Christmas.
Next week we take Danielle in for her MRI and she also will have a Hip Ultrasound. The Hip ultrasound because she was born c-section and breech, the University does this for all babies born breech and /or C-section. She has not had this yet so we will have it done next week.
Also, here are some pics of Danielle's 4 month pics and her first photo shoot. We decided to get her pics taken last weekend when it was very warm outside and the first appointment of the day before all of the germs filled the studio for the day. She did great, towards the end she was fed up though, and the pics we are very happy with, she just looks like such a big girl. She is still tiny, we hold her on our shoulder and she still comes to about the middle of our chest, so still a little thing but growing stronger every day. That is all we can ask of our little bundle of joy!~
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