The good....and the bad

Soooo....

We had our nine month check up today...complete with shots and a blood draw. I don't know who was more traumatized. Andrew and I or Elisa. She recovered much faster than we did LOL.

So the good:

We are 14 lbs 11.5 oz. So just a few short ounces shy of 15 lbs. Not exactly my goal (15 lbs was what I wanted) but an EXCELLENT weight gain none the less. We are in the 1% of 9 month olds for weight and 13% for height. We are 26 1/4 inches long. Wow. Long and lean! Doctor was thrilled with that! And after having the anemia of prematurity, our iron levels were 39! So still good.

The bad:

Well. I had to answer "no" to a lot of the nurses developmental questions. Was she sitting unassisted? No, not really. Was she crawling? No. Was she clapping? No. Doc again mentioned physical therapy and was happy we were in the first steps program already. But she felt she wasn't meeting really enough of the milestones they would have wanted even a 6 mo old to meet. The sitting and crawling was really the main concerns. So [insert preemie mom guilt here]. I think I felt the worst. Andrew, the typical guy was like, we already knew she wasn't doing these things and we are already getting help. Me? I went, just another way I've failed her. I admit, I bawled. Not a good time to be late on my medications lol. But while I was crying, Elisa kept looking up at me with this look of "what, ma? I'm ok. There's no need to cry."

So, still waiting to hear from our physical therapist to get the actual therapy under way. We will continue with the other therapy (I think it's instructional therapy) as well.

Someday I will be over this.

I'm so fine, I'm nine!

Months old!

Here are the pictures from our photo shoot today. I will update you on progress tomorrow after we have our fun 9 month check up complete with vaccines and weight check. Yay for shots. ?







Oh. And we were in a VERY smiley mood until we put her in the princess chair....I wonder what that means, Grandma!!!

What, ma?

I just wanted to do it myself. Why do you always get to shove the spoon in my mouth? I can do it too...

Oh. And I have these little bubbles on the bottom gum and I'm awfully fussy. And sleeping. Lots. During the day. I wish that tooth would hurry up and break through cuz I'm tired of it hurting me.

Umm...wow?

Circa 1980


2010

NICU Series on Discovery Health

Just trying to get the word out there about this show. It premieres tonight on Discovery Health. I'm not entirely sure of it's accuracy or really how it's going to be. I plan on watching. I'm a bit afraid it may bring up some repressed memories but oh well lol. We had fun times in the NICU too, so hopefully I'll remember those. :) But I do like that they are putting a show out there that shows, as a friend aptly stated, that not all deliveries are rainbows and smiles. Some are terrifying and traumatic.

It's moments like these....

That keep me going forward. Elisa has been extremely fussy these last few days. Our formula intake is down, but not much. We are chewing on our hand like mad, but drooling all the same and have no fever. Reflux seems to have increased. So I've been at a loss as to why we are so fussy. We've entirely dropped the solids to try to encourage more formula. It's not worked. Tomorrow, we try a faster flow nipple and gripe water...

Anyway, onto the point. We were doing her normal after bath routine, complete with a lotion rub down. Which we LOVE. (Can you hear the sarcasm?) Out of the blue, I decide to sing to her, and mid-fuss she suddenly stops, looks at me in what I can only describe as wonder and grins. Every time I stop, she fusses. Once I start up again, it's back to the looking at me and grinning. It totally made my day.

Love you baby girl. You are my rock star.

Who says I'm not mobile?!

Well, my day didn't start out to well. I woke up at 3 am and wanted to know where the party was! I invited everyone to my crib but no one came but for mommy. And all she did was cover me back up with my blanket and give a paci. Where was my party?



But I got over it. If I'm honest, it was too early anyway and mommy needs her sleep. So after she cuddled me for a second and tucked me back in I went back to sleep and let mommy get her rest.

But then! Once we all were up I was on the move! I can't crawl yet...but I can get from here:



To here:



With a few pit stops in between:

Iowa Baby Shower #1

To start off, I just want to say that for the record, on my last post, no one actually said anything to me. I've just felt judged by total strangers who don't know what we've been through and think it's odd to see such an aware, active what they think is a 4 month old. So while they don't say anything to me, I just have the feeling they are looking at me like "what have you DONE to that child?"

Ok, now onto the real subject matter. :) We went up for the first of our belated baby showers from Andrew's family back in Iowa. We had a BLAST. We stayed with Andrew's grandmother, and you could just tell we made her weekend by staying with her. She even made us breakfast! She is such a sweet woman, reminds me a lot of my grandmother. I'm glad to have a grandmother figure still in our lives.

My parents came up with us because our host family was visiting the area and planned to come to the shower! We couldn't wait to see them again! Yes, they really do exist! Here's a picture of Elisa with her "Aunt" Marcia:



It's a little blurry, but is the least blurry out of all of them, lol. Little miss moves around a lot and my camera has trouble keeping up with it...I either need a better camera or I need to learn to operate it better....Oh well.

We had a "gift" for my Grandpa King. We decided we REALLY love you when we POOP on you. Grandpa King's had a nice surprise on his arm as we were cuddling after having our favorite green beans...



Can you tell we were eating green beans?

We also got to visit my Great-Grandpa King for the first time. We showed off of course.



And got lots of cuddle time with my Aunt Val! Aunt Val helped Grandma King take care of me when I went on my first business trip after coming back to work.



We got lots of great clothes and even more fun toys to play with. We had a lot of fun but at the same time were glad to be home again. :) We look forward to round #2 in a few weeks!

Random thoughts

1. I am NOT a FAILURE. So please don't make me feel like one because my baby was early. It was NOT my fault. Or the fact that I didn't have a natural delivery. Or didn't breastfeed past 4 months.
2. Yes, my baby is 8 months old and yes she is just 14 lbs. So what?
3. Yes, I do work with her on her bottles. She's a distracted eater and if I don't be a bit "forceful" with her, she won't EAT.

Otherwise, we had a great weekend. I'll talk about it more tomorrow when I'm not so exhausted. We went up to Iowa for a long overdue baby shower from Andrew's church back home and saw our host family again, yay!! It was so much fun! :)