Thankful

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is done and Christmas is just around the corner. The last 6 months have been an absolute roller coaster for us and we are thankful that the ride has slowed down during this busy time of year. Farrah is doing great! We think that she must be over 9 pounds now, which will be confirmed next week when she gets another vaccination and is weighed. Farrah had her first RSV shot two weeks ago and handled it like a champ. Farrah is growing and growing. She has pretty much outgrown all of her newborn clothes with footies and moved into 3 month clothes. Unfortunately, Farrah's umbilical hernia appears to be growing and not shrinking, so we have scheduled a consultation with a pediatric surgeon to see if they think that future surgery is necessary. It also appears that the hernia is causing Farrah discomfort, which we worry about. We have learned through research that surgery for this type of hernia is not typically done on such small babies, but we hope and pray for Farrah's sake that the hernia will go down on its own. Time will tell.

We have noticed significant positive changes in Farrah's interaction with us in the past two weeks. She maintains fabulous eye contact with whomever is holding her or talking to her. Farrah coos and "talks" with us while kicking her feet and moving her arms. Farrah is enjoying awake time in her swing and bouncy seat. Farrah's eyes can track us as we move around her. Farrah is eating more and sleeping more. We are still up at all hours of the night but it seems like Farrah is more comfortable than she was when we had her on a higher calorie fortifier.

We have developed a very nice relationship with Farrah's pediatrician and her family, and we were invited to their home for Thanksgiving. This relationship came after I met one of their daughter's, Lauren, through my bookclub and became friends with her. Lauren helped Ray to get his current job when he found himself unemployed the day that Farrah was born. She has been so helpful and kind to us, and her family has done the same. For Thanksgiving, their family prepared a delicious meal. Ray's sister has been in town for the long holiday weekend, so she also enjoyed the delicious meal and helped us keep an eye on the video monitor while Farrah slept upstairs and we all ate downstairs. It was a wonderful evening and we are so thankful to have found more friends here that we can spend time with.

We wish you all a wonderful start to your holiday season!

Thanksgiving Day

 

Holding Farrah the day when I got my flu shot

 

Farrah on her boppy pillow on 11/24/12.

 

 

4 Months Old

Life with Farrah at home, Ray working full-time, and me working almost full-time from home and now one day per week in the office is BUSY. I used to update the blog late at night but now I am starting to go to sleep since we are getting up at all sorts of different times in the night. No day (or night) is the same with Farrah, so we try to get enough sleep between the two of us to cover Farrah's feedings at night while still allowing us to function the next day.

Farrah has a good appetite and weighed in at 8 pounds, 3 ounces at her 4-month appointment today. She is snuggly fitting her newborn clothes and we have started using some of her 3-month clothes in the past few weeks. She is now 20 inches long. I have been to lots of follow up appointments with Farrah - ophthalmology, pulmonology, pediatrician, early intervention, newborn intensive care follow up program and we have some more appointments on the horizon - cardiology and pediatric surgery to look at Farrah's umbilical hernia. All of the doctors are very pleased with Farrah's progress. Farrah is starting to do tummy time a little more every day and we are still working on her breast feeding. She gets bigger andstronger every day and it is such a joy to watch her changes from week to week.

RSV season is just around the corner here in AZ, so we will continue to hunker down and keep Farrah isolated. Family members who will be spending time with Farrah this winter are getting the Tdap booster and their flu shots. Other than family, we have had very few visitors, and it will probably remain that way until the spring. Farrah cannot be around anyone who is sick because her immune system is still pretty fragile, especially with how much she went through respiratory-wise. Farrah qualified for insurance to cover a series of 5 RSV vaccines that must be administered every 28 days, and we will start with those later this week.

Hopefully I will be able to update a little more frequently in the future. I've added some of our newer photos below.

Photos from Farrah's 'newborn' photo shoot two weeks after coming home:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo from this past weekend