3-14-2009 Zachary Update

Whew.. it's been a busy, tired, crazy past few weeks.

To update you all :) I think I posted after his first pedi appt being the first 5 days he was home. He weighed in at 7lbs 15 ounces. He'd gained nearly 10 ounces since he'd been home in 5 days that was stellar.

So 2 weeks later (being this week) he had the high risk clinic appointment (all preemies go there after their hospital stay to evaluate if a regular pedi is ok or if he needs to be seen by them too). So he weighed in there at 8lbs 9 ounces on Tuesday. That's an average of 26 g per day. Their goal for him was 20 g so he's doing a lot better than they ever hoped.

Then today we had his second pedi appt (Friday) and he weighed in at 9lbs 3 ounces. So that's 10 ounces in 3 days! Needless to say he's a crazy good eater rofl.

Overall, not much to report other than his reflux issues have somewhat gone away. I've stopped giving him the meds as he didn't seem to need them anymore. I'm not seeing any adverse effects of doing so if anything no more low-grade fevers. The acid in your stomach really does fight off infections very well. He can't afford to not have it. I'll take the chances with reflux (that he really doesn't have much anymore). The milk that splashes up doesn't have acid in it so he should be fine.

Today he had his 4 months shots (not all of them I'm slowly graduating them after last time). Well once agian within an hour he started apnea on me THANK god I had the monitor on him. I had to take him to a lab to get his blood drawn and just as I'm getting him to the door his apnea monitor went off that'd he'd stopped breathing. I stimulated him and he came right back (sigh). I told the Doctor this was going to happen he swore up and down Zach should be fine now that he's older. Mind you he was supposed to get 2 more shots and I only got the absolutely necessary ones. Like the pneumonia one (I agree he really did need that one regardless the consecquences) he gets pneumonia he can die or be hospitalized up to a year easy and we don't want that. But it seems it's the PDT combo shot that's messing him up badly. The last time I couldn't tell which one it was but I doubt it's the pneuomonia one since he didn't get that last time and the only one he got both times was the PDT one. MMR used to give Alexis a lot of problems and I don't even want to know how badly that's going to mess him up.

So I get into the lab and expect they're just going to do a heel prick and take a little vial like they did in the hospital. No they hook his arm up and take 4 adult sized vials. Needless, to say I almost flipped. I was like listen he had problems in the hospital when they took 1/20th that amount and you think this is going to be ok. They're like he'll be fine! Well I tell you they better hope so after all he's already been through that day or I'm soo going to be up in their business!

So while I'm driving him home his apnea monitor went off 4 more times! Talk about giving me a heartattack. To boot it was very wet and raining out. At one point when he didn't start breating I had to swerve through 3 lanes of traffic nearly causing an accident to pull into the Sams by our house so I could stimulate him to get him breathing again. I rushed him upstairs as soon as I got home and put the oxygen on him. He hasn't needed that but 2x in the first couple days when he came home. Even then we did it just as a precaution he really didn't need it.

Once he had the oxygen for about an hour he was good and I was able to take it off. He's had to be held just about all night due to not feeling well. Sadly in 2 weeks I have to go back to give him his next couple shots. Though the synergis he didn't have a reaction to last time so we should be good. The Hep B shouldn't be too bad either (I hope).

He's got his circumsicion appointment next Thursday and I'll be taking the oxygen just in case. He'll probably have fewer problems with that than those stupid shots.

He hates his multivitamin and almost always throws it up. I am starting to wonder if he really even gets any of it. Sad thing is he needs it for the vitamin D that doesn't pass in breastmilk. We've got the Early Childhood Intervention people starting work with him now. He almost didn't qualify (which is a good thing). But the continued problems with bottlefeeding (he won't take a bottle at all now). There are times I need to go and do stuff like our friends are getting married etc when I can't be home for several hours. Also, there are some gross motor skills things he should be soon trying to do and he's not quite there. Technically he's gestationally 5 weeks old and it's amazing he's testing at a cognitive level of a 3 month old. He normally wouldn't be doing half of those gross motor things they want him to for antoher 1-2 months. So anyhew they're going to start working on some simple gross motor skills with him. I figure it can't hurt :) He'll sit and watch Baby Einstein videos for an hour + or play with his Baby Neptune floor gym for an hour and get mad when you turn it off, it ends or you pick him up. So, if I had to pick things for him to work I'd MUCH rather it be gross motor skills rather than the cognitive part.

I've finally had to put up all his preemie clothes they were getting way too tight. A lot of his newborn clothes are getting too small too. So I've broken out the 0-3 months clothing. Most of that is still pretty big on him but at least it's not too tight.

So it's been a rough day. Thankfully, we've had almost all wonderful days and very few rough days. I'll keep udpating as there are significant thigns to note :)