First things first, she celebrated her first Valentine's Day in style thanks to Auntie Tiffany for the outfit! In the season of all things heart-related. Let's tell you about her cardiology appointment last week. We finally got to meet the cardiologist, who we have heard amazing things about, and he did not disappoint. If anyone ever needs a pediatric cardiologist, I would highly recommend Dr. Doug Allen. He explained everything much better to us about this heart thrombus or shadow that is showing up on her echo. Basically because of the umbilical IV line she had after birth, she got this clot around her heart. He explained that if we did echos on all preemies with this umbilical line, we would see the thrombus on all of them. The body will natural absorb it on it's own, it just takes time. The thing is most preemies do not have a need for an echo. The MRSA infection that Olivia got in the hospital made her at risk for bacteria getting into that clot, so that is why she has had to be monitored so much. He was mainly looking to make sure the area does not expand over the course of the antibiotics, which it did not. But it does take time for her body to re-absorb it. So after another echo last week, he confirmed that it is still looking good and he thinks in a year or two her body will take care of it on its own, so we do not have to follow up again with him for another year and he is hopefully that we will not see this time next year. But assured us that she will have no adverse effects from this going forward, they just need to watch it and sign off that it disappeared.
Olivia is really developing a bit of a predictable personality, which is fun to see. She is a relatively chill baby, until she is not and then she is ready for food/diaper change/ burp like NOW! and I mean NOW. She can go from totally chill and asleep to screaming maniac in 3 seconds flat, which surprisingly is not enough time to go to the kitchen, grab her bottle, attempt to heat it up, grab a burp cloth and get her situated to feed her. I keep telling the little bit that if she could just nurse, her food delivery service would be much quicker. But she knows what she wants (Miss Independent).
She has also taken to sporting her Blue Steel look more often, Derek Zoolander watch out:
We have been practicing tummy time and if you follow me on instagram, you saw that she can successfully pick up her head and move it from side to side to see either her mommy or daddy, we are very proud parents! At her most recent Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy appointment, they said she was tracking like a 1-2 month old, which is great cause as a preemie, they look for her milestones on adjusted age, and her adjusted age is just 1.5 weeks. So the fact that she is now doing things that a 1-2 month old can be doing means that for now, she does not need additional appointments, we will follow up with monthly phone calls to see how she tracks going forward and may very well require PT or OT services in the future, but we are thankful for the good news for now.
Olivia has been killing it on the eating front, we have said it before and will likely say it again, girl loves to eat! After her pediatrician appointment a week ago, she got to come off her high calorie drink cause her weight gain has been great, and for all y'all that are curious, as of Wednesday, she is 8lbs, 1 oz! This is a huge praise because she seemed to be super uncomfortable after she ate that formula drink, so now she is on just breastmilk, which hopefully will help her belly to feel all around better.
Olivia also had a follow up eye exam, which we hoped had showed her eyes were caught up to her age (which is a newborn), but they are still currently underdeveloped so we follow-up again with them next week. We are very hopefully that her eyes will be caught up then, cause if so we will not have to go back for another 6-12 months. We also would like to not have too many of those appointments because they are hard to be a part of. Imagine our surprise when we walk into the room and see this on the table:
Yes, that metal tool is used to keep her eyes open for the eye exam and while the nurse holds her head in place, I had to hold her arms down while she screamed bloody murder. I kept my eyes closed because I could not bear to look at it, Marc did watch and said it was rough to see. So, obviously the less of these appointments the better. But we keep at it, cause we know what may be hard and uncomfortable now, will mean a better outcome for her in the long run. The doctor also said we have about a 50/50 chance that she will be in glasses by the time she is in kindergarten.
And lastly, we had our first big scare since coming home. Last Saturday, Olivia began projectile vomiting up two of her feedings, well then on Sunday she did it after 4 of her feedings, so we called the doctor's office and the on-call doctor said that because of her prematurity and her not being able to see her, she thought it best if we took her to the ER. So on Sunday night at 9:30 pm, the day before Marc was getting ready to head back to work after paternity leave, we packed up all our stuff and headed to the city to the pediatric ER closest to us, which is about 30 minutes away. After waiting just a little bit, they took us back, took her temperature (which was fine), took her weight (she was up from the doctors just a few days earlier), and got us to a room to wait for the doctor. After about 30-45 minutes, he checked her out and got some information from us and concluded that it was like just a bad case of reflux, so he suggested cutting down her feeding but feeding her more often (every two hours veruses every 4 hours like we were doing before), and then keeping her upright for 30 minutes after her feeding. The doctor said he could not rule out Plyoric Stenosis, which is a much more serious condition, but said it is likely just bad reflux. After a follow up this week with our pediatrician, they think it is also unlikely it is anything more than reflux, but we are keeping an eye on things and following doctor's orders (which is hard for a baby that loves her food). Also, we definitely looked and felt like first time parents leaving the ER with our arms full of diaper bags, cooler, pumping supplies, baby in a car-seat, and a diagnosis of reflux. But with our precious little baby, we did not want to take any chances!
So all in all, we have so many things to be thankful for, including me surviving my first week with Marc back to work. Olivia and I definitely missed him but we managed on our own. We continue to feel your love, support and prayers and continue to appreciate all the prayers we can get for our little miracle baby! And can we talk about those cheeks? I am in love! 😍
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