Thursday, February 3, 2011

Kaitlyn

Since it seems all the kids have things going on, I thought over the next couple days I will do a post on each of the kids. So keep checking back.

Kaitlyn is first since she has the most going on right now.

She had her official 2 month appt (at 2 1/2 months) two days ago. She is making some big changes and I am so happy! She was 9lb. 8oz!!! Can you believe that? The doctor thinks the weight gain was due to the added calories the rice cereal in her bottle is giving her. We actually are not going to do that anymore anyway. It wasn't helping as much as we wanted and is a pain to do. She was 21 and 3/4 inches long. She is getting so big. Developmentally she is lagging, but should be with being a preemie. Since being on the oxygen she has made leaps and bounds with development in some areas though. She is smiling now and on the verge of cooing. She is much more alert and content to look around. It has been night and day difference in her with the oxygen. I am so incredibly thankful that the issues going on were caught and she is doing so well. In some ways it has been like starting all over with a newborn since this whole RSV thing happened. It is amazing how much of a setback we have had. But it is OK because she is going to improve so much faster. We also put her on an Apnea monitor. So yes she does have two monitors and her oxygen to lug around. Fun times. I am in the process of getting video and ect of all that. Her Apnea monitor has gone off each night since we had it, but at least the alarm wakes her up and she corrects herself and starts breathing again. It is sad how immune I am becoming to these kinds of things. Her Oxygen saturation levels are really good, but we do put her up to a 1/2 liter at night to hopefully remind her to keep breathing and reduce or eliminate the apnea. It's hard to tell if it is working because she has been that high on oxygen the two nights she has had the Apnea monitor. During the day we are down to the second lowest setting of flow.

Also she had an appt with a Ophthalmologist on monday. Everything looks good from a structure point on view. There is nothing that would require surgery or anything to that nature. She just has a delay in vision development. But alot of the vision things going on ties in with the Central Nervous System, which also regulates breathing ect. So the doctor was not surprised with what is going on with her oxygen issues that her vision is delayed too. We will watch it for 3 months and then she has an appt with a pediatric eye doctor who specializes in preemies to see where we go from there. Unless things worsen...we just wait and see at this point. So that was good news. I can deal with a delay in development. I was worried about something being wrong that would require more aggressive treatment. Wahoo!!!!!

It's been interesting adjusting to the new things going on, but it is becoming more and more normal each day. I will keep you posted on how she is doing though.

Here are a couple pictures I got a couple days ago. They aren't the best clarity because I was hurrying to take them to catch a smile.