Bringing Home Baby

The day we brought Matthew home I came home with two babies. I "loving" refer to the second baby as Bertha. You see baby Bertha is very important, however try as I might can not seem to find much affection for her. She is rather heavy and can't come with us when we venture out. Still here she is sitting in to the left of my rocking chair. The same chair I plant my bottom in every time my little Matthew needs to eat or just when he needs to snuggle. Without Bertha, Matthew would not have the opportunity to "breastfeed". For this alone I am grateful to have her home with us for as long as we need her.

Changes

There is one thing for certain in life, change happens. Here is our little Matthew three days old to five weeks old.

He is still a tiny might and he sure lets us know when the stars are not aligned to his liking. Life has not been easy for him but he sure is one tough kid. He meets his team at the hospital once or twice a week. During one of those visits we came really close to having to have him admitted. I thank my lucky stars that the hospital was full and because he showed some improvement in the ER we were able to come home. His diagnosis, he has had an allergy to milk. More specifically to the protein in the milk. As a result he was put on a special formula that is awful. This stuff smells so bad going in and coming out isn't pleasant either. We have been able to put him back on my milk as long as I stay off of all dairy. If he doesn't get better then I will have to go off all protein until we can figure out how his little body is handling protein. He suffers from reflux so he takes medication for that twice a day. With all of this he developed a bottle adversion. Basically he blames the bottle for all his ailments. It makes sense, if you don't eat you don't get pain. Problem with this is that eating is essential to life. He now weighs 7lbs, 7 oz and if he continues to improve they won't admit him and gavage feed him. (Tube feed.)

He is now sporting his NAM (Nasoalveolar Molding) device. It wasn't love at first sight that's for sure but now I call it his little friend. He plays with it and sucks on it when his soother isn't around. As you can see by the picture above it is held in place by elastics and tape running on his little cheeks. These tapes have to been pulled tight as to not cause little sores in his mouth. He had one little sore last week and again it must have been the bottle to do it. ;) So we had a few days with tough feeds. His NAM is adjusted each week and hopefully we only have to do this for 12 weeks.

He had another echo for his heart and everything came back really good. I am thankful for the blessings that Matthew has received and I don't forget who or what caused his heart to heal.

A Week of Firsts

Michael and Becca had their first day of grade 2 yesterday. Becca was so excited she woke me up at 5:00am and wanted to get dressed. I convinced her to let me sleep and she laid on the couch until it was time to get up. Michael was excited to get to see all of his friends and was jumping to get out the door to the bus stop. When the bus came they both got on without turning to wave goodbye. My eyes stung a bit until I saw Michael (who had landed the backseat of the bus) turn and wave with a huge smile on his face. They have have grown up so fast and I find it hard to believe that they are in grade 2.
The only one not excited about all of this was Daniel. He was so upset that his sister was heading off. He wanted to go to and put on a backpack and everything. He was quite the little shadow yesterday and he seemed to always be under my feet. I hope to get to my ward Mom & Tots this week so that he can play and have something to do.
Matthew today had his first trip to an operating room. It wasn't anything major, he had a mold taken of his cleft palate for the appliance they are putting in next week. So happy birthday buddy, you are two weeks old today and have already had your first fast. He wasn't too impressed with the whole fasting bit. His doctor told me he was so good and only cried while the "mud" was in his mouth. Than after that he just looked around and was checking everything out.