Life with our Newest One

The last 3.5 weeks (really? 3.5 weeks?) have gone by so quickly.  I haven’t been updating or taking as many pictures as I’d like or should – I need to try to do better.  I do have some pictures to share, but I’ll get to that later. For now I want to get some things “on paper” before I forget.

Elena is such a mellow baby – much less intense than our sweet Liam was as a newborn!  She rarely cries, and when she does she soothes so easily.  She also sleeps through the night!  She still sleeps most of the day away as well, though her alert time is increasing.  When she is awake, she likes to lift her head up off our shoulders and look around the room.  Like her brother as a baby, the ceiling fans are a favorite attraction. 

We took her back to the pediatric cardiologist last Wednesday (a week ago today), and she is doing great. They will monitor her weight and do an EKG during months she does not already go to the pediatrican for well baby visits.  As she grows, her Digoxin dose will need to be adjusted.  When she is 9 months or so, they will stop increasing the dose in an attempt to wean her away from it completely. 

Her weight at her appointment was 8 lbs 9 oz, which we were glad to see.   When Elena was discharged at 4 days old, she weighed 7 lbs 12 oz.   The next day, we took her to her first pediatrician appointment, and she was 7 lbs 13 oz.  One week later, at 12 days old, she only weighed 7 lbs 15 oz.  As babies should gain about an ounce a day, this was concerning.  I mentioned that her bowel movements were more frequent than normal for a newborn and also a bit more watery than they should be, and they asked me to eliminate dairy and bring her back on Friday, at 2 weeks exactly, for another weight check.  We did, and she weighed 8 lbs 1 oz, which was much better!  So it seems that my elimination of dairy has helped.  I don’t know for sure she has a dairy senstivity yet – I’ll try to reintroduce it in a few weeks to see how she reacts. 

This poor girl also has an eye infection.  I called a few days after we had her home when I noticed her right eye was a bit crusty, and was told it was likely a clogged tear duct, which is pretty common in babies.  They said to use a warm cloth a couple times a day to clean the eye and massage the tear duct, and it would likely resolve itself within her first year.  After a few days of this, the crustiness went away, but then a week later it came back with a vengeance.  In addition, the white part of her eye looked a bit pink, so I put in another call to the pediatrician, and her doctor wanted to see her.  The pediatrician was glad we called because, as I mentioned, it was infected.  They gave us some antibiotic ointment to put in her eye 4 times a day.  If she gets even one more infection, we will be sent to a pediatric opthamologist.  The good news is, our pediatrician has only sent one other baby to an opthamologist prior to the age of one, so hopefully Elena will not be her second. 

Her 1 month checkup will be on the 28th.  I can’t believe how soon that is!  I know from Liam that time flies with babies, but I almost forgot how quickly it goes in these early days.  I also suppose, with this being our last baby, it makes it seem that much faster.  In some ways, it makes me sad.  But I know it’s life.  As much as we’d like to do so, we cannot pause time.  Neither can we rewind.  The only direction we can move is forward, and the only moment we can control is the current one.  So once again I’m reminding myself to not be sad about the future or the end of this current stage.  My goal is to make the most of now.  As I look to the future, I will do so not with sadness at the end of now, but with excitement for what is to come.  And with that plan in mind, I can be thankful for the beautiful memories I am making now, because I will be able to take them with me as each second carries me forward to each tomorrow.  So really, I should take more pictures. 

 

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