Memories!

Without question, I can say that this is one of those times in our lives that we will look back, with a lot of emotion. As I'm finally feeling like I'm re-joining the world, I'm already cognizant of some of the simple pleasures that I now get to do that I haven't done in 7 months! Meet-up with friends for lunch, sleep a full 8-hours (thanks to Kiki!), go out to dinner without pumping in the car on the way there, focus my mind on something other than Baby Cora (work), prepare more bottles without meds than with them, shopping at Target without filling a prescription, hold Baby Cora without fear of her spitting-up half of her feed! Just to name a few. Probably one of the most impactful recent developments, is the fact that I'm not measuring nor tracking exactly how many milliliters Baby Cora takes in each bottle.

Yes, I let Cora's 7 month birthday go by without proper documentation, whoops! We were too busy traveling back to the Rivah to snap a picture in her crib, so we'll have to snap it on the beach... I'm writing this with pure joy that the reason we didn't take her 7 Month picture is because we were getting out of the house! Woo Hoo!

Right around her 7 moth birthday, she weighs close to 11lbs and this is our daily regimen:
Feedings occur every 3 hours, but we get to skip one at night, so we still feed her at 5am, 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm & 11pm. She is always asleep at the 5am feed, so I'm really looking forward to getting the okay from her docs to let her sleep until she wakes up at night. She gets her nebulizer treatment in the morning and in the evening and she gets only 2 meds by mouth: Amoxicillin and Prilosec. We have just weaned her off of KCL, Lasix & Reglan.

Since I'm back to work, she's been given feedings by other people (Grandma & Kiki). It starts off slow, but once they develop their own process, it goes just fine. In the transition, though, her numbers were trending a bit low, so I got nervous. Now, I've been instructed to stop tracking, because she is continuing to gain weight through this transition. Day 3 of no tracking and I feel like she's doing great and I'm more relaxed... baby steps! :)

Matt's favorite new development is the fact that she's spitting up a lot less, now! We aren't sure what the catalyst could be, because there are so many factors... but I hope/think that she's just growing and getting stronger and her little sphincters are more mature, so she's just holding more down. Less meds, new formula additive to my breast milk, less force feeding, and higher impact PT exercises are good guesses too.

When I take the time to think big picture about Baby Cora and how she came into this world and begun her life, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude that she has flourished. But, living day to day, in some heavy moments, it is easy to get bogged down. I'm so pleased that I can report we are smiling more now than ever...

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

PS. The picture of our Family of 4 at the Rivah is from our Memorial Day trip. I'll upload a new one for this trip, soon!