Doctor's Visit

We had an appointment with Children's Heart Clinic today at 1pm. I wasn't sure how this was going to go as the baby was due to eat at 1:30, and he has been particularly grumpy the last few days. His tummy has been bugging him very badly--we're just watching this to see if we can have a pattern. We arrived, barely on time.

Everything about babies is rushing, rushing, rushing--and you're always behind!!

On the way the baby had a fit in the car, but I couldn't pull over because of my spot on the freeway. He stopped crying by the time I got a chance to pull off. Oy... he had "crumpled" forward and was unable to get himself sitting back up, but he fell asleep like that after a bit. :( Poor baby! But he was sleeping fine.

Once we got to the hospital, we were told our first stop would be a chest x-ray. The sleeping baby was awaken, put in various positions, and taken pictures of. The sleeping baby was NOT sleeping any more. Wah... ehh... WAAAAHHH!!!!! But, he took it rather well and was comforted easily. I wrapped him in a blankie and we were on to our next stop: more torture.

EKG, O2 lvl check, poking, proding, temperature, blood pressure, stitch removal. The baby said, "Wah... ehh... ehhh... eh..." and then seemed to say, "Whatever." I was hoping he wasn't being so quiet and good because he was thinking, "Finally, I'm home again!" But he went through the whole appointment without errupting too badly. There were moments, of course, but that's to be expected.

His O2 lvl in his blood: 100%. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!
His EKG: "Beautiful." YAYAYAYAYAY!
His chest x-ray: "Nice." YAYA... you get the picture...
His weight: "Great!"

He is now 8lbs and 5oz. They were *very* impressed with his weight gain. Heart babies are generally smaller to grow if there are issues, so this shows he is taking enough calories to heal and enough to grow as well. They liked this so much that they said that he was able to take 1-2 feedings of straight breast milk if we wanted. They thought that in a while he might be off fortified milk altogether. Wow.

The nurse practitioner was so impressed with him, she said she couldn't believe how fantastic he was doing. I think this is because of all the love and support that he's been getting from you all--all the prayers and hopes and meditations and good thoughts are all getting to the right spot. The baby is listening and he's putting all that great energy to fantastic use! Way to go, kiddo!

And, yeah, of *course* I have time to write in the blog. For those of you that do not know, I am about to spill the secret of motherhood: Maternity leave is all about sitting on the couch in your underwear eating bonbons... kids practically take care of themselves! All you have to do is start them up in the morning and they just run all day until it's time to put them away at night. Soap operas, bad chick-flicks and ice cream--and when you return to work all that weight you gain can be explained by "I haven't lost the baby weight yet"--another secret, that all falls right off when the baby pops out!

Shhh.... don't tell anyone...