Big Week!!

Well, this was a huge week for the little one. Little guy, big times.

Monday came all too soon for mama. It was the day that I started back at work. This is a good thing because now I am getting paid again (I ran out of my vacation/sick time). So I’m back at work doing my thing. It went well at first, and I can make it generally through half a day before I start missing him so much. Honestly if I could make this same money and work part-time, I would love that. I like being out of the house and talking to people, and yet I also like being with my little bug. I try to keep the phone call down to once a day to my mom.

The first day I called and she picked up he was crying in the background. This started me crying at my desk. I wanted to be there and hug him and have him crying in my ear in person!

Wednesday didn’t come soon enough. What was Wednesday? His cardiology appointment, and the day I took off from work. Usually we leave the house before 8am and get home about 1pm. It’s a long day, so I thought I would just take the remainder of the day off to be with him.

The cardiologist went well. He was weighed, measured and declared cute! I didn’t get an exact weight off of them, we were having so much trouble trying to get the bug to stretch out for his height that I forgot. He was measured twice in height, and the end result was 23 inches. The nurse felt he looked longer than that, but he wasn’t going to cooperate to find out.

After we went through that wiggly episode, we took him for the echo. He sat still for like… 12 seconds. Then he started to wiggle and get upset. He didn’t like the cold gel on him, and he didn’t like the probe pushing on him. A bottle let him keep quiet (but not still) for a few minutes. Finally they let him fall asleep on me before they did a few more scans. In the end Caleb declared he didn’t like having his belly pushed on by the person doing the echo (who is a nice lady!) and woke up to complain about it.

They followed this torture up with a blood pressure (ANGRY baby) and an EKG (he didn’t really care). Both of these looked fantastic.

His cardiologist said that everything is looking so well. What she is concerned about is that she cannot see the left part of his heart in the scans. Why not? A) Wiggly baby, B) Scar tissue on the front of his chest, C) the left side is hard to see and D) the little guy is a ‘difficult scan’ even today. What she wants to see is how the blood is flowing to the lungs. If blood to the lungs is going well, then she knows that part of his heart is going well.

The next step: A chest x-ray. So we went down to the x-ray, and we were shown on a stuffed bunny how the baby was supposed to lay for his x-rays (and asked if anyone could be pregnant—I know the answer to this is definitely no, but it’s still a scary question to someone who just had a baby!). Let me tell you, Caleb did NOT think much of this at all.

At all.

I’m sure the other parents were all a little scared at the screams that were going on. At least we know that the lungs are definitely working!!

The torture was soon finished with and we went back to our room to wait. The doctor examined the chest x-rays and then came back with her report. The bloodflow to his lungs is definitely un-even. How un-even? They can’t tell from the x-ray. What they are going to have to do is do another one, but this time with an IV with special tracers so that they can tell how much is going to each lung.

If it is 60/40ish… no problem.
If it is 80/20… no problem now, but it could be a problem when he’s an adult. She’s now looking 20-40 years down the road for him. She mentioned that she’s overly cautious and conservative, and this we know.

If things are fine: great, no problem.

If there is something that needs to be fixed, then he will need to go to the cardiac cath lab to see if there is anything that can be done about it. This test that we’ll do will be within the next few months.

To prove how well he was developing, Caleb decided to show them his stuff. He sat up, held his head up very nicely, and then rolled over. Yes, he rolled from his back to his front. He was so surprised and shocked that he let out a yell. I rolled him back over, and he just rolled right back on his tummy. I left him there for a moment, but he would have nothing of it.

And still… yes there is more… he wasn’t even going to leave his day alone! He and I were playing together, and I was blowing raspberries onto his tummy and giving him a little lift into the air. He had a great smile on his face. Then suddenly I lifted him up and down, and he looked at me and laughed out loud for the first time!! A real laugh!! Again it startled him so much he wasn’t sure what to make of it. He decided that was enough laughing and hasn’t made a peep yet.

Oh what a sweet boy I have!! I just don't like the fact that now I only get four hours a day with him before he's going off to bed, and only 20 minutes in the morning when we have our a.m. bottle together. Please note he gets the bottle, I just get to snuggle with him. :)

Friday check and another big day!

On our Friday weight check, the baby was 10lbs and 13oz. Huge! Well, in my opinion. In their opinion he still needs to bulk up. They're making a nicely chubby baby. Apparently he's still behind in his weight, even though he looks happy and chubby to me!

Today we went to our first Mariner's game. We didn't stay very long--there were some loud and obnoxious people in our row, and the baby couldn't get his little nap time in. You can imagine that didn't make him happy. So we moved!!

The baby sat and looked around, and was very interested in the lights and the people around him. He was watching a lot of what was going on. The last few days he's been very interested in his surroundings. It is like something just clicked and now he's noticing that his world is more than just a few feet in front of his face.

On Sunday we had his portraits taken. It was quite the adventure. We had to do all sorts of poses, and all kinds of contorting to get ourselves those shots. The pictures turned out fantastic. We're going to get them back in 7-10 days, and already have next month's appointment. We went in there with a coupon, but left with a ton of photos ordered. Oops.

Other than that... I'm tired, cranky, and logging off... :)