At Home in the Mountains

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Maddy weighed in at 9lb 30z today at her weight check. The doctor said she'd gained 6 oz since the last time he saw her. That is a pretty fast rate for her so I guess formula is doing the trick. So maybe I am one of the few 5% of women that has poor quality breast milk.  (My apologies to guys who read this post if that was TMI). Anyway, he was satisfied with the half breast milk, half formula plan that we are doing now and she had climbed up on the chart a bit so all good news. We'll have to see how she's doing at her 6 month check up in a month to tell how she's really doing. He did not charge me for the visit, which I was really thankful for. Time for me to go do some house cleaning. The picture is an older one from vacation of Maddy taking it easy after swimming at Ouray. I have been really bad about taking pictures lately and I hate putting up picture-less posts so this will have to work for now.

I often end up posting a lot of stuff about doctors and not about much else going on in our lives, so I thought I'd do a post about the little things that have been going one. We only have one appointment this week (praise God!). I do have a couple of little updates about doctor stuff though. Maddy finally saw her PT on Friday and she was really impressed with how her neck was doing. She hadn't seen her in a little over a month. We got some new stretches and positions to do with her to help her contract the muscles on the right side of her neck in order to help her hold her head straighter. A big praise is that I emailed the neurosurgeon about recovery time and recurrence for Maddy's surgery. I was under the impression from several that recovery time from this surgery requires at least 48 hours on the tummy. Not so! She can even sit upright a few hours after the surgery. The recurrence rate with a routine tethered cord is less than 1%. These were both very relieving things ...

Today we went to the developmental pediatrician. Before I get into that, let me just say that Maddy surprised me by loving, I mean LOVING, formula. The first time I gave it to her she ate a 4 oz bottle under 10 minutes and then had the most happy, amazed look on her face at the end. As my mom said, it was like she'd just drank a milkshake. Funny, funny. Anyway, I'm glad that getting that going was not the headache I thought it would be; however I wonder if it is making her sleeping patterns weird. Last night I was up every hour until 3 a.m. She would never go into a deep sleep so every time her paci would fall out it would wake her up and I'd have to go in and rearrange her. Sometimes she was just crying with the paci still in her mouth. Really, really weird. I fed her at 1 a.m. but she wasn't that hungry. She maybe ate an ounce so that was definitely not the issue. We'll see what happens tonight. Not sleeping is really unusual for her. She usually kind of have wake...

Maddy in the outfit that Janet and David gave her. Too cute!! I have posted pictures of the new car at the end of the post. So far Aaron really likes it. I'm sure we'll like it even more as it helps us to continue to save gas and allows me to take Maddy to all of her doctor's appointments without too much hassle. Speaking of doctor's appointments, we went for her 4 month check up today. She is still in the bottom 3% and she did not weigh quite as much as I'd anticipated. I was hoping she'd be 9 lbs or above, but she weighed in at a whopping 8lb 14oz. The pediatrician was not pleased with that weight so he wants me to put her on half formula/half breast milk for her feedings. I really had hoped to avoid formula because of the expense, but she is obviously not gaining weight at good rate so I guess we will try it. I am supposed to take her back in two weeks to check the progression of her weight. He did say that she could just be a 'small person' so at lea...

We have finished our round of doctor appointments for the week. Yesterday we went to the ent. As we had thought from how Maddy was responding to noises while we were on vacation, her ears have drained. That means no surgery which we are very thankful for; however, they did a pass/fail hearing screen and she failed it again in both ears, which may indicate she has some type of inner ear hearing loss still. So, the docs office is setting up another ABR (audio brain response, I think), to try to deermine what is going on. The ABR tests her hearing at many frequencies so they will be able to determine the range of her hearing. If significant hearing loss is shown, we will have to get hearing aids for her. So still lots to keep in prayer about her hearing. Today was her checkup with Dr. Herring at Scottish Rite. He was pleased with her progress, ao looks like we will jusy continue for now with what we've been doing. We'll see him again in 3-4 months. Her appointment was at 12:30 tod...

We have had a nice vacation from doctors. Now it is back to the doctor appointment grind. We have four appointments this week. Two down and two to go. Today we went to OT and Scottish Rite. They were really impressed with her foot at SR. She scored a 1 and that is the best score she can get on the rating system they are using. That was really great to hear. She is at 22 degrees on the right knee and 15 on the left knee so the splints are holding her steady and she even had a 5 degree improvement on the right. I was happy to hear that because I was worried that being so off and on with exercises and stretches over vacation might have made it so she didn't progress much over the weeks we were gone. We will go back for new splints in three weeks. At OT we got on a swing to see how her sensory functions were working together. They seemed to be okay I guess. She enjoyed all the different stuff we did. She probably handled it better than I did. The twisting and spinning we did made me fe...

It has been forever since I have posted. We have been on a great vacation. All of my pictures are backwards. Arrg! Anyway this is from Yesterday morning before we left Mema and Papa's. We made them our stop for the night between Colorado Springs and home. We got to eat supper with Brandon and Amanda and their foster kids. This is the 20's theme night at my family reunion. Chef Brad made a wonderful meal with the help of all our family members that was composed of things that were served at the Waldorf Astoria and on the Titanic. Maddy in her flapper costume. Isn't she precious? Aaron was a moonshiner. Tammy won the prize for best costume and Brittany was a very close second. This is my cousin Chrissy's baby, Clayton. She and Maddy are checking each other out. This is Caitlyn, my Dad's, cousin's daughter. She loves babies and constantly wanted to hold Maddy. She got her wish for a little bit. Uncle EJ is still a little wierded out by Maddy but I think he is getti...