The New Normal

Whew!  Life has been completely crazy, wonderful, frustrating, joyful, exhausting, and blessed all at the same time.  We have been trying to adjust to life with a "newborn" in the house again.  I'm not going to lie-we had grown pretty accustomed to our sweet girl who sleeps through the night, entertains herself easily, and often feeds herself. 

But, we have worked out a pretty good routine, and things have settled down significantly.  It is definitely a challenge to not only keep up with two babies now, but to keep up with all our son's medications, take his blood pressure every few hours, and make sure he is getting enough to eat (this kid likes to eat!).  On top of all that, he came home with thrush, making the first week home an even greater challenge.  Now, however, we finally have him on a medication that has just about cleared it up, so he is much less fussy.

Right now, he is eating every 2-3 hours, and he eats a lot.  Most times, he breastfeeds, then drinks a two ounce bottle, then 2 hours later is ready to eat again.  Now that he is feeling better, he is sleeping a lot, and growing big and strong.  We have to check his blood pressure frequently to make sure that it does not bottom out, and he for now he is on three different medications.  The nephrologist saw him this week and said his blood pressure is looking good, but it is still not quite low enough to try weaning him off the medications.  We will check back again in two weeks and see how he's doing.  And of course, we are trying to get as much sleep as possible, so my husband and I take turns during the night, and so far it's working well.  We have also been watching his growth and weight carefully, and in the last week, he gained half a pound.  He is now up to 9 pounds, 8 ounces.  His pediatrician was so excited and said he is doing great! 

We also met with Early Childhood Intervention today, and they were incredibly impressed with how he is doing.  They completed an evaluation to determine if he qualifies for services (physical or occupational therapy, nutritionist, etc.).  They looked at all sorts of different things, such as how he is eating as well as his fine and gross motor skills, and determined him to be at a 2-3 month old level cognitively and developmentally (he is 3 months old).  They were so amazed at how he is eating, how big he is, and what he is doing these days, and based on the evaluation, he was not even far enough behind to qualify for ECI services!  Because he was 12 weeks premature and had a host of medical conditions, however, they are allowing him to receive services, so we are very thankful for that!  I will take all the extra help I can get for him.  And, it will not cost us anything, for which we are incredibly grateful!!      

To see him and interact with him, you would never ever know all the difficulties he has faced, or that he was born at only 28 weeks.  It is such a joy to be all together as a family and feel like our life can finally get back to normal.  Well, for now, it's a new normal.  But that's ok.  We are trying to cherish each and every moment, because we have three months of lost time with our son to catch up on! 

Here are some pictures from Valentine's Day-the last day that my babies were apart.