Monday, March 8, 2010

Time flies...

These days Charlie is doing so good. We haven't been to the doctor since close to his 4 month appointment. Which makes things much easier when we don't have so many appointments to go to. I think he weighs about 15 pounds now, we will find out for sure next Monday. I do know he has gotten much longer since the last time he was measured!
Charlie now eats 3 meals a day. Cereal around 9a.m. Lunch veggie and half a thing of fruit around 12 and cereal and fruit around 5. He still nurses during the day and in the evening when I am not working. If I am working he takes a bottle. Charlie now drinks apple juice from a sippy cup. He is doing so great with it. He can drink his bottle and his sippy cup by himself without any help. He is getting to be such a big boy. We are working on sitting up and crawling right now. He will sit up pretty good by himself if he is sitting on my lap, but just tumbles over if he is on the floor. He is getting much better at it though.
Charlie LOVES going for walks in the stroller, he loves looking at everything outside.
Charlie also just got a new carseat, well almost a month ago now. This one is a convertible carseat that should last him almost his whole time that he has to be in a carseat. He can see out the window which calms him down if he is upset.
All in all we are all doing great!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Wonderful news!!

This last week has been so busy. Last Thursday Charlie had an Upper GI done to find out how bad his reflux is. It is a mild case. We have started him on 1Ml of Zantac 2 times a day. It seems to be helping some.
This Tuesday Charlie went to the cardiologist. We got great news. He now only has one hole in his heart, which is the VSD. The ASD after 4 months has healed on its own. We will still be watching the VSD to see what it does. He doesn't go back to the cardiologist until he is 1.
Charlie also got weighed and measured at this appointment. He is now 14 pounds 11 ounces and 25 1/2 inches long!
Charlie has been laughing since Christmas Eve, but has never laughed for such a long time like this. We went to a friends house Tuesday night, and the husband was making faces and being goofy at Charlie. Charlie loved it and was laughing so much!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Life is busy.

Since the last post I have started back to work, the first part of November. That was a very busy time for Craker Barrel, it was pie season! I am working 5 days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday from about 4:30-8 and then Saturday 8:30-2. Andrew is still working the midnight shift and try to get as much sleep as possible before he watches Charlie in the evening. Grandma's switch off on the weekend watching Charlie. (This allows them both to get their Charlie time!)

Charlie has only been to the doctor twice since the first part of November. (One because he was getting thrush again, the other I belive he had a bug.) Since close to 3 months Charlie has been on cereal(spoon fed). This seems to help him sleep at night. He is also still breast fed and gets a bottle, of breast milk, when I am at work.

Charlie laughed for the first time for Andrew on Christmas Eve and soon after that laughed for me. He is rolling all over the place now, and scoots on his back. We had to turn him around in his crib since he kept scooting and hitting his head on the railing. Charlie will talk you to death when he is in a good mood. He loves music and watching T.V. His favorite toy I would have to say is this farm house that hangs from the carseat and when you pull the middle animal it makes noise. (Cow mooing, pig oinking, ect.) We have just recently had to move him up to 3-6 month clothes.

When being changed Charlie will kick his feet like he is running away. He also gives the biggest/best smiles ever! They melt a Mommy's heart.

Life is busy right now. We are trying to get Charlie on a set schedule. During the day we have a pretty set schedule, now if we can just get the night schedule down.

Charlie has a WIC appointment Thursday, afterwards he will get his 4 month shots. Then Friday he will have his 4 month check up. Febuary 2nd Charlie goes back to the cadioligist. We are hoping and praying for some great news!

I will try to update again soon will all the stats from Charlie's 4 month check up.

Monday, October 26, 2009

I got a big boy!

Charlie is doing great gaining weight. He gained 12 ounces in one week! The rice cereal in his milk is helping him to keep his food down. Since he is on the rice cereal we had to start giving him apple juice. (He was getting constipated.) He now weighs 8lbs 14.5 ounces!!

Charlie went to his first wedding this weekend (10-24-09). He was very good during the wedding, he was wide awake and didn't even make a sound. Then he slept through the whole reception.
October 25, 2009 Charlie slept in his crib in his own room! He only got up once around 3:30a.m. and didn't wake up again till around 8! He is doing so good! I am so proud, I wasn't sure how he would do sleeping in his own bed, with no one else in the room. He done great. Daddy was home last night for this also. He got up with Charlie when he woke up and let Mommy sleep. Mommy needed the sleep, she thinks she is getting sick.
Mommy left Charlie for the first time yesterday. They had went to Walmart and out to eat with Grandma and Grandpa Dodds, and Chad after church. They just car pooled there, then Grandparents dropped Mommy and Uncle Chad back off at the church. Mommy and Uncle Chad followed them home in seperate cars. It was a little step for Mommy.
Charlie will get to celebrate his first Halloween this next Saturday. He has a pumpkin outfit and a Skeleton onsie and a "First Halloween" onsie.
Mommy has her follow up appointment tomorrow and will be going back to work soon. She really isn't sure if she is ready to leave Charlie or not, but she has to be.

Charlie is much more active and alert during the day! He will stay awake for a couple hours at a time. He is also starting to make all these little noises, they are so cute! He has his time where he just loves tummy time and also just laying on his back looking around!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Charlie has had a busy week again.

We started the week off by taking Charlie to the ER Tuesday morning, for what we thought was a stomach bug. He kept spitting most of his food up and wouldn't keep much down. The ER didn't do much of anything. Said if it happened again to go see his docotor. Well it happened again that afternoon. We took him to his doctor where he said he thought it was just some stomach bug. We were to give hi pedilyte the rest of the night and stop giving him breast milk till the next day. That night and the next day Charlie was doing better keeping his food down. Thursday we had two appointments. We had WIC appointment in the morning and then Cadioligist in the afternoon. WIC appointment went great. Cadioligist was fine. No real change with his heart. We are now having to weight him every week to make sure he is gaining weight. If he doesn't gain between 3 and 3.5 ounces a week then he might have to be put on medicine to close the hole in his heart which will then help him gain weight.
We had a follow up appointment with his doctor today, mainly just to get him weighed and to talk to the doctor about what we found out yesterday. Today we found out that Charlie has reflux, which is why he has been spitting up so much! We also found out that he has thrush. We are adding rice cereal to his milk and he is on medicine for his thrush.
We go back next Friday to get him weighed again.
Right now he weighs 7 pounds 6.5ounces

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Almost back to birth weight!!

We had a follow up appointment with Charlie's doctor today. For all of these appointments they make me strip him down to his diaper to weigh him, measure his length and his head. He does not like that one bit. His weight was up 11 ounces from last week. He is now weighing 7 pounds 5 ounces, his birth weight was 7 pounds 8.9 ounces.
The only new thing is Charlie is starting to get a little bit of diaper rash, probably just from pooping soo much. He's like clock work, about every 2-3 hours! So we just had to order some Resinol cream to put on his butt. They also told us to start putting peroxide on his cord. It's starting to fall off.
I had to fill the doctor in on Charlie's hospital stay last week. He was glad they done all the test that they did, and was glad to hear that his bilirubin count was down to normal. I'm thinking that his heart wasn't sounding any better today, or else he would have said that it was. We do have a follow up appointment for his heart this next week, so we should know more then.
The doctor was very glad to see that Charlie's weight was up, not as high as he would have liked it, but much better than last week.
Charlie is doing much better! He is starting to fill out more and getting some fat on him!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

All this from our First doctors visit...

Did they tell you at the Hospital that your son has a heart mumur?
Your baby has jaundice. His counts are above average. I forgot what the average is, but his counts are 16.4 and 20 is to high. (Jaundice from breast feeding.) I am having to give him formula right now to try and get his levels down. Also having him sit in the sun light in just a diaper. He has spit up atleast 5 times within the last hour. Waiting to hear what the doctor says about that.
He weighed in at 6 pounds 10 ounces this morning. Doctor isn't too concerned about that right now, but said we will keep an eye on it.
Charlie goes in tomorrow to see the cardiologist in the morning to see if his heart murmur is anything to be concerned about. He had xrays of his chest taken today, gotta take those to the apointment tomorrow.
Good thing I had gotten a breast pump! I am pumping and storing right now. Charlie was doing so good this morning latching on and eating!!
Just a side note... I HATE the smell of formula.
Will update when I know more.

After our appointment on Wednesday and giving him a bottle of Good Start formula, Charlie wasn't doing so good. He was spitting up all the formula, not wanted to eat after that, and no acting like himself at all. Didn't even make a noise when I changed his diaper, he hates having his diaper changed!
I ended up taking him to Sacred Heart hospital about an hour away from where we live. (One of the best childrens hospitals around) My Mom drove me and Mother in law road with us also. Andrew was suppose to be trying to get as much sleep as he could.
They got us right into the ER. This was about 6p.m. Between 6p.m. and 2a.m. they took his blood, urine, and done a spinal test. They also hooked him up to an IV to get fluids in him again. Denise (mother in law) was such a great help! I couldn't bare to see my baby getting poked at by all theses needles or hear him fussing becuase of it. She helped hold Charlie while they took his blood, urine and did the spinal test. When we got there Charlie's temperature was also low. Something was just not adding up to why all of these things were happening. Earlier in the day they also found out that he has a heart murmur, and jaundice. That is why all the different test were done.
By 2a.m. on Thursday they had us in our room. Both mothers left since they had to be to work in just a couple hours. We got hardly any sleep at all. By the time we got to the room I was pumping my milk and giving Charlie a bottle. He was happy with that. While down in the ER they had also started him on two antibiotics. This was done just as a percaution. Just in case something were to come back positive in any of his test that he had done.
Nurses were in every couple hours to check his vitals and make sure that his tempature was staying up. Thursday morning he had another bilirubin (jaundice) test. It was a 13 down from a 16.4!! He also had his heart test as planned and even had the same doctor that was going to do them in the first place.
Charlie has two holes in his heart. The one hole they aren't the slightest bit worried about, but the other is a little different story. If I understand this right. It's a small to morerate size hole that goes from the Left ventricle to the right ventricle. Which is allowing the blood to flow between the two, from the left to the right. This is called a Ventricular Septal Defect. We are hoping within the next few weeks this hole heals itself. It it doesn't then Charlie will be put on medication to help it close up,if by chance the medicine doesn't help then he will have to have surgery. This hole is making his heart work harder than it should.
To find out since his heart is having to work harder than it should, it is taking up a lot of his energy. This could very well be the reason why he doesn't want to nurse for long periods at a time. I am still trying to nurse, but if he doesn't want to then I just pump and give him a bottle which is easier on his heart. Like today he nursed for a little while, but didn't get enough out so he ate about 2 ounces from bottle also. At this point in time I am not worried about him nursing, just making sure he is getting the food that he needs. I am glad that I am able to pump so he can have breast milk!
Thursday Andrew and Samantha (Andrews sister) came up there. Andrew came after work and ended up sleeping in the hospital bed most of the day. Samantha stayed up there for a while and let me and Andrew leave the room and get something to eat while she stayed with Charlie. Denise did the same thing and watched Charlie while we got dinner.
Throughout the day they monitored Charlie and continued to give him medicine. By Thursday afternoon Charlie was started to get back to himself again. I was excited to hear him scream and cry when getting a diaper changed.
Today they ended up having to take blood twice for the bilirubin test. The fist one clotted while they were checking the levels. First thing in the morning they said he would be released right after the results came back fom the test. It took them forever to get the results back. Come about 1 in the afternoon, we get told that all they have to do is do the release papers and then we are free to go. We didn't get out of there until 4! I was getting pretty mad at this point. It didn't help that I had only 4 straight hours of sleep since Wednesday morning. Charlie's Great Aunt was nice enough to come sit with him while his Mommy and Daddy got out of the room for a little while and got something to eat!
We are all home now. Charlie is doing good. He has a follow up appointment with the specialist in two weeks, and will have a follow up with his doctor hopefully this next week. Our WIC appointment has gotten pushed back to October 8th since Charlie was in the hospital still today when his appointment was suppose to be.
I think that is all that has gone on the last couple of days.