March 13, 2010

Last Saturday Charlotte watched her first race! Patrick ran in Stevens Point's Bock Run, his first race of the year. Shortly following the race Charlotte's G-tube came out again. It had been loose since her trip to the Houghton ER, but we were hoping it would last until her Tuesday appointment. No such luck. We went to the Steven's Point ER and they were able to put in a Foley tube but directed us to the CHW ER. CHW did not disappoint, the G-tube was reinserted within 2 hours of our arrival.


We'd planned to spend Saturday night in Madison visiting the Hoenisch's but since we were at the CHW ER, we spent the night in Milwaukee (we recommend hotels.com as they were very accomodating, allowing us to cancel our Madison hotel reservation at the last minute without a fee). We did make it to Madison on Sunday and met baby Calvin for the first time. He was born on Charlotte's due date, 11/9/09, so it was fun to see them side by side. He is a cutie!

Sunday afternoon we arrived in Chicago so Katie could attend the NASPA conference. Everything went pretty smoothly, although a baby definitely makes traveling a bit more complicated. While Katie was at the conference Patrick took Charlotte to 3 appointments in Milwaukee on Tuesday:

Speech Therapy: We are going to start introducing pleasant experiences with the spoon. This means rubbing her cheek with the spoon and allowing her to lick it. We give her a drop or two of water and of milk, but no food yet. No sense rushing things!

Surgical F/U: Everything looks good with the G-tube! We're going to get a couple of extra Mic-Key buttons to have on hand should we have any issues in the future.

GI: Charlotte did her thing and threw up during her GI appointment. We're glad they were able to see how much she really throws up because they agreed this is an issue but they weren't sure what the cause is. They recommended trying to give most of her feeds overnight while she slept at 47 mls/hr from 9 p.m. - 7 a.m. and then feeding her 3 times/day at 90 mls/feed. We tried this a couple of nights but her sleep is restless with the pump. She rolls back and forth all night, throwing up periodically. This restless sleep resulted in a very crabby, sleepy baby during the day. SO, we've given this up for now and are returning to our every 3-hour feeding schedule 5 a.m. - 11 p.m.


On Wednesday we stopped off at CHW for Charlotte's final appointment with the developmental specialist. She's right on track for a 4 month old. Photo above taken 3/10, Actual age 7 months; 12 lbs 15 oz; 22 3/8 inches. While there we swung by the NICU to visit the March of Dimes Family Life Specialist, Melissa. It was good to see her and we were lucky enough to see one of Charlotte's favorite nurses, Michelle, too.

From Milwaukee to the UP we drove through dense fog and were relieved when we arrived safely in Houghton.

So far this weekend has been pretty low key, which is exactly what we needed!