I tried to get to the hospital early this morning to see how Tera was responding to her DTaP shot from yesterday. The plan was to give the shot in the early afternoon, but I was trying not to take any chances. I wanted to be able to ask them to hold the shot until tomorrow if I felt like she needed another day of rest. When I arrived about 8:45, Tera had already gotten it. It was my fault for not calling ahead earlier and asking them to wait on me. Again, live and learn. Luckily, Tera hasn't seemed bothered by any of her immunizations yet, so hopefully it will continue. Today, she got the HIB vaccine. Though it sounds like an STD, it stands for Haemophilus Influenza type B and is meant to prevent diseases like meningitis and pneumonia.
Tera has started making gains in her weight again. She is now 2545 grams (2.5 kilos, as the doctors say) which is 5 pounds 9 ounces. She is also now 45.5 cm long, which is almost 18 inches long. Doesn't she look so long from this angle?
Someone (I think the Nurse Practitioner) had printed out a Growth Chart for me to see how Tera matched up against other preemies. For weight, she is almost exactly in the 50th percentile, her growth line falls just barely below the middle line on the chart.
She is still doing about the same with her bottle-feeding. We give her one whenever she is alert, and she'll usually take about half of it - maybe a little more or a little less - and occasionally will take the whole thing. At 11:30, I changed her diaper to get her ready for her next bottle, and she didn't even open her eyes. We decided to let her sit this one out and rest up for later.
Because she didn't seem very interested in spending time with me, I decided to go back to Lydia's to get the shower that I didn't take this morning. I intended to eat lunch there but soon remembered that I had cleaned out our fridge and freezer on Sunday because the power outage had left everything spoiled. My new plan was to grab something on my way back to the hospital. Of course, I took too long getting ready and didn't have time to get anything before her 2:30 bottle.
After feeding her that bottle (which she did not finish), I went quickly to Moe's and grabbed something To Go. When I got back to my room, I found the Occupational Therapist who had just finished Tera's Neuro Evaluation. I reluctantly set my food down (those nachos are definitely going to get soggy soon) and listened to the OTs report. When she was stretching Tera's legs and feet, she noticed that Tera had a little stiffness just above her heels. She wrote a request for Early Intervention Therapy when we get home. A specialist will come to our house and do another evaluation on Tera to see how much therapy she will need. Before she left, the OT showed me some stretches that I can do with Tera to help relieve some of that stiffness. I got to practice them while she watched to make sure I was doing it correctly. It feels good to have something else helpful to do for her.
Finally, lunch time . . . at 4:15. I literally stuffed myself with soggy nachos. Lydia came by just in time for Tera's 5:30 bottle, so she got some pictures for me.
She had dinner plans with some friends and left soon after. Sam also came by for a quick visit just to see how big Tera has gotten. He was pretty impressed.
I got a couple of cute pictures of Tera today. I know they all look the same, but I kind of liked these more than the others.
Something about her looks like Canon in this next one.
What About Barry and Canon?
Sharon picked Canon up from school today, and she commented on how big he has gotten. She hasn't seem him since March. I agreed that he has changed so much in these last weeks. As far as I know, he is still doing great at school and adjusting back easily. Last night, Barry decided not to lay with Canon to get him to go to sleep, and Canon seemed to handle it fine. He tried again tonight with the same results. He sent me this picture before I went to bed:
He looks so small in that big bed!
No comments:
Post a Comment