Guess Who Turned One?

 

  Three Little Birds / Elizabeth Mitchell 

One year ago, on July 7^th, a beautiful girl named Anna was born. Incredibly, this past year has just flown by and with the amount of growth and progress our little girl has gone through, one can't even tell she was born 14 weeks early. We are extremely lucky that she has had no major issues this past year and by the strength and intelligence she shows now, we are certain she will thrive in her coming years.

She has come such a long way and finally she was able to celebrate this tremendous milestone of turning 1. With no lack of love and attention Anna leaps towards her 2^nd year of life with smiles, giggles and an unprecedented eagerness to learn.

As Anna soon starts crawling, walking, talking (and of course occupying herself with innocent mischief) we will be faced with new challenges but we take comfort and pride in the fact that these are challenges filled with enjoyment and prosperity with and for Anna.

From being fed through tubes and unable to breathe on her own a year ago, to eating (and sometimes throwing) mashed potatoes and showing off her own little language to anyone who is willing to listen, she just surprises us every day! There is not a single day that we take for granted. We are immensely proud of our beautiful daughter and we look forward to the future and sharing many-many more years and milestones to come.

Here are just a couple of videos of Anna; the first one was about 2 months ago when she was learning how to roll over and mastering her "monster growl" voice --turn up the volume haha -- and the second one is from a few weeks ago of her playing/babbling. What a difference a few weeks make! 

 Marta & Arthur

Anna's 9 month Update

Anna had her visit from the nurses today and all good news again! She is developmentally where an 8 month old would be so again, she's not quite where a baby her real age would be, but definitely not in the range of a 6 month old (she is 6 months and 4 days corrected and about 9.5 months old true age) ~ are you as confused as I am?? :)

She is now able to sit by herself for a few minutes, although the reflex to not fall backwards won't kick in for another couple of months. I'm not sure when this happened, it sort of happened really slowly but I really noticed it today when she sat unassisted for almost 5 minutes without tipping over!

She's not crawling yet, nowhere near actually, that's the only thing she is a bit delayed with -- the tummy time part of it anyway (again from the weakness in her arms/chest but that's nothing new). So we'll just keep practicing and hopefully one day she'll stop hating tummy time and get stronger and stronger!


She is eating big girl rice cookies and bread, along with her purees that we make here. The nurse even suggested we start giving her smaller things to eat/play with because her pincer reflex has already developed (that's a 9 month old milestone!). Another big milestone is her banging things, it represents something about her being aware of object permanence. They also showed us how to practice some things with her so she doesn't become dependant on only using her voice to communicate. This way she will learn that she can verbalize through body language as well, and in the long run this means she will be more independent instead of just crying for someone to do things for her. Cool stuff...I would never know any of this if these wonderful nurses didn't come by every few months!


She also had an appointment with her Pediatrician this week and she is 18 pounds on the dot (8.2kg) and 27 1/4 inches (69.2 cm) --> which is in the 95 percentile range of babies at 6 months old and her weight, well that's off the charts and is more in the range of where a 9 month old would be. But, that means she only gained one pound since her last visit a few weeks back. So she is starting to burn more calories and get more lean since she started sitting and moving around a lot more in the last few weeks. The nurses even commented today on what a long baby she is!

Showing off her new sunglasses!

Taking a break from her busy life :)

I say, start 'em early!

Always laughing at something

Daddy's Girl

Sitting like a big girl in her new highchair :)

Our first meal together at the table

We are so proud of her accomplishments and I can't believe still to this day that she was born at 25 weeks and 5 days and has absolutely nothing wrong with her; physically or developmentally. I am so glad that our biggest problem is what she puts in her mouth, or crying because she is too tired! She came out of this whole ordeal unscathed; she is one strong baby and her big brother was definitely watching over her!

M.A.A.

Oh how time flies!

Wow, what a difference a month makes! Anna has sure grown, physically and developmentally! You would never think that she was a micro-preemie, born so early. I'm often reminiscing about how small she used to be, not that I miss it, I love that she has some nice drumsticks and a little belly to blow bubbles on. I'm just always comparing because she used to be so frail and I wanted her to grow so badly, now that she is, I'm just really happy to see her thriving.

We visited the Pediatrician today for her RSV shot, she will get her last set on March 4th and then we are done for this season. I hope hope hope that we succeeded in her avoiding getting sick. But I can't speak too soon, there's still a month and a half of winter left to battle through.

In any case, she is doing great and you can tell she's really growing now. She's starting to grab things on purpose (so cute!), she's putting everything in her mouth and I mean everything that lands in her hands. She also watches us eat and drink which the Pediatrician said is a good sign that she is ready for solids. So we will be starting her on the rice cereal soon in a bowl. We did this a few weeks ago just to try it out and she really took to it like a big girl so I'm sure she won't have problems at all.

Here's a few pictures of the big Monkey from recently. Oh and she is now officially 7 months old (3 months and 3 weeks corrected).

Here's a little video of her learning how to laugh :)

M.A.A.

Anna's Monthly Weigh In

So, a bit of a misunderstanding with the Pediatrician last time. We were told she was 12 pounds at the last appointment but she was in fact 10 pounds. So this puts her at 13 pounds today which is a healthy weight gain of 3 pounds in one month. She is already fitting very comfortably in 6 month size clothing, and I don't think it will be too long before she reaches the 9 month size. She is almost outgrowing her car seat soon too, a couple of more inches and we'll have to get her a big girl seat. Which means no more click and go for me :) She'll be coming out of the seat every time which is a bit hard at this point because she's still too little to sit on her own.

It's so wonderful to see her growing so big though! Her development seems to be on track as well:

She coos and smiles (and even lets out a few giggles now and then)
She kicks and waves her arms and legs when she is excited
She is able to recognize people
She sees quite far and is able to smile back at you even if you are a few feet away
She is able to follow objects from side to side
She can hold things when something touches her hand or if you put something in her hand, and she has discovered how to bring her fist to her mouth
Although she hates "tummy time" she is very good at it when she tries! Her head control is amazing but she just really dislikes being on her tummy and being frustrated.

But all in all, she is still such a good baby, just has a really nice demeanor and doesn't cry much. Today at the Pediatrician's appointment she was such a good girl when she received her shots. Now she will only have 2 RSV shots left for the season (until March) and then she will get her regular baby shots again when she reaches 1 in July.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that she doesn't get sick this season. We are washing our hands every time we come home from the store or appointments and trying to be very careful not to get sick.

So that's all that is new, here are a few pictures from today before her appointment. :)

M.A.A

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

With having Anna here with us and moving into our new home, this has pretty much been the perfect Christmas for us in a long time. We couldn't have asked for more than to share it with family and our little girl. We're still astounded to see her at times; knowing how much we wished to have a healthy baby with us to share this holiday.

It's been a hectic few days/weeks and here's a few pictures to capture baby's first Christmas:

 

Anna LOVES all of her gifts from family and friends and she wanted Mommy to send everyone a big Merry Christmas and thank everyone for the wonderful presents and for thinking of her! :)

Marta, Arthur and Anna

Memories

As we approach almost five months with Anna being with us, it's hard not to look back at the second hardest thing we've all had to face as a family, but with a happy outcome this time.

Just wanted to thank everyone again for their support, we know it hasn't been the easiest 5 months and Anna's birth was so unexpected; you could say we are still in shock. So here's to getting through 66 days in the NICU!

Thanks everyone for your continued support!


Please press play for both :)


You are my sunshine - Elizabeth Mitchell

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Speak into my good ear(s)?

Hi all,

As you all remember, Anna had a hearing test back in the NICU last September and got a 'referral' for her left ear. This means that they couldn't quite pass her, which could have meant she had just slept on her ear, had some dirt in there or she could not hear from that side.

She had her referral appointment yesterday and it was really interesting. They hooked her up to four probes, two on her forehead and two behind her ears, and one probe went into her actual ear during the test. Then we made sure that she was fully asleep so that her readings would be clear (that was quite the task!!). If she wasn't fully asleep then there would be spikes in her readings from normal alertness so this way if she was completely in dream land the spikes would only come if she was able to hear the sounds from the test.

We are happy to announce that she passed on both ears!! She will of course have to go back when she is one year old next July, just to follow up since due to her extreme prematurity there is still the risk of her losing some of her hearing up until that age, but I think she will be fine. She seemed to have beat the odds so far with every single thing in her life so I have no doubts that she will beat this too.

Anyways that's the update for now! She has her second RSV shot tomorrow and a checkup with the Pediatrician, and next Wednesday we are starting a program with Durham Health where they send a Nurse out every few weeks to check on Anna's development. So far, from my conversations with them on the phone, it looks like she is right on par with where she is supposed to be. :)

M.A.A.