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.

She Graduated!!

"Na-na-na-naaa-na!" she says to having any more eye exams! 

 She is officially done her eye exams!! What a relief it was to hear that she's graduated and doesn't have to come back anymore. I overheard the eye doctor mention before she got started that she's 45 weeks "gestation" now so she would be fully developed at this exam... and she was! I'm not sure who is more happier that she doesn't have to go through that again; her or us.

*Insert sigh of relief here* :)

When you're smiling :)

Louis Prima - When You're Smiling

We're having so much fun with the wee munchkin now that she's smiling regularly! I don't know why people miss the baby stage of their kids, well I guess I won't know myself until she's a toddler HA, but I definitely can't wait until she's older and cooing and "goo-goo ga-ga"-ing or hearing her laugh out loud. She's got her Daddy's dimples too so it'll be really nice to see her laughing one day soon! She's already smiling at her mobiles and people's faces every day! 
She's such a big girl now and I can feel that we're slowly reaching those "fun" milestones, and soon we'll even be able to play with her.

Here she is smiling away at her toys:

This weekend was busy busy busy, with all the showings for our house and Arthur busy with work, there wasn't much time left to relax. So needless to say, Monkey had quite the weekend as well, and she behaved like a perfect little munchkin, always content to just "be". 

Anyways we finally got to take her out to the infamous Korean Grill House during our outings this weekend. We've been joking and talking for years about going there one day with our kids and we were finally able to take her! Of course she was out cold the entire time, but it was an enjoyable day for us! Those of you who know us well know what this means to us haha! :)

Here she is working with Daddy on Saturday at his office, (I wasn't kidding, he really IS training her to be a future Global student!!):

Here she is hanging out with our friendly Kitty while having dinner, I can't wait until she realizes what and who cats and dogs are! :)

Here she is just sitting, but I can't get over how cute her little bunny feet are!

 A video of her smiling finally!! We've been trying to catch it on video since she started but she just likes to stare at the camera so much and gets so serious once it's near her that it's hard to capture it. But here she is...there's another surprise in there (mind the compulsive cackling from me at the end):
 

Here is another video of her being a little piggy:

And finally, her being such a good girl in the car:

We're going to have a long week ahead of us as well!She has another eye appointment this coming week and we hope hope hope that finally it will be her last one!

M.A.A.

10 Pound Turkey!!

Looks like we're going to have a 10 pound turkey for Christmas this year! At least 10 pounds that is! Anna had her checkup with the Pediatrician yesterday and she has hit the big 1-0 mark! On the dot to be exact! I would have never guessed it, I almost fell off my chair. She is also now 22 inches long (which is about 57 centimeters) which is not that long if you think about it, some babies are born 21 inches (like Liam who I think was just right at 21 inches at birth). So Anna clearly is a shortie like her Mommy. :)

She received all of her shots yesterday, including the RSV shot for the cold/flu season, so we have been keeping an eye on her. Other than some big swelling at the vaccine site, she didn't have any problems at all. She was such a good girl, she cried for maybe 20 seconds while the shots were given to her and then she was over it. I guess for her it's nothing compared to those dreaded eye exams.

Which reminds me, she had one this week and she has to still come back in another two weeks. The Pediatrician explained that all that they are looking for is for her blood vessels in her eyes to reach all the way to the sides which hasn't happened for her yet.  It doesn't mean that that she can see any less than another baby her age, it just means that the vessels and muscles of her eyes have not yet fully developed. Let's hope that the next eye exam will be her last. She was quite upset at the last one, I think because now she has a lot of energy during the day so she didn't want any part of being touched.

One of the reasons why she has so much energy during the day is that she is sleeping through the night. She eats about 5 times a day now, 200mls per feed and her last barrage is usually around 8pm at which point it takes her an hour or two until she falls asleep and then she is asleep for somewhere between 10-12 hours. I'm not sure if this is normal behaviour for a baby this young but we'll enjoy it while it lasts, I'm sure it won't be like this once her teeth start to cut in.

Which is something we've noticed...she has a couple of white spots in her mouth, and they are quite sharp, but likely that doesn't mean that her teeth will come any time soon, just that they are definitely there and waiting to poke through! :)


Speaking of her mouth....Anna officially smiled her first real smile just about a week ago! Since then she has given us a few more here and there, yesterday she smiled at me after she ate and it was just so adorable. There's nothing like the toothless grin of a tiny baby to make your worries melt away!!

So she's still such a wonderful little girl. She only cries if she is hungry or has tummy pain (which is not that often). Overall she's just a content little girl, I guess she was so happy to make it into this world and she's enjoying every minute of it. So are we!!

M.A.A.