9 Months Old and Sitting Up

Well, Mia is now 9 months old. I cannot believe it. Of course she's six and a half months adjusted, but that's neither here nor there. She's up to 15.5 pounds (yeah, over 5 times her birth weight) and just over 24 inches long. I went to Kohl's last weekend and started buying 3-6 month and 6-month old clothes for the colder season coming. Loved it! With two very doting grandmas (and other family) I'd only bought her one real outfit before then, which I got a month before she was born, and lots of onesies. I was unstoppable in the baby section. She really didn't care.

As for our trip to the hospital last month, it sucked. She went in for another dilation of her esophagus (her 5th) and the surgeon tried breaking through the scar tissue that he said would be a problem once she started on solid foods. Well, he got through the tissue, but ruptured her esophagus in the meantime (just a tiny tear). So at first we were just staying a couple of days till it healed to avoid infections. Well, because the surgery team is made up of idiots, two days turned into a full week in the hospital. It was always some BS excuse, but we finally left. She came home on TPN (IV nutrition) because she couldn't have anything in her stomach in case she refluxed it up, to avoid infecting the tear in the esophagus. So after being back at work for only 3 and half weeks (after a three and half month maternity leave) I got another three and a half weeks off to be home with her, because daycare would not take her with an IV (also a high risk for infection). But she healed nicely, and the surgeon says that her esophagus is staying open and she will hopefully not need another big surgery sometime next year. In fact, we don't even have another dilation scheduled. We go back in 5 months for a check up and that's it. So maybe once she gets to eating by mouth, all this nasty business will be behind us and I can burn that G-Button. It was annoying to be in the hospital for a week and home for another 2, but if it saves us from going through that surgery again, I'll take it.

She also got a helmet last month, to help shape her head. It's a little flat on the left, and if we want it properly shaped, we need to get started before she gets much older. She really hates the thing, but she doesn't really get a say at this point. They recommend using it no less than 4 months, but since it's all cosmetic, it's up to us.

As the video below shows, Mia is now sitting up on her own. She's still a little unstable, but she doing pretty good. So here are a ton of pictures too, since I haven't posted in months. Enjoy!

Back to Work

After three and a half months of maternity leave, I started back to work today, though I didn't get much work done, as I spent all day being caught up on all our current clients and fighting to stay awake.

As for Mia, she had a pretty good first day at daycare. Of course I cried when I left her, but she seems to be in capable hands. There are several other babies in her room with feeding pumps, so it's nothing new to them.

Since April 23rd (the day she came home), we've had 2 dilations, 2 trips to the ER and a plethora of doctors' visits. She also started physical and speech therapy 4 weeks ago. There is definitely some improvement and I just have to tell myself to be patient. She will have to have another surgery some time next year to cut out scar tissue in her esophagus that will not allow solid food to pass. She is okay to swallow liquids until then, but first she has to learn how to do that. One of these days.

Oh, and for those keeping score, she's 13 pounds now. That's right: she's gained over 10 pounds since birth!

The house is getting closer to the way we want it. We're actually going to turn our spare bedroom into a guest bedroom (imagine that!) once we get new bedroom furniture for our room and the kitchen is a big project that will eventually be tackled. Overall the place is much more presentable now, as long as the dog and cat don't destroy it in the meantime.

That's about it. I'll certainly miss the sleeping in till 8:30 Mia allowed me everyday. The working world isn't so kind.

Cheers!

Been Kinda Busy

Vacation and moving have kept me from updating. Oh, and general laziness. Sorry! I'll warn you now that this will be a an update mainly on vacation and the new house. I'll post a Mia update soon, since that's why you really come here.

There were a few graduations in the Thuro family this year, and at the end of May we drove up to Springfield to attend a graduation party for Brad, Kevin and Angie. The next day we set out for a week long vacation in Eureka Springs with some of my side of the family. We had a beautiful lodge overlooking the White River and had a mostly relaxing week.

Unfortunately, I was awakened one morning by Mom's panicked hollering because Mia's G-Button had come out. Brad was out fishing with Uncle Kyle and I had never put the button back in before, though I had seen it done. After scrambling around to find a luer-lock syringe (to get the water out of the balloon, which holds the button in place in her stomach) I came to the horrific realization that we had no lubricant to help guide the button back into place. After several failed attempts of "winging it," we finally had to pile into the car and drive to the nearest capable hospital. I say "capable" because I called the hospital in Eureka Springs, and they told me they were not the best choice to handle something like that. So we had to drive about 25 minutes further to the hospital in Berryville. Too much time had elapsed by that point and the doctor had to reopen the site to the button back in. Then he insisted that Mia get an x-ray to make sure everything was alright. This kept us waiting around for another hour and a half. It wasn't a pleasant morning.

Other than that one mishap though, we had loads of fun shopping, riding jet skis, and relaxing in the hot tub.

The relaxation ended as soon as we got home though. We thought the previous owners of the house were moving out the following Monday. We got home on Friday to find out their movers were ahead of schedule and they would be out in 30 minutes. So we got a U-Haul and started loading things up immediately. We got all the big stuff moved in less than 24 hours. A big thanks to Garrett and his cousin Jeff for helping and to Mom for watching Mia, so I could help too. (I do not recommend moving with a baby.)

We were completely out of the rental house by Monday and started painting the new house. Every room in the house was beige when we moved in. We had to remedy that. Mia's nursery was first to get a makeover and it looks fantastic. The two bathrooms followed and now the living room and hallway are done. I still have a few things to do to the master bedroom. We want to do a lot more to the kitchen than just paint (new appliances, new counter tops, strip the cabinets) so it'll be a little while before we get started on that. Brad's talking like he may start on it next month when he gets a week of vacation, so maybe it won't be too long. We also have the spare bedroom/office to redo, but haven't really decided exactly what we're going to be doing yet. I'm hoping to turn it into a real guest bedroom eventually.

The biggest thing was getting the roof replaced. The inspector told us that the place needed a new roof. We finally got that project started this morning. At first we woke up to the sound of footsteps on our roof at 5:30 a.m. Then I fell back asleep, only to wake up to the sound of rain dripping through my bedroom ceiling. Turns out they started tearing off the old roof, when an unexpected storm came through and they didn't have enough tarp to cover what they had already undone. So all the three bedrooms (you know, the only three rooms with carpet) got a nice shower this morning. Thankfully no permanent damage to electronics or furniture occurred. The roofer got a carpet cleaner here in about an hour (the storm only last 20 minutes minutes, but it was a heavy rain) and he got to work cleaning up the mess. We'll still be sleeping on the sofa tonight, since our room has two huge turbo fans blowing in it. Hopefully everything will be back to normal in a couple of days.

Oh, and Brad started seeing patients as a real doctor two weeks ago, but I'll let him tell you all about that if he ever decides to update.

I'll get pictures of the house posted when it's fit to be seen. Right now, it still looks like we just moved in.

New Life Lesson: Never Order a Cake from Kroger

So what's wrong with this picture?

I know it's been awhile, but not a lot is going on...really. Brad is now officially a doctor, but I will let him tell you all about that if he ever posts on graduation. We did take Mia to the big event and I only had to get up and leave with her twice, but thankfully got to see Brad walk across the stage and get his degree. You may call him doctor now.

Mia's getting huge. She was up to 9 lbs. 9 oz. last Tuesday. She's getting her social smile down and she babbles quite a bit, mainly when she's mad. She has another dilation in a couple of weeks (the week we move, of course!) and I plan to ask her doctors about maybe getting her feeds bolused so we can go down on the time she spends on the pump. Twenty hours out of the day is a lot to be hooked up to a machine. Or bottle feed during the day and be on the pump at night. I fear what will happen if she's still on that thing by the time she starts crawling.

And for now we're just hanging out till we move in about two weeks. We officially have too much stuff.

Happy Mother's Day!