Six Pounds!

Today Henry hit 6 pounds! He's finally closing in on what a typical newborn would weigh. A bit exciting and depressing at the same time.

Our excitement over this milestone was tempered by some major vomiting this morning. This time it was bad enough that we made a visit to the pediatrician. He advised increasing his dosage of Reglan from .2 ml's to .3 ml's. He is also going to check with the GI doctor about changing him from his current acid blocker to a different one that is stronger.

In the waiting room at the doctor's office a woman was admiring him and commenting on how small he was. She asked how old he was and I realized I don't really know how to answer that. I guess it would make the most sense to say he is 3 1/2 weeks old, based on his due date. Thankfully he isn't going to be out in public too often so we won't have to try to explain his circumstances too many times. Otherwise I might just have to print up business cards to hand out to save us the trouble of explaining over and over what his situation is.

We tried to take him for another walk tonight but it rained. In Arizona. Go figure.

Feeding him lately has become an exercise in patience. He frequently gets very worked up and will suck for a few moments before batting the bottle out of his mouth, flailing his head side to side and screaming. Wait a few moments and insert the bottle and he calms down and sucks for a few moments before repeating the screaming and flailing. Patience isn't my strong suit right now. Feeling exhausted and frustrated I said to Kate today, "How is it that the planet is over populated?" I can't imagine putting oneself through this more than a couple times in one's life.

Amazingly he is still growing despite the vomiting and flailing. One of our friends said that fussiness often precedes the development of a new skill. If that is the case I'm expecting him to create a perpetual motion machine or start speaking mandarin Chinese any minute now.

We made an appointment with yet another set of doctors today. These are actually doctors from the NICU who have a developmental clinic. Woohoo, more doctors!

Last night I took the night shift and Kate relieved me around 5am so I could go work. Henry was actually fairly restful. The problem is that before putting him to bed we have to hook him up to the apnea monitor. This requires a belt that goes around his chest under his clothes. So if we don't think ahead we find ourselves with a peacefully resting baby with no monitor strap on. To put him to bed we would have to wake him up to put the strap on. Bye bye peacefully resting baby. Last night I just let him sleep which meant zero sleep for me. I'll try to remember to put that monitor strap on earlier in the evening from now on but my mind just isn't working too well.