Yesterday was Rebecca and Joanna’s 8 month birthday. I’m posting a couple of pictures showing what 8 months have done for Joanna. She is still having trouble gaining weight. Jessica just called and told me she has lost 1 ounce this past week. The week before that she lost 2 ounces. The feeding clinic is trying many different techniques to help her increase her weight gain. Right now and for the last 2-3 weeks she has been without the feeding tube, hence the weight loss. She got to the point where she was pulling it out about every other day. Without it they decided to flavor her breastmilk with Nestle Strawberry milk syrup. She loves it but she was puking every time she ate. So, they decided to give her straight breast milk without even the Neo-sure powder. She has been doing that for about a week now but still not gaining. She is still growing in length and her head circumference but not adding weight. She is very alert. This weekend we put her in her bouncing seat that hangs on the door opening. She is trying to figure it out and likes it in short sessions. She is cooing and talking all of the time and knows how to get what she wants. She is sleeping through the night for about 12 hours which also contributes to her weight loss. We went to Cincinnati about 3 weeks ago for a cardiology genetics visit. They did an echo and found that her PDA is still open but they can’t hear it anymore so they think it’s closing. They are wanting to rule out any sign of cardiac issues that affected Rebecca that could be genetic. They don’t see any sign of that at this point. We go back in 3 weeks for some more appointments and while we’re there Jessica and I will be getting echos done to make sure we don’t have enlarged hearts. They say an adult will show signs by the age of 30 if they have it. Once they rule it out for us, they will be satisfied Rebecca’s was secondary to her congenital valve defect and not genetic. Therefore, Joanna will be given an all clear. She has appointments with orthopedic doctors to follow up on her arms and legs. She has been receiving occupational therapy in our home weekly now since we have been home. She seems to be improving but her neck is still really tight when she tries to turn it to the left. Overall she is doing very well, we just need her to start putting on some pounds.
The other girls are doing well also and are excited for Christmas. Katelyn has been going to pre-school 4 days a week in the morning and Kenlee just started going a couple weeks ago. She is only going Monday and Wednesday for a couple hours in the morning. This gives Jessica some time to get some things done. They do a great job of keeping the house a wreck for us, but they also keep us entertained so I guess it’s a good trade off (see below). Alexis is having a good school year earning straight A’s the first grading period. Last weekend she went to an overnight church camp which she had a great time at. She’s also helping out a lot at church in the children’s ministry, which they are grateful for.
Jessica continues to be an awesome asset around the house. She keeps everything going at the house from laundry to groceries. She don’t know how much she is appreciated, allowing me to work and follow endeavors. She has taken on some part time consulting work that she really enjoys doing. It’s just hard to find time for both of us to do everything we want or need to do. Our neighbors probably think we have the most dysfunctional family because I will pull in and she will leave then vice versa. Somehow we are making it work but there aren’t any extra minutes in the day. Great things are happening in our lives and we are so blessed to have these opportunities.
We finally ordered our monument for the cemetery week before last. We had looked at them a while back but finding the time to go without kids to look and decide on the design made us keep putting it off. Finally, we got tired of going to the cemetery and not having it there. Also, we wanted to make sure all bills were paid before spending the extra money on the one we really wanted. It’s a beautiful stone and it will hopefully be placed in the next month or two.
