Gavin's First Month

Its hard to believe Gavin has been with us a whole month already! His official one month check-up isn't until next Friday, but here's some of his "stats".

• Eating 4-5 oz per feeding, which is about every 4 hours (during the day)
• Only waking up once during the night now, between 4-5am. 
• Loves being swaddled, especially at night time. 
• Prefers swinging front to back in his swing, as opposed to side to side.
• Has had 4 sets of casts on his feet already.
• Really trying to hold his head up.

My favorite of the above is the only-waking-once stat. We feed him his last bottle around 11, then we go straight to bed, he's up between 4-5, and then not again until around 8am. Its pretty fabulous. In a month or two we'll slowly push up his bedtime so that eventually he'll go down when we put Elias down around 8:30.

Today I took Gavin to Boston for two appointments. 

First we saw Dr. Cassidy, his hand doctor. To put it simply, it seems like the tendons in his middle fingers and thumbs are short, causing them to not extend. So to treat it we're going to cast his hand to try and stretch out his fingers as much as possible. Both hands will be cast, but we only had one put on today to spare him the agony of having all 4 limbs in casts at the same time. I don't know where my boys get their toughness from...neither Kevin nor I have a high pain tolerance, but neither Gavin nor Elias shed a tear when getting these casts. We will go back once a week to get a new cast to stretch them more and more, just like we did with the feet. 

Then we had Gavin's appointment with Dr. Gholve for his feet, and we got some fantastic news. Gavin's feet have responded so well to the castings that this set he has on now will be his last!! Thats a total of only 4 sets  he'll have had. He doesn't need a tenotomy or any surgery on either foot! So next Friday Gavin will get his Ponsetti boots that he'll wear all day and night for 3 months. 

Dr. Gholve then threw me a curve ball and asked us if we wanted to have Elias' foot surgery next Thursday. So we're going to go in on Tuesday, take some x-rays and see if the bones have ossified, and if they have indeed done so, it looks like we'll be going in on Thursday for surgery. This will be a more major surgery for Elias, as he'll be in a full leg cast for 6 weeks post-op. We'll see how he likes that...

And I can't resist not sharing these sweet pictures of Elias' little friends, Haddyn and Wyatt. We love our playdates with the Backlunds!

Stinky, Take 2!

If you've followed our blog from the beginning, you might remember that the first time Elias smiled was when I did this...

And still to this day, for some reason, "stinky" is still so funny to him!

June/July Videos

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Gavin @ 3 Weeks!

I can't believe its already been a little over 3 weeks since Gavin joined our little family! Any spare time I've had in the past 3 weeks has mostly been spent resting. This will most likely be a lengthy update, so here we go...

We were fortunate enough to have family come stay and help us for the first week when Gavin arrived. My Mom, Mom-Mom, and sister Alexis came the day after he was born and stayed for a week. We also had Kevin's mom and Step-Dad join us for a long weekend. It was so good to have them all here, and having the extra help with Elias was a huge help for me. 

Elias has adjusted extremely well to having his new brother around. You wouldn't even know anything changed in his life. While he's not all about the baby yet, he does acknowledge him from time to time. Every morning he comes out of his room, points to Gavin in the bassinet, says "baby" and then blows a kiss. Gets me every time :)

Kisses!

Both drinking their milk!

For whatever reason, I recovered much, much faster from the cesarean this time around (thank the Lord!). The day after the c-section, I was up, showering, and moving about the room. I remember last time with Elias, the first two days after surgery I could hardly make it down to the NICU to see him. I only needed narcotics for 2 days after we left the hospital, and after that for about a week Motrin was enough. I was feeling so good, in fact, that I probably overexerted myself a bit in the first week we were home. Up until about a week ago, I was feeling great. Then seemingly all of the sudden, I started getting pain on the right side of my incision. It intensifed as the days went by, and soon I felt a lump where the pain was originating. The doctor did an ultrasound, and it looks like its some mass of fluid or blood that's built up. I'm now on medication to try and get it to go away, but if its not gone by next Friday, we're going to have to either removed or drained. 

Gavin is now on his third set of casts. In fact, his feet are responding so well to the casts that his right foot is just about fixed already! The doctor thinks he might be done castings all together in just 3 more weeks or so. He may need a tenotomy at the end of castings before he goes into braces, but its a very quick, in office procedure. 

We determined with the pediatrician that Gavin was moderately tongue tied, and decided that we wanted to have it taken care of so that it wouldn't stand in his way developmentally later on. It was a very quick, in office procedure where they snip the band thats holding the tongue down. He cried of course, but as soon as we went back into the room 2 minutes later and I gave him the bottle, he was all better. It was pretty amazing! Interestingly enough, I've read that this can run in families. Kevin's brother's son, Zion (so our nephew) was tongue tied as well. Genetics is a crazy thing, isn't it? 

Gavin is for the most part a very easy baby. He's fallen into a great routine where he's eating 4 oz, snuggling for a little bit, and then sleeping for about 3.5 hours or so. At night time, we feed him before we go to bed around 11/12, he's usually up around 3:30ish, and then back to sleep until around 7. He loves the pacifier but has had trouble keeping it in his mouth, and we're thinking part of that might have been from his tongue not being able to get under it. So hopefully now that his tongue is taken care of he'll be able to self soothe a little better. When we left the hospital July 1, he weighed 6lbs4oz, and today at he weighed 8lbs3oz. He's chunking up pretty fast! 

We made a somewhat last minute trip as a family last week to New Jersey for an interview Kevin had for a youth director position at a church. We were a little nervous for the plane ride, but both boys did great! Hopefully we'll be hearing about the job soon! Kevin's had a few skype and phone interviews, so we're hopeful there's something out there for us! We're hoping the Lord reveals his plan to us sooner rather than later, as our lease here is up at the end of August. But we're confident in that His timing is the best timing, and if there's one thing we've  learned over the past 3 years, its to trust Him. 

"He' okay, right mom?"

I'll post some recent videos in the coming days as well.