10 Months!!!

It's been almost two months since I last posted on here, I apologize!

9 months! 

Eli has been doing great! I'm so proud of this little guy, he has more energy than I know what to do with. He is so strong it is literally exhausting trying to hold him or  keep him contained. Even though he is not sitting or crawling yet (we're working on it) he can roll himself just about anywhere.  We have done our initial "interview" with Early Intervention to get him help with his gross motor skills. He is on target with everything besides crawling and sitting, he will only sit for a short amount of time but then will stiffen his back out to lay flat.

Eli has 5 teeth now and loves to use them to bite just about anything. He will eat any food you give him and enjoys every flavor of baby food. He's also had some table food like avocado, refried beans, french fries, tomatoes, and a few other random things. Previously we were under certain restrictions to not have too much excess liquids because it's hard for these heart babies to get rid of it, so his bottle feedings were very specific amounts. I am happy to say at the end of March all restrictions were lifted and we were told to feed him "what he wants, when he wants it". He was eating every 3 hours except in the middle of the night and would only get a certain amount of formula or rice cereal mixed with baby food. We were/are used to that schedule so Eli still sticks to those time frames pretty much but you can tell he is increasingly hungrier.


In February at his monthly cardiology appointment they took him off of all medicine except 40.5mg of aspirin. That was a huge step for us and helped us out financially as well. At his March appointment we had to do a 24 hour test where he was hooked up to a Holter Monitor to check his heart rate during all aspects of the day. Since Eli was taken off of his medicine in February to regulate his rate and it can last in your system for some time, Dr. Husayni wanted to see how Eli was doing at regulating it himself. We don't want any more very scary atrial fibrillation episodes like we did last July that landed us in the PICU for 3 weeks.

When we go back to see Dr. Husayni in two weeks we will get the results of that test, which I assume everything went well since we didn't hear anything. Eli will have an echo cardiogram done at this appointment as well to ensure that the two stents placed in his heart are doing their jobs. If things look good the doctor may even take him off of his aspirin which would mean a medicine free Eli! That is a huge accomplishment for these babies, like HUGE!

On April 17th we will be meeting to see if Eli physically qualifies for therapy. You have to be more than 30% behind your age group goals, but we were told he may qualify just based off of his heart problem. I am hoping he qualifies because I want him to catch up and be able to sit up. He would be a happy baby too just knowing he can get around that much easier instead of rolling.

10 months and eating squash!

Can you believe I'm already planning his 1st birthday!?! I feel like the first 3-4 months of his life went by so slow and now these last few months are flying by. I guess maybe because things have been going so smoothly and we haven't had any real setbacks that things have flown, for that I'm very grateful! Let just keep things on pace as they are, him growing and learning and discovering new things everyday. Oh I almost left out that he has a few words, his first word was Mama! He also knows Dada and gaga which I think he uses for grandma. He came down with a cold a few weeks ago and every time he would cry grandma would say to him "mama?" and that evening as we all sat down to eat Sunday dinner Eli said it clear as day. I was so proud!

I promise not to take so long to post next time, like my mom says "no news is good news!".