Sunday, November 23, 2008

8 Months Old!


Teag turned 8 months old on friday and has been so happy these last few days. Our nights have been a little rough but hopefully once those bottom two teeth pop through things will get back to normal! Here are a few pics from this weekend. Happy 8 months teagee girl!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Big brother, little sister....

I caught Gav & Teag in one of those cute brother/sister moments tonight and had to share. Teag is finally getting big enough (and loud enough) that Gav has started to notice her more and 'play' with her. He talks to her about his toys, lets her hold his favorite trucks, and wants her to come in his room. I laid Teag on his bed for a minute while putting away the laundry and found them in the bed laughing tucked in together. So cute!

Tonight we went out for dinner with Uncle Cayle and Aunt Loren for Cayle's birthday. Gav loves them both so much and we all had a good time eating way too much bbq! Happy Birthday Uncle Cayle! Here they are 'striking a pose' only Gav forgot to look at the camera!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A brief appearance.....

The NG tube made a brief appearance over the weekend after 3 days of bad eating and throwing up. Teag just wasn't acting like herself and didn't want to eat very much at all. When I would try and get her to eat more, she would gag and throw up- sometimes just from looking at the bottle! I hadn't been feeling the greatest myself, so I assumed she was feeling like me and just didn't have much of an appetite. She just doesn't have the reserves to go for more than a day or two without eating alot so on Sunday night we put the tube back in. Thankfully, by Tues. evening she was able to eat enough on her own that we were able to take it out and get back to normal. I did enjoy the tube for giving meds though, thats the only part about the whole ng that is nice!
I took her in to the pediatrician on Monday just to rule out anything else that could be bothering her. Its always hard to know if its just a 'normal baby' thing or a heart issue when she seems a little off, and of course I always assume that its a heart issue.... Everything checked out ok though and the Dr. seemed to think that part of her not wanting to eat and crying at night is due to teething. Teething?! How nice if it really is something that simple!
Today we had our scheduled cardiology appointment which I was anxious about after everything thats been happening the last few days. Teag finally weighs 14lbs!!! Well, 14 lbs 1 oz to be exact! This was reassuring after our bad eating all weekend. Her sats were great also at 87 and her heart rate/bp were good too. After seeing all of her numbers looking so good, Dr. Toews decided not to do the echo which bummed me out a little. Its always nice to see whats happening on the inside, and know for sure how's she's doing. He didn't want to change any of her meds and we're not scheduled to go in again until January!
Teag's biggest issue of all lately is still her chest wound from her Sept. 9th surgery. It's still an open wound and not healed over yet. It has started to close some and scar but we still have a long way to go. I change her dressing and clean it daily which isn't fun for her, and lately has been causing her alot of pain. Its so frustrating to still be dealing with this almost 2 1/2 months after surgery. The pediatrician looked at it on Monday and said he wouldn't be surprised if it takes another 6-8 weeks to heal up. Everyone is in agreement that there will be a pretty significant scar left, but until its completely healed nothing can really be done to address that. The plastic surgery department at Children's told us to come back in a year and have her evaluated to see what needs to be done.
Here's miss 'itty bitty' sitting up like a big girl! Physical therapy is definitely making a difference and she can sit up for long periods of time by herself now!

Here's a picture of her chest wound today. Its still pretty bad, but actually much better than it was. The dr. said she was close to needing a skin graft in the beginning, so he's impressed with how its healing..... You can see where her skin has grown in filling the hole that used to be there. Now she just has those two open spots to work on before its healed over.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Itty Bitty

These were the words of the dietician on wed. when I asked how Teag looked for 8 months. "Itty Bitty" Not exactly what I was looking for considering that we spend most of the day figuring out new ways to get her to eat more! Most of the time Teag is able to weigh in right around the 5th percentile for age but now she's dropped to 0%! She is 8 months old in a week and weighed in at 13lbs 13oz gaining at a rate of about 1/4 oz per day. (They want her to gain 1 oz/day) The plan for now is to focus more on solids and try to give her 2-3 'meals' a day in addition to her formula. I know that putting the NG back in is always an option, but I don't even want to think about that yet...

The last few days Teag hasn't been feeling too well, extra fussy and throwing up 1,2 or even 3 times a day. I'm going to watch her over the weekend and see how she does, so far no fever and she's eating ok. She has a cardiologist appt. on wed. and I'm anxious to see how things look on the inside. Whenever she's acting a little off its hard not to think that its a heart issue.

Monday Teag has an evaluation for eating therapy. Then we'll start going once a week for that in addition to her twice a week physical therapy. She'll also get her first RSV shot of the season next week and see the cardiologist. Busy week!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Baby Mia!

I just wanted to post a quick note for all of you who follow our sweet heart friend baby Mia. Last night they got the call and right now she is in surgery receiving her new heart!!! Mia has been waiting 4 long months for her new heart and has been such a little fighter. Her mom Mimi is amazing and has been so strong and faithful as they've waited day after day for this day! Please keep Mia and her family in your prayers today that she will continue to be such a little trooper and that her body will accept her new heart! We're so excited for them and so grateful for the other family that made such a selfless decision in giving their baby's heart. Today IS the first day of Mia's new life!!! Yay for answered prayers!!! (you can follow her blog here)

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Happy Sounds

Here's another recent video of Teagan. She's really been expressing herself lately and I finally caught a little bit of it on video! She makes us laugh with all of her new sounds. Teag screams and grunts alot but in a happy sort of way- here are a few of those 'happy sounds'! Sorry its a little blurry!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Santa for President

Gav has seen some of the campaign ads on tv and wanted to know who McCain and Obama are. So we had a '3 year old' discussion about how everyone is going to vote today for a new president. He thought about it for a moment and said,"I want Santa to be President! Then we can have presents today!" ha...

Here's a short video of T's new 'trick'! Now whenever you ask her a question she smiles and shakes her head no- to everything!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Halloween!

Halloween was so fun this year! Gav dressed up as a 'Lightening McQueen' race car driver and Teagan was a sweet pea! She actually loved her costume and was all smiles the whole night. Gav was really into trick-or-treating this year and we were out there for almost 2 hours! He had to have a whole conversation with every neighbor that opened the door! He'd say,"Hey guys! Trick or treat-ing!" "I'm a raaaace car driver!"
Teagan had her swallow study on friday and thankfully it went really well! I had to bring a few empty bottles for the barium and they strapped her into a foamy booster seat in the x-ray machine. I fed her barium in different thicknesses to see how she swallowed and then we mixed some barium into a jar of baby food pears and fed her that. She hated the taste of all of it but swallowed enough down for the tech to get the pictures needed. It was determined that she isn't aspirating at all (yay!) and that she has a little reflux. We knew about the reflux and she is already taking Zantac for it so the tech didn't think we needed to make any changes. We will be seeing a speech therapist/feeding specialist starting next week though to see if we can get Teag to eat more. Right now there is no talk of needing the NG tube back in (yay again!) but she's not gaining much weight at all. So hopefully the therapist will have a few new tricks to help us pack on the pounds!