1st pediatrician appt

Tanner-Man was a very good sport about his first doctor visit. Unfortunately, he threw one fit and that is when I took the picture. He DID NOT like to be unclothed in the doctor's office. I guess it was the temperature difference because his doctor was very gentle with him. I had never met his doctor, but I like him so far. He was very willing to answer all of my questions and I even had a written list of things I wanted to go over. He commented that he was glad that I had written them all down. That was a good sign because I tend to annoy doctors with my never-ending questions. It is part of my educational/science background, as well as part of my general personality. Of course, I thought of many more after we left, but I called the office and they got right back with me and answered every concern! My cousin's wife, Amanda, went with me (since Tobin had to go back to work) and she was a HUGE help! So, thank you Amanda for being there for me and Tanner yesterday!

Tanner has to have two follow up appts: one with a cardiologist to make sure the little murmur is gone or at least that it hasn't grown anymore, and one to have him re-evaluated with a car seat test. Both in mid-late July. His new stats are as follows:

19 inches long

6 lbs and 4 oz

belly button completely healed

use saline drops for congestion

the thrush is back-use Nystatin again

So, I have to write all of this down to keep it straight....feed him 8 times per day, pump 8 times per day (not always near the same time), give him the Nystatin 4 times per day orally and on his bum, vitamins once/day, and add EnfaCare to every bottle for extra calories. They want him at 22 calories per oz of breastmilk. Normal breastmilk only has 18-20 cal/oz.

We are settling in to somewhat of a routine, I guess you could call it. It is more of a "get used to Tanner's schedule that can change at any time" type deal. At first, I set my double alarm for every three hours, which is how often he fed in the NICU. However, we soon found that he might be asleep at that time, or just not hungry yet. So, do you re-set the alarm, and if so, for when? He has also graduated from a slow nipple on the bottle to a medium one. He was compressing the slow-speed nipple flat, wearing himself out, and not getting much milk on top of that.

We have had several visitors and even had dinner brought to us last night. Thank you Mary D. and family! That helped immensely since we have spent a small fortune eating out while driving back and forth the to hospital for 3 weeks. Our BBQ grill died and I don't seem to have time to fix much more than a sandwich here and there.

Overall, we are adjusting to having our little man here at home. I just love to hold him and watch him sleep. He makes the cutest little faces and smells so wonderful! I was scared of the pain involved in bringing him into this world, but everyone was right. It was a pain easily forgotten and I can't imagine life without him!