Thanks for the Prayers!

Thanks so much for the prayers - they are being answered! E bug had a great check-up at the Spina Bifida Clinic yesterday. We met with the doctor (aka, the Spina Bifida guru), a nurse practitioner (who I loved) and the nutritionist. E did not have her urodynamic test done because she has not seen the urologist yet, but we will get it scheduled in the next few weeks. The good news is that since her last test was negative (meaning no urine back up in the kidneys), they do not anticipate that the results will be any different this time. If that's the case, we will NOT have to catheterize her! Since it is dangerous for young babies to get UTI's, they went ahead and gave her a prophylactic antibiotic to prevent any infections until we know her test results Please continue to pray that we will have good results once the study is run.

In addition, we got further confirmation that E does not have bowel continence issues; they feel all her pooping is a result of being a breastfed baby. Apparently, babies who are breastfed can poop anywhere from 15 times a day to once a week. E just happens to be a big pooper, and they aren't concerned with it at all. They gave us some medications and cream for her raw bootie which will hopefully FINALLY clear up the diaper rash that she has had since she was in the hospital!

E gained some more weight over the last two weeks, but only 7 ounces. (She should have gained twice that.) She is up to 7 lbs., 1.5 oz. The good news is that she is gaining weight, the bad news is that she's not gaining enough. As a result, the nutritionist has given us a recipe to make E's formula supplement higher in calories so that it has more milk and less water. They also want me to make sure she's getting at least 8 feedings a day. Hopefully, this will help her put on some more lbs. and be able to fit into all of her cute clothes. Otherwise, she may be naked this winter.

The only thing we are doing "wrong" is not scrubbing E's head hard enough during her bath to get the stitches to dissolve. They said we really need to get them out by Monday. If not, we will have to take her back to the neurosurgeon to have him clip them because she could develop a knot otherwise. I have to admit I'm a wimp and won't do it because I don't want to hurt her. I asked Jeff to do it and he refused. Needless to say, we will be going to the neurosurgeon's next week ;)

I can't tell you how glad I am that E got an earlier appointment at the SB clinic! (You may recall she wasn't going to be seen until November.) Now we are able to work on all these issues that we otherwise would have had to wait six more weeks to fix. And I feel so fortunate that E is doing so well. They asked all kinds of questions about health problems that other children with Spina Bifida have, like problems with vision, hearing, breathing, swallowing and eating; none of which E has. Thank you, God!!! I also feel very blessed that we were given her diagnosis prenatally. We are at such an advantage that we have been able to prepare in advance. We had all the right specialists involved from the beginning and weren't blind-sided by anything!