Cardiologist

More info on the cardiologist visit: We waited in the doctor's office instead of the waiting room since it was crowded and several people were coughing. The doctor remembered us from evaluating Claire when she was 3 days old. Back then in May, he sat with my Mom and I out on the patio at the hopital he described her condition, and drew a diagram so I could explain everything later to Mark who was out running errands at the time. Originally, she had three issues,
Atrial Septal Defect, Ventricular Septal Defect, and one valve instead of two between the upper and lower chambers.
Fast-forward to the present: The hole between the two lower chambers has closed and the most pressing problem is the valve. The Doctor re-iterated that this will requre surgery in the next year or so. He will continue to monitor her regularly.

For the next appointment I'm going to go to one of their other offices because it is closer to our house and I'm hoping the waiting room will be bigger and less stuffy. This time I was glad to wait somewhere else since I worried Claire might catch something in the crowded waiting room. The doctor let us wait in his office which was nice and peaceful.

Firsts

Sometimes I have a hard time coming up with a title for these things...
Some firsts: We noticed tears for the first time when Claire got her shots the other day and she is beginning to drool a little which we never saw before this week.
She had her first visit from Lanternman Regional Center this morning. The therapist evaluated her and said she seems very normal for her age and she recommends monthly followup sessions to determine if any physical or ocupational therapy is necessary.

My parents left this morning. It was so great having them here. It will be a challenge to feed ourselves and keep on top of daily chores without my mom around.
Claire just fell asleep, so I'm going to go nap too.

busy week

We have been very busy with Doctor Visits this week. We were happy to find out Claire's weight of 5 pounds, 14 ounces during her Pediatrician visit. Also, they measured her and said she is 1 inch longer than her previous vist 2 weeks ago. We are pretty happy with her growth rate. It wasn't much news to Jen, since she knew of Claire's weight from the Cardiologist visit the day before.

The main reason for out visit was to get immunization shots. Jen & I have done lots of research and agonized over this, so we had lots of questions to ask the doctor. It sounds like modern practices have responded well to many of the concerns of the past, so we don't plan on skipping any shots. But we did decide to delay some in order to spread them out since she is still such a lightweight. Claire screamed mightily during the two shots, one in each thigh. As I write this blog entry, it is about 36 hours later, and she seems to have suffered none of the side-effects, or temporary discomforts, so we are thankful.

Today, Jen went to a La Leche League meeting this morning, and apparently Claire picked up a few pointers (or benefitted from the "practice") and had her most successful nursing session yet.

Tomorrow is another visit from the "Regional Center" people. So this week contained a baby-related appointment or meeting EVERY DAY. I am looking forward to less activity next week. Maybe we'll have time to shop for a stroller. I can't believe we don't have one yet.

Sunday visits

We had a lovely visit from Claire's Lompoc grandparents on Sunday and my Mom and Mark's mom enjoyed seeing each other again after a long time. Caire also got to meet her Abuelito (grandfather) for the first time. Now all of her grandparents have had a chance to see her... next is her great grandmother. I had fun photographing her yesterday afternoon sitting/ laying on the beautiful quilt that her great grandmother made for her.

Doctor Visits

Today began the marathon of doctor visits. Claire visited the ophthalmologist in Santa Monica this morning. The doctor said that her eyes are perfect. The nerves and blood vessels have all matured and have grown the correct way. Claire will return in 6 months for a check up to see that her eyes are working together symmetrically.
Tomorrow we see the cardiologist and Wednesday the pediatrician. And we plan to go to a La Leche meeting on Thursday if we still have the energy.

Claire nursed a little in the waiting room and I think she got some milk. She put in a good effort at suckling. It was hard to watch as the doctor used one device to hold Claire's eye wide open and another tool to nudge the eye this way and that in order to give it a thorough examination. Claire screamed louder and longer than I'd ever heard her cry before. Poor little angel. It was rather torturous for me. The doctor says it doesn't hurt it is just uncomfortable and makes them panic. After the ordeal we sat and chatted for a long while and she recommended not letting Claire watch TV at all until at least age 4. She said that there is research to support the idea that TV viewing at a young age contributes to attention deficit.

tech note

I changed the settings on this blog to allow more people to add comments. We like comments. Click on the link below each post to leave a comment--it is labeled, "0 comments (click here to add a comment)."

Also, remember we like comments on the pictures at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hudsonthego/ also.

Links to fellow bloggers:

BourgeoisBurglars

Bourgeois-Baby

G suffers

nathanpjones

Torgusborg

MarkHu at Blogspot