back to the ENT

Now that we are posting again I will try to keep it up. We went to see Dr. Ingles (the ENT) this morning. We noticed that Sophia has once again picked up a bit of a strider (making squeaking noises as she sleeps) and that her voice quality isn't always the best. She has also stagnated in her feeding progress when it comes to taking the bottle. Dr. Ingles scoped her and said that her left vocal cord (which we thought was working) is not moving much, if at all. But, her right one is doing a great job compensating which is why she has a voice and can feed as well as she does. So, all we can do is wait and see if this changes. For now we need to find feeding strategies to help her continue compensating - we really don't want to put the NG tube back in.
So, now we start the next round of appointments - feeding therapist, 6 month well-baby + shots and cardiology. The positive thing this morning was running into other members of the CHD support group - I hope your appointments went well!

pictures from last week

an update...finally...

We apologize for this long silence - somehow time has just flown by. Happily, we can say that Sophia is doing well and has grown a lot in the past couple months.
We don't need to go back to see her cardiologist (Dr. Lewin) till Oct 29th. Our last echo in July showed that her heart was growing normally. They noted some turbulence in one area and a very small hole left where the VSD patch is but we were assured that these were nothing to worry about. For now they will keep monitoring her - the main thing to check for is that her reconstructed aorotic arch grows as she does.
We have also made some progress on the feeding front. For the past 25 days Sophia has had her feeding tube out! The first week was hard - she just barely took in enough milk to keep herself hydrated. Now she is staying hydrated but not taking enough in to grow as fast as she had been when she had the tube....so we are not sure what to do and getting her to take the bottle can be pretty stressful some days. Hopefully this will improve because we really don't want to go back to a feeding tube. Also, we are still feeding her 3 times a night so it would be great if she could get more in during the day (then Christopher and I could also sleep more). We have also started her on solid foods - she loves bananas and in general enjoys eating from a spoon which is great.
Overall though, we are finally settling into parenthood and enjoying it. Sophia is a very happy little girl with a ready smile. Right now her favorite activities are playing with her stuffed horsey, laughing with daddy and taking walks in the garden - especially if she can get her hands on a flower and shred it).