Tummy Time

Silje could finally start tummy time this week. She had to wait 6 weeks post surgery. She wasn't terribly impressed. She fussed a little, but did stay on her tummy for about 30 minutes. She didn't try to lift her head at all though. She will lift her head if she's lying on someone's chest though.

Fiddlers

This weekend is the Indiana Fiddlers' Gathering in Battle Ground, so we went over yesterday afternoon. We had a nice time, and Stian really seemed to enjoy the music. Silje slept through much of it. There was also a square dance later that we didn't get any pictures of, but Stian sat and watched that for a long time too.

Cardiology Appointment

Silje had an appointment yesterday with her cardiologist. We drove down to Indy to meet with her. Incidentally, she does come up to Lafayette occassionally, so we will be able to have other appointments up here, but she wanted us to come to her office for the first appointment following her discharge from the hospital.

First they measured her weight and length. She was 10 lbs 5 oz. So she has gained nicely from last week. And she was 23" long. She was only 21.5" or so last week, but was 21" at birth. I had figured after her measurement last week that her birth measurement had been inaccurate, as that put her in the 90-95th percentile for length. But now I'm thinking last week was inaccurate and her birth measurement and yesterday's were the right ones, and she's just a tall/long baby.

Next they did an EKG. They didn't say much about that, but for some reason Silje really didn't like it. I have no idea why, it's pretty unobtrusive. But she really cried about it, which is odd for her. I don't think Kris and I have ever really heard her cry like that before.

After she calmed down, and fell asleep actually, they took her blood pressure. They took it in both her arm and her leg. There was about a 20 point difference, with her arm reading higher than her leg. This indicates that there is likely some stenosis in the aortic arch, where they had done the repair, as that area supplies blood to the lower part of the body. Dr. A said this wasn't anything to worry about yet, but they would keep an eye on it. If they need to they can put a balloon up into that area and expand it to get it to stretch. This would require an overnight in the hospital, but is not a particularly dangerous procedure.

Next was the echocardiogram. Silje didn't mind this at all, even though it lasted quite awhile. In fact she slept through the first half of it or so. The echo tech looked for a long time, and then Dr. A came in and also took some images. They were looking at the whole heart, but in particular they were looking at the aortic arch and the aortic valve. They both look good. The valve is a little underdeveloped because it was not used much as the arch was interrupted, but Dr. A said it actually looks pretty good. That could be a potential problem in the future, but Dr. A isn't too worried about it. The other thing she mentioned, which she said they had noticed before, but I don't remember them ever saying anything to us about it ealier is that she has higher pressure than normal in her pulminary arteries. I guess this isn't all that uncommon because in younger people they make more of a right angle, and as you get older the go up more and the pressure lessens. But hers is more pressure than normal. So something else that we don't need to be terribly worried about, but they will keep an eye on.

Overall Dr. A thought she was looking really good and was very happy with how she is doing.

Here is the image of the heart that Dr. A gave to us to show us what she was talking about.



After our appointment we stopped by the PICU to say hello. They had told us when we left to come by sometime after she was discharged because they love to see their kids later when they are healthy. So we stopped by and saw a few of the people we had worked with during our time there, including the nurse we got to know the best, Tiffany. She was happy to see Silje again, and see her doing so well. I'm sure it does feel good to them to see these kids later and see that their hard work paid off.

Oh, and yesterday was our 10th wedding anniversary! Going to the cardiologist wasn't the most fun way to celebrate, but getting a pretty good bill of health for our little girl was a good present.

Sleepy Head

Silje turns 6 weeks old tomorrow! On the one hand I can't believe she is already six weeks old, but on the other we've been through so much in her short little life it seems longer than that.

Here's just a cute picture of her sleeping on my shoulder this evening. This is her new favorite way to be held.



And here she is napping the other day. It amazes me that she doesn't need to be swaddled. I swaddled her the first few nights we were home and she kept working at least one, if not both arms out of the swaddle. So I quit bothering with it and she sleeps fine without it. Of course I bought all these really nice muslin swaddling blankets that I'm not using now. Ah well, we'll find another use for them.

New Pool

We got Stian a bigger pool for this summer. He got into it for the first time tonight. He kept saying "I really like this pool!" and "This is really fun!" so I guess it gets two thumbs up from Stian. It's big enough that Kris got into it with him later. I was making dinner at the time though, so didn't get a picture of that.

Here's Stian filling it up the other night:





And then him playing in it tonight:





(Yes, it even has cup holders! Fancy, no?)



Silje was hanging out in her stroller while Stian played.

Silje's First Pediatrician Appointment

Silje has seen about a million different specialists, but yesterday was her first appointment with her normal pediatrician. The appointment was pretty uneventful, except that he thought she looked really good. She's up to 9 lbs 4 oz too, which is great. That means she is still gaining weight now that we are home. We will see him again in two weeks, and if she is still gaining well we can take her off of the fortified breastmilk. Right now she nurses primarily, but gets two bottles a day of breastmilk with formula added to up it's caloric value to help her gain weight. Heart babies often have a hard time gaining weight because they get so exhausted from breastfeeding that they quit before they get enough. So this will be another sign that she is getting stronger.

Here are two pictures I took of her smiling yesterday. She is just starting to do a "social smile" - as they call it. So a smile in response to someone, not just some random smile that babies do in the beginning. She's not consistent in it, but I can sometimes get her to smile by talking to her. She also smiles at the ceiling fan sometimes (.just like big brother used to) but I'm not sure that's really a social smile.





And then a cute picture of big brother. He's still having some issues adjusting to life with another little person in the house, but we've been home less than a week, so hopefully it will get easier with time. He's just been acting up more and being more difficult. Though he doesn't say he has any problems with Silje, and doesn't really appear to, I would expect this acting up is in reaction to her. It might also just be adjusting back to having Mommy and Daddy home again after so long and figuring out where those boundaries lie again.

A Family of Four

Now we are adjusting to being a family of four. Stian is doing pretty well with it, but definitely has his moments of jealousy. We are all lucky that Silje is a very mellow baby. It makes it much easier for Stian that she is pretty calm. Yesterday we took them both to the library, then the farmers' market and then Menards. Silje didn't cry or fuss at all during the outing. Stian would have cried most of the time at her age. I'm happy for Stian that Silje is so chill. I think it would be really hard on him if she demanded so much attention from us all the time. And today we took them to the park and out to lunch. So far it's going pretty well.