Officially full term!

Brooke's due date was on Saturday! Remember the scrapbook I posted about that my friend Heather made for us and gave to us at the baby shower? Well, she put a page in there titled

"June 21st, 2008"

"The Day Brooke Was Due"

which prompted me to do a "photo shoot" Saturday night. At first I didn't think Brooke was going to cooperate because every night between her 7pm and 11pm feedings, she acts like she's STARVING...yes, almost that *whole time. LOL. But I did get her to calm down and I got some great pics. Check them out.

This is how it started. LOL. She was ticked because the pacifier fell out of her mouth!

And now life is good again. LOL. Luckily I got her to cooperate (for the most part) w/out the pacifier.

Look at the biggie girl holding her head up!

It's hard work, though!

So calm : ).

Another feet picture, lol.

Long legs!

Trying to get that head up again, but it didn't happen.

This was hard to get! She kept trying to scoot away. LOL.

Here's another for size comparison....almost 3 months.

And at one month old. Bad mommy doesn't have a pic for 2 months : /.

And here is a baby picture of Ryan (finally) to compare with Brooke! He's the same size in this pic as she is now!

I stand corrected

I was sitting here last night really thinking about Brooke and her spitting up and she actually hasn't been spitting up as much the past couple days. So maybe the chiropractor *is helping. Or maybe it's just a coincidence. Either way we'll probably just take her the one more time (tomorrow night) and that's it, unless she starts getting worse or something again. The insurance covers the visit, but the $15 copays add up fast! (Of course right after I finished typing this paragraph, she spit up a mouthful of curdled-milk-like spit up. YUCK. Is that normal??)

The home health nurse was here this morning and Brooke weighed 6lb. 6.5oz. So that's just under the 1/2 an ounce a day minimum they like to see. I'm not sure if she's gaining so slowly now just because of the lower calorie formula (Neosure is 22 cal. per ounce and the Sensitive is 20 cal. per ounce) or if she's just having a slow spurt. I guess we'll wait and see what the doctor says when the home health nurse calls him with the update. I hope she has significant gain by Friday when the nurse comes again!

Yesterday evening, Brooke started coughing and sneezing a good bit. The cough sounds just like her "reflux cough" that she does occasionally, but she was doing it more. Coupled with the sneezing and then her not eating the greatest yesterday and being pretty fussy last evening, I thought for sure she was coming down with something. I was expecting a rough night, but she slept just fine and I actually had to wake her to eat at a quarter to 4 (about 5 hours since her previous feeding) and she drank almost that whole bottle. Then she drank her whole bottle at 8. The nurse said she sounds great. She actually hasn't sneezed yet today and has only coughed a few times this morning, so hopefully it's nothing!

Here's some pictures. I have some other ones that I'm going to put in a post all by themselves that I took on Saturday (her due date). But here's these for now!

Dressed up for Doug's mom and dad's vow renewal ceremony.

Before a bath. She made herself comfy while I was getting the water ready, lol. I was hoping she would wake up more when I put her on her belly, but nope!

This is where/how she sleeps at night...on the Boppy pillow in the bassinet next to my bed.

Hanging out on the end of the recliner after a diaper change. A lot of times I'll change her there so her head is slightly higher than her belly in hopes that she won't spit up and we almost always have something under her to catch any spit up.

Getting mad and I swear trying to roll over!

Ryan had to come make sure she was okay ; ). He gets very concerned when she cries or fusses! So cute!

Sucking on her hand.

Lifting her head up!

Sucking on the burp cloth. LOL.

Sacked out on the Boppy pillow downstairs.

Just looking cute ; ).

The home health nurse gave us these pictures. We taped them to the back of Ryan's chair, lol. Notice, we'll also fold up a burp cloth/cloth diaper to prop up against her pacifier to help keep it in her mouth because it's always popping out and then she gets mad!

I don't think I ever posted about Ryan's preschool graduation! It was on Wednesday, June 11th. They did a little program and sang a few songs. Ryan did SO well! Most of the pictures I took suck...they turned out so dark : (. But here's a pretty good one of him and his teacher, Mrs. Kristen, when he got his diploma!

Quick update...more later...

The new formula is going so-so. Brooke is still spitting up about the same amount, but she hasn't been having near as many painful episodes. I don't know if that's because the Zantac has finally taken effect or what. I've been told by a few people that it should work right away and a couple other people told me it can take up to 2 weeks to take effect. We decided to try taking her to the chiropractor to see if it may help with the reflux. It turns out she does have some restrictiveness in a couple spots on her spine that could be contributing to the reflux. The spine could be partially compressing nerves that control the signals to the muscles that keep food/liquid from coming back up. She's gone twice so far and is scheduled to go again today and Wednesday. So far I haven't noticed any difference, though : (. We've decided the next step will be to try some oatmeal cereal in her formula to see if it being slightly thicker will help it stay down better. I don't want to risk rice cereal constipating her because as it is she only poops every 3-4 days.

I'll post more later with pics! Sorry I've been slacking on posting so much : (.

Another doctor visit

I called the ped.'s office yesterday to see if I could get a different reflux med called in for Brooke. They wanted me to bring her in. First off, she's gained 6oz. since Monday! She's crossed the 6lb. mark and is now 6lb. 2oz.!

The ped. was reluctant to try a different medicine because I guess most of them aren't approved for babies, although some doctors do prescribe them. We decided to see if maybe the formula (Neosure) is the problem. He gave me a sample can of Similac Sensitive (lactose free) to try and see if maybe she won't have the spitting up problem. So we'll see how she does with that and then go from there!

On Wednesday, she puked (yes, puked...not just spit up) almost every time I burped her for her 7am, 11am, and 3pm feedings. She also had lots of tiny spit ups in between feedings. Yesterday, she didn't puke at all and didn't spit up too much, but she did have quite a few (5 or 6) episodes where she'll bring it up into the back of her throat and struggle and struggle to get it back down. Her face turns bright red and she arches her back as far as it will go and cries. It's so pitiful and I hate when it happens :*(. I hope this new formula helps! And if it doesn't, I hope she outgrows this soon!

Also, we decided to stop mixing my breast milk with the formula for now to see how she does, thinking maybe she's not tolerating something I was eating that she's getting through it!

I'll let you know how it all goes!

Oh, yeah...

I forgot I wanted to add in the last post a response to a question that was asked in the comments on the "Cloth diapers" post.

Yes, the pink diaper Brooke is wearing in the first pic in that post is the same diaper laying beside Brooke in this post (5th pic). So it fit her 2 months later! : )

Another check up

I had Brooke to the ped. yesterday for another check up. She now weighs 5lbs. 12oz. and is 19.25in. long! She has gained 1lb. 1oz. since coming home just over 3 weeks ago : ). YAY! She's still taking between 50 and 70 cc's per feeding. The reflux seems about the same, even with the Zantac. I told the ped. that and he said to try thickening her bottles with rice cereal. We did that with Ryan, but he was quite a bit older. I told him I would try it, but once I got home and thought about I decided I wasn't comfy with doing that with her. So I think I'm going to just call and ask to try a different med. I've heard Zantac doesn't always work great with the little ones.

I also had to take Ryan for a pre-op. appointment yesterday because he's getting his 2nd sedated eye exam next Monday. He has glaucoma in his right eye and is probably legally blind in that eye. He's very nearsighted in his left eye. His doctor wants to keep a close eye on things, especially with his left eye since that's his only good eye. Ryan isn't at the age where he's very cooperative for a thorough exam, hence the need for a sedated one. He had one in January '07 and it was super quick and not a big deal. Well, Ryan didn't wake up from the anesthesia in a very good mood, but other than that it went well! He was supposed to have this exam done on April 1st, I believe it was, but we postponed it due to my pregnancy complications and then Brooke ended up being born before that anyway. It was for the best to reschedule it, though!

Oh my, what a night we had last night! When I put Ryan to bed last night and kissed his head, I thought he felt awfully warm, but it was VERY hot and I chalked it up to that. I went up to bed about an hour and a half later, around 9:30, and went to pull the blanket away from him because he insisted on being covered up when he went to bed even though his room was like an oven. As soon as I walked in his room, I smelled "it". Puke. All over his bed and him and there he laid sleeping peacefully. LOL. How he could stand the stench, I have no idea : X. So Doug got his bed cleaned up and I got him in the bath tub (which he then didn't want to get out of even though he was practically falling asleep in there). I took his temp before he got a bath and it was 101.2! After his bath, I put a Be Kool patch on his forehead, which he seemed to really like. He went right back to sleep. I checked his temp a couple hours later and it was down to 99.8. This morning it was back down to normal. He hasn't thrown up again and he's been acting fine and keeping food and liquid down. He does have quite a bit of a heat rash on his back, though. I think the vomiting and all that was just heat related. There is now a fan in his bedroom window and that helped a lot last night. We had a fan in there last year and it somehow disappeared and we hadn't gotten a new one yet. So last night Doug went and borrowed one from his mom and dad. So that was our eventful night...I hope I never make a discovery like that again! LOL!

Cloth diapers

We started using cloth diapers on Ryan right before he turned 2, mainly because I wanted to see how I liked them in case we had another baby. For those of you that don't know, cloth has come a LONG way! No more pinned prefolds and rubber pants, unless that's what you want to use. Now there's this thing called a Snappi that you can use instead of pins. There's covers that snap or velcro on and a whole Work at Home Mom (WAHM) world of super, super cute diapers! Now you can bypass prefolds, totally and use fitteds under the covers intead, which go on just like a disposable diaper and have snaps or velcro. There are also All In Ones (name says it all, no cover needed). Oh, and wool! Which can also be super cute and that you can use over snappi'd or pinned prefolds or over fitteds. You can save a lot of money by using cloth diapers (unless you go overboard buying due to the cuteness factor, lol!). Washing them is super easy, too. I LOVE cloth : ).

I started buying cloth diapers before I even got pregnant this time! We were still TTC. Brooke has quite a stash now! Mostly prefolds and fitteds and covers. We just started using them on her on Tuesday because we were waiting for her to get a little bigger. Some of her diapers are still too big, but she does have a good bit that fit already!

XS Wonder Works All in One (AIO)

Mudshrimps (WAHM) fitted

Bummis Super Brite cover over Mudshrimps fitted. I love this cover!

Another Mudshrimps fitted.

Preemie prefold snappi'd on.

Proraps cover over it.

My Baby Moon (I think) cover with a preemie prefold trifolded and laid inside.

My camera insisted on turning this pics sideways : P. I think this is a Wiggle Worm Bottoms cover. The fabric is "It's a Girl"...super cute!

I'm sure you'll see more pics of Brooke in cloth on here in the future : ). It was so hot yesterday I just had her in that white t-shirt and diaper. I love being able to see the cute dipes on her : ).

And here are some more recent pictures!

So sweet :*)

"HUH??"

:*)

LOL! I found her like this. She wiggled it off. Ryan was standing there looking at her, like "What the heck??"

Checking out her floor gym.

She seemed to like it for a few minutes or so and then she seemed to start getting overstimulated.

Tuesday was Zachary's 6th birthday. We always go to the cemetary on his birthday and take pictures. That's the only day I go to the cemetary because I don't like being there, don't feel the need to go, and don't need to be there to remember him. I know some people need some place to go and visit the cemetary a lot to "visit with" their loved ones, but I'm not one of them. Here are a couple pictures:

I love this picture of the 2 of them.

Ryan looked away right when I snapped it. Turned out cute, though! You can kinda see how fluffy Brooke's hair is here...that's how it looks right after a bath!

My big boy in his Britax Regent carseat. He loves that seat!

Sleeping beauty. I'm loving putting the bows in her hair now that she doesn't need to wear a hat anymore! I'm SO over hats!! LOL!

You can tell she has a big old cloth diapered butt under that sleeper! I don't care for the bulkiness of some diapers, but oh well! When she's in mediums I'll probably find the trimmest diapers I can, since she'll likely be in those awhile.

No more hats OR sleepers! Unless it drastically cools down again. Love the tongue in this one!

One second she was fine, the next she was starving and trying to eat all 10 fingers at once. LOL.