Austin's Well Visit

Austin ready for the neighborhood Easter egg hunt

Bradley on his new play set. He loves it! Austin doing some tummy time while hanging out with his big brother

Bradley is a wonderful big brother!

So, Austin had a well visit today which was equivalent to a full term baby's 4 month well visit. He got his 2nd round of immunizations, and we were disappointed to hear that it has been too long since his birth for the oral Rhotavirus vaccine. So hopefully he won't get that; just something else that causes us to take extra precautions. Austin had some rough apnea spells while in the NICU with his first round of immunizations. Please pray we don't go through that this time! We are going to give him more Lasix as Dr. Baggett said his lungs sound wet. This is a common problem with Chronic Lung Disease; babies retain fluid on their lungs. Austin is about 20 inches long and weighs 9lbs 5 oz! Dr. Baggett expects him to catch up on the growth chart for his chronological age by 9 months if he continues with this growth pattern; that is very impressive. Preemies generally don't catch up in size until their 2nd birthday. As far as the preemie chart, which goes by his gesational age, he is almost in the 50th percentile for weight and about 10th percentile for height. He wasn't even on that growth chart when he left the NICU, so we're very pleased. Dr. Baggett was pleased with how Austin is holding his head up and the few smiles he has given us. We went to the eye doctor the other day, and he still has a Grade 1 ROP. So, that is good that it hasn't worsened. And, we're so excited to say that Austin has been released from "house arrest"! So, we're now accepting visitors and we can go places. However, we still must follow some of the rules. Here are the new rules: you must not have any signs of infections (fever, congestion, runny nose, vommitting and other GI symptoms, cough, and etc) for 3 days, you can't touch Austin or get in his face, no shoes in our home, and you must wash your hands when you enter our home. So, just give us a call ahead of time.