Elijah had his post-op check today and it went well! His oxygen sats were at 89%, which is good. His heart sounded good, his xray looked good, his incision looked good.. Dr. G wants to see him back in a month for another check-up and do another heart cath in late August. The results of the heart cath will tell us when his next open heart surgery will be. Also, Eli gained ONE pound in just ONE week! We had actually been thinking that he hadn't gained much, but we were wrong! He is now up to 12 lbs. 12 oz.! "Amazing!" is what Dr. Gremmels said to that. :)
We have been a bit worried about letting Elijah cry too much as we try to get him to nap during the day. He refuses to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time during daytime hours and we have been nervous to let him cry for more than a few minutes at a time because of his heart condition. We asked the doctor today if we are physically going to harm him by letting him cry in order to get him to sleep better and he said (thankfully), "No!!!" He said that's often the case with parents of heart babies--they are worried about possible damage they will do to their babies by not picking them up right away when they start crying. The bottom line is, in our situation, we have to let him cry a bit because otherwise, HE WILL NOT SLEEP during the day, which makes for a very unhappy little man, and that makes for very unhappy Mommy and Daddy. We need to help him keep his body rested. He is such a wonderful, happy baby when he's rested and we need to make sure he stays that way.
We'll post more pics soon of the cutest baby on the planet!
3 comments:
Hi There,
My name is Samantha and I just found your blog. I cried as I read through your past blogs especially your pregnancy parts because I felt so much like you. All three of you are so very strong!
I have a heart baby, Micah, who was born July 18, 2006 who had open heart surgery when he was 3 days old.
Keep up the great work Elijah! You are amazing!
Take care,
Samantha
www.caringbridge.org/visit/micahmajor
Yay for a good check up :)! It is so hard to let a baby cry, isn't it? Hopefully little Elijah will soon learn that it is GOOD to nap ... good for him and mommy & daddy as well ;).
Oh my...
we used to worry about the same thing with Matthew...
doc would giggle and say..."no, it's not going to cause heart damage" hee hee..
welllll!!!
Matthew has a severe retching problem due to his fundoplication.. and I'm always scared to death it will strain his heart.... it's so disturbing to watch...
but doc says it won't hurt him...
ugh... it hurts us!!
I need to find that poem on "being a heart parent".. it nails it to the tee!! Soooo true.... things are so different for "us."
I will go look for it... I had posted it on Matthew's blog a while back.
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