One Med Down

We have lots of appointments this week and next week, but they're off to a good start. Yesterday's appointment was with the speech therapist, and she was pleased with James's progress. And once again, he drank 60 ml (2 oz) when we were there! Go James! He must be inspired by her presence. :) He weighs just under 12 lbs now, and his average growth is about 17 grams a day. Ideally they'd like to see about 20 grams a day, so he's in the ballpark.

Last week we tried a different formula, Good Start, on her recommendation. It's very similar to the Gentlease but works better for some babies. But surprisingly, it didn't work for James at all -- he was back to being fussy and uncomfortable. No big deal, though -- we just switched back to Gentlease and he seems fine.

The current plan is to try to increase the amount he's getting, which we've already been doing, and hopefully to have him increase the amount he's eating during the day (and do it in larger chunks). He's also moving toward that, although somewhat slowly.

The GI doc told us to call him when we were there, so I was thinking that there was a fair chance we'd end up needing to do lab work and get a prescription refilled, which would have made for a long afternoon at the hospital. But instead, he said that since James's bilirubin had come down so much, he could go off his Actigall. (I was hoping he'd say that!) Yay!! We'll do the labs again in two weeks, so hopefully everything will continue to look okay then. It's great to be able to eliminate a medicine from the daily routine, and of course, even better for James not to need it any more.

We took blood pressures on both boys, and they were both fine, so the increased dose for Matthew seems to be working.

This morning, the Early Intervention coordinator came by to do the intake paperwork for Matthew's physical therapy evaluation. Just from watching him, she thought he probably wouldn't end up qualifying for PT, and I agree. Last time she was here, he was still favoring turning his head to the right, but he's really not doing that much any more; he seems pretty comfortable turning to both sides. But we'll see next week when the formal evaluation happens.

[Top picture is Matthew with Grandma, second is James with Matthew facing away from the camera, then James in his stroller, then Matthew in his stroller.]