Four months old

It's hard to believe Carter is four months old today. These last four months have flown by. Carter was in the NICU for 53 days, and he's now been out of the NICU for 69 days. The NICU seems a lot longer ago than that.

Incidentally, today is my nephew Aidan's second birthday. I had the fortune of being in Greensboro the day he was born at Women's Hospital. That was around the time that I decided to take a break from trying to conceive, after 8 failed IUIs. I had no idea that a short 18 months later I'd be back in that hospital with a baby of my own, and under such difficult circumstances.

And here we are. Carter is doing remarkably well, and we feel very lucky that his prematurity hasn't affected him much so far. His issues seem to be within the range of normal: he eats well but is slowly learning to nurse; he spits up a tremendous amount; he's gassy and fussy and sometimes cries for no apparent reason. The hernias and ROP have been fairly minor blips, and we hope it will continue to be smooth sailing!

Carter's weight this morning, a long way from 1 pound 15 ounces!



And here he is, with a coke can for a size reference. Check out the cool diaper. That's one of my favorites. :-)



Here is a picture with a coke can from back in early March (almost half his size ago), though I don't know if the difference is that obvious.



Here he is a couple of days ago after eating. Milk coma!



Here he is in his overalls this morning. These are NB size and still fit him pretty well. But not too much longer, I think!



Here he is in the same clothes about a month ago. Awww...



He's doing better at breastfeeding, and I think we're close to exclusive nursing. He can get about 2 ounces fairly regularly, though sometimes that is stretched over an hour, since he keeps falling asleep. I've managed to get my pumping down to four times a day, and he gets a bottle when I pump. I'd like to get that down to 3 times a day, which I think I could live with indefinitely. I'm still getting about 25 ounces a day from pumping, and as much as 10 ounces in a single session. And that's in addition to what he gets from nursing, so I think my supply is just fine. Some of the freezer stash is on the verge of expiring, and I need to decide what to do with it.

Getting to exclusive nursing has been hard, a lot harder than I expected. But I never considered giving up and just pumping/bottle feeding. I always knew it would work out, that it was just a matter of time. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was starting to wonder when it would happen, but we're really close now. Whew!

And finally, here's a short video of me trying to get him to smile the other night. I failed, but it's still cute to watch. :-)