The past month has gone by so fast since my last update. My apologies for not getting any pictures up but I will make up for it! On the 9th of this month Zoey turned 8 months old but also hit the point where we've now had her home as long as we had her in the hospital (exactly 4 months at each place). That is a great feeling and feel like another milestone somehow. She's also learned how to roll over, can almost sit up totally with her own strength, has discovered her feet, and loves to stick out her tongue. We also have heard her giggle a couple times which completely warms the heart!
After LOTS of searching, I was also able to find a nanny for this fall and winter. This was an exhausting process but it all worked out in the end as I knew it would. We still keep our first nanny on a few days a month so Zoey remembers who she is. I had so much anxiety on the new nanny's first day with her, but she seemed to be capable and caring and asked questions when she had them. I still don't like change it turns out. But we're adjusting and things are going well with it.
This past Tuesday we went back to Rochester for her big NICU clinic follow-up day. The NICU does this with all prior NICU families to help monitor and catch if there are any issues that arise and need to be addressed. They give preemies 2 years to "catch up" both in size and in cognitive development. We met with a nutritionist, an occupational/physical therapist, a social worker, and a doctor that morning. It was set up very efficiently because they put you in a room in the morning and all the different providers rotate through the rooms of families. All went well and they were very pleased with her progress overall. They said she's right on pace for her gross motor and fine motor skill development and is tracking and watching things the way she should for her adjusted age. Despite some issues with feeding recently, the nutritionist was also happy with her weight gain since it had been exactly 2 months since her g tube was removed. She said just to keep feeding her and told us ways to start working her off the overnight feed since we're down to just one now and when we can start the rice cereal. She now weighs 11lbs, 10.5ozs! She seems a bit more responsive to hearing things on her right side than her left side so as a precaution we're going to have a hearing test done in the beginning of October just to check since issues with hearing can also be a side effect of prematurity. The Dr wasn't overly concerned with this since he was pleased with the range of noises she was making but said it doesn't hurt to do one to see where things are at.
The only real issue we had going into the appointments was that her g tube hole is still open especially since it has been exactly 2 months now. Fortunately they were able to fit us in to see the nurse practitioner in Peds Surgery and it also happened to be the NP that has followed her case the whole way through. She took one look at it and said "It will never close unless we do something" to which I responded "And that something is...?" She said there's too much scar tissue built up around that g tube hole and in the stomach lining preventing it from closing and it will need to be cut out. We then sadly found out that Zoey's surgeon left about a month ago to Iowa and we'd have to pick another one. Nooooo! We're hoping everything goes well with it since he's not familiar with her case but it sounds like they were still going to consult her original surgeon prior to surgery since he knows her inside and out...literally. Apparently they still won't stitch her shut, just remove all the scar tissue. They want to still let her heal naturally and say that it should once the scar tissue isn't there preventing that from happening. So this coming Tuesday, she will have surgery #4 under her belt. Thankfully this should be the least invasive but we still pray all goes well! We'll give an update after surgery when we can to let you all know how it went. Prayers are welcome!
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