Due Date

Today is Maddie's official due date. I look at her and I can't believe that she's only now supposed to be making her debut into the world. It feels like she's been here forever - in a good way, of course!

We've been settling into life at home. My mom has been staying with us and she's been a huuuuuge help. A good side effect of Maddie's time in the hospital was she got on a very good schedule. She's used to eating every three hours. Of course, that means she is HUNGRY when she wakes up! She's eating more and more and we are just trying to keep up with her growing demands. A bad side effect of her hospital time is, whenever she was fussy she got immediate attention. She learned that fussy = holding. We have to break her of that habit! I mean, we loooooove holding her, but we aren't night nurses whose job it is to stay up from 7pm to 7am! It isn't a problem yet, but it has the potential to be, so we're trying to be aware of it.

Last week we took Maddie to meet her pediatrician. Her doc specializes in family medicine, so she is actually Mike's and my doctor as well. We really like her, so we are glad she also specialized in pediatric medicine. She's part of the UCLA medical group, so she had been following Maddie since her admission into the NICU. She also went through the NICU as part of her residency training, so she is totally familiar with how things work there. She was extremely pleased with Maddie! She weighs 6 pounds, 9 ounces, and is 19 inches long. She was also happy she didn't have to give Maddie her two month shots, since she'd received them in the hospital before discharge. Poor little thing received five shots the day before she was discharged! She will have to go back to the pediatrician once a month to get a special preemie flu shot, but otherwise she will be on a normal pediatrician schedule. She also went to get her eyes checked last week, and things are progressing well there as well.

We're pretty sleep-deprived, but we don't mind because we're just so happy to have Maddie home! She has had a steady stream of visitors, adn she has a box full of cards from all of her family and friends. She is a lucky little baby!