more weight!!! more weight!!!!

Christian just keeps making my day! Not like he and the other kids don't make my day all the time, but it's especially nice to know all the effort we are putting into fattening this kid up is working! yahoo!

we went to the doctor again today and he had gained 9oz!!!! so he's up to 7lbs. 11oz. and for anyone who is keeping track (me) that's 2oz. more than his birth weight! good job little guy! we meet with the surgeon on Thursday and have surgery scheduled for October 11th. Ethan and Avery LOVE to be in Christian's face, kissing him, hugging him...smelling him...all. the. time. constantly. the other day Ethan was doing his usual when he said, "Christian, a little bit, smells like throw up." that's what you get! and for the record, i don't think he did...but maybe that's just me:) Our beautiful, wonderful, talented sister in law cut the kids hair the other day, and sadly the buzzers ran out of juice and the cord we had to charge them was not the right one so we took this picture...what if we had left his hair that way??? hilarious! (click to see it big)

6 Oz.

I've never been so happy for someone to gain weight! we went to the doctor yesterday, and Christian gained 6oz. since Monday! yahoooooo!!!! After going to the doctor so many times before and getting bad news, this was so AWESOME! I am excited for little man to keep gaining and we tentatively have his surgery scheduled for Oct. 11. It will be so good to get him all patched up and feeling better! Yay for 7lbs. 2oz!!!!!

we are home...

yahoo! we are home from the hospital and have more information that when we started so that's good! Christian had gained 5 oz. when they weighed him on Saturday morning and so they let us leave on Saturday. It's good to be home! Christian has a sliding hiatal hernia...his stomach pushes up through the opening in his diaphragm where his esophagus goes through. pretty painful i think, his esophagus has all sorts of blistering on the inside. ouch! and of course he has really bad reflux as well.  he's been so patient and really a trooper. i am so proud of how he is handling this.

(diagram of hernia) 

 so he'll have to have some surgery, however they want him to get back to his birth weight or a little above before they do it. we are looking forward to that in about 3-4 weeks. we'll meet with the surgeon in about two weeks hopefully. that surgery will be a 2-3 day stay when we do that. we really appreciate all the help and love and prayers being said in Christian's behalf and for our family! Thank you all so much. we will just continue pushing on and trying to get him fattened up:)

while we were at the hospital ASU played Missouri and the Missouri cheerleaders and their mascot came in and visited the kids on our floor (we were on a hemetology/oncology floor).  that was fun and nice of them to do. i didn't get any pictures with the actual cheerleaders because i was holding Christian so they could see him...but they gave us a poster and a t-shirt.

some pictures of the little man in the hospital.  he wasn't hooked up to too many things while we were there so that was nice!

he still throws up once or twice a day...but we are feeding him every two hours so i am hoping and it seems that he is keeping enough down. so that's good for now:)   we will follow up with our pediatrician and have weight checks twice a week to make sure he's gaining before we see the surgeon....and that's a good thing. i am just so excited to get him feeling better.  i know that must be so uncomfortable and all of us are really impressed with his ability to be so pleasant.

Update....

Christian is in the hospital. he and i have been here since about midday on tuesday. he just wasn't doing well with losing weight etc. since we have been here we have found out he has some pretty impressive reflux and today they are going to do a scope of his stomach and esophogus to check out some other potential issues. we are feeding him every two hours, alternating between higher calorie formula and fortified mama's milk. he gained an ounce today! he is very patient with all of this and we have been blessed by very wonderful friends and family to help take care of our other kidlings. i'll update again when we know more.

bird baby...

i have taken to calling Christian "bird baby"

why? because he's small. and he reminds me of a baby bird.

his small-ness is not surprising in the main, because let's face it...we are not huge people and quite frankly our kids ARE small.

but the fact that he has not gained much weight at all and has, in fact, lost some ounces IS troubling. at birth he weighed 7lbs. 9 oz. when we left the hospital (on a saturday) he weighed 7lbs. 1oz. that's not a big deal. then we went to the pediatrician's office on monday for his first check up and he weighed 7lbs. again not bad. then we went back for a weight check a week later, he was down to 6lbs. 10oz. the doctor says babies can lose weight in the first 10 days, don't worry. we go back three days later on a thursday and he's at 6lbs. 9oz. the trouble is...he's sleepy. and it's a vicious cycle i think, because he's tired and doesn't eat enough so he's still tired because he's not getting the calories he needs...blah blah....so i have been very strict on the every three hours waking him up to eat (employing a wet/cold washcloth and a super cold from the fridge water bottle i put on his naked skin to jolt him awake:) and, hopefully, getting him to eat on both sides...and i'm taking brewer's yeast and drinking my weight in water to make sure i am producing enough milk...and we go back on tuesday to hear great news, i hope! that he has gained some ounces! come on bird baby, you can do it!

on the plus side, he's been sleeping pretty well at night (now that i just wrote that i'll be up all night tonight...isn't that how it goes?) so i have been getting some hours of sleep in a row which has helped a lot.

big picture: i know that some weight loss is okay, i just want to make sure the little man is healthy you know? and i love nursing my babies and would feel sad if i couldn't, although if it's better for his health for me not to, i would totally do it you know? he has some reflux i think...he gags a lot, and has since he was born and this week started throwing up...not all the time, but enough to where i think he may need some zantac. we'll see. but, really he's so cute huh? i think so at least:) i am just drinking in the baby-ness of him!!!!

blake loves to sit in Christian's infant seat (which used to be his...)