Minneapolis

We started out our week with a family trip to Minneapolis for a pulmonology visit for Callie. We arrived in town a little early so we could catch up with our NICU friends. Sunday afternoon we were able to spend a few hours with a precious family whose son was born a few days before Callie at 23 weeks. He is doing wonderfully now and we had a wonderful time watching the kids interact while the grownups did 6 months worth of catching up. Wyatt's observation for the visit was "Mom, that was pretty neat that Samuel could talk. How did he know how to do that?" So we got to explain that technically his sister should be talking like that and one day she will. Sunday evening we had a lovely dinner with one of Callie's primary nurses. Callie showed off her new skills and just showed off in general.

Monday we met with Callie's pulmonologist. He was genuinely thrilled with how well Callie is doing. He told us that Callie has had one of the rougher courses he has seen in his 15 years but that she is doing remarkable. It was really neat to see a doctor's face light up with pleasure over how Callie is doing. Since Callie has not been sick since coming off oxygen, we still don't know how her lungs will handle a respiratory sickness but we are hopeful she will get through it just fine. Since she is doing well, we don't have to see the pulmonologist again for a year! That sure beats the days when we were making monthly trips to Minneapolis.

It seems this summer Callie has hit a growth spurt. If you take a "normal child" growth chart, Callie is now on it for length. But when I say on it, I mean barely and I think only if you make your circle large enough when charting. Due to her increased tallness, we now have to catch up with weight. She has been around the 25% for weight to length ratio but that has fallen off and is no longer on the charts. Callie is still around 20 pounds even though she is getting massive amounts of calories each day. The doctor isn't worried about it, but wants us to keep an eye on it. Callie can still frustrate us with her feedings. It has been a chore to get 200 mL in her at one time, and as I wrote this, 3 1/2 month old Sadie just downed 270 mL right before bedtime. So it remains a challenge to feed Callie all the calories and volume she needs. So we will keep pushing and see how she does and try to get some more fat on the girl.