Eye stuff

So Gwen and I had an outing to the retinal specialist this morning!

So far our outings to various doctors have been going very well. Tomorrow she has a follow up with the pediatrician she saw for her hospital stay. It will be nice to see Dr. J again, he's very sweet and was good to us--apparently, according to all the nurses, he has *terrible* handwriting, even for a doctor. I don't know how many times I heard the NICU nurses conferring with other nurses about "What do you think this says?" This makes me chuckle. One of those small details that make a person stick in your mind.

But anyway. Today's visit was relieving for me. The retinal specialist, Dr. D, was *very* nice. He is fairly certain she was *not* 38weeks at birth, but more like 34. He thinks she looks 38weeks now based on her retinal development. This age estimate correlates pretty well with what some of the other doctors and nurses kind of felt, as well. I think I tend to believe it, too. All the problems she had with eating and such go along pretty well with premature birth at around 34 weeks.

The eye exam itself seemed not to worry him too much--he felt like it was likely still the benign retinal hemorrhages of newborns, and the blood in her vitreous was most likely just the breakdown of the bleeding that was previously on her retina.

He says she's not out of the woods yet, apparently infant eyes scar much easier than adult eyes, so we'll be going back for fairly frequent rechecks for awhile. Poor kid will have had her eyes dilated so often! He thinks all this is not something we should be *worrying* about, just keeping an eye on. He thought it was probably progressing pretty well.

Thank goodness! That's a big relief off my back.

1 Month Old!

Little Gwen's 4 weeks old today.  Not really anything exciting going on other than that.  Have to include at least one picture to keep the masses happy though.

I DON'T WANT TO SWING NOW!

Well drat!

Gwen had her recheck appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist this morning, and it wasn't the news everyone (including the doctor!) thought it would be.

After her last recheck the hemorrhages on her retina were clearing up and the doctor was very pleased with Gwen's progress. But today there were some hemorrhages she felt were new, and some in the vitreous now. Nothing that seems to be affecting her vision at this point, but those vitreous hemorrhages could if they move into the wrong places, and clearly we don't want retinal hemorrhages. Everyone thought her hemorrhages would be clearing up, so this was a little shocking.

The ophthalmologist wants us to see a retinal specialist, so we're off to that on Wednesday morning. We'll see how it goes! Right now, we don't really know what's causing these, so I don't have any more real information. We'll see what the specialist says.

Rubber duckies

Garmin sent Gwen a gift basket.  It included a rubber duckie.

I find it quite entertaining.  Gwen, alas, seems unimpressed.

Halloween

Just needed to show off Gwen's first Holloween outfit.

Pumpkin goodness!

Jenni decided Gwen needed to be scared by the cuddly bear of DOOM.

The Baby K'tan

This is me.

This is a Baby K'tan:

This is Gwen:

This is Gwen in a Baby K'tan:

This is Gwen learning to bake:

And this is me looking like a total goof:

Note: This thing uses back muscles I've never used before in my entire life.  I didn't even know I had these particular muscles back there.  So carrying little 6-ish pound Gwen gives quite a workout.  She squawked a bit when we first put her in it, but after that she fell right asleep and seemed perfectly fine with me doing laundry and cooking until she got hungry. 

She'll grow into it...

We've been showered with gifts and loans from many friends with children who've outgrown clothes, toys, etc.  Wes and Jessica loaned us a swing for Gwen.  We decided to check it out last night since she was fussy.

Think she may need a little bit more growth for this one.  She's sure cute in it though.