4 months

Our beautiful, sweet angel baby!! I LOVE this picture! It is just a sneak peek of pictures we had taken this week. Becky did a fantastic job-I can't wait to see the rest of them. I did have a few taken of Carter and Ella together. I will post more soon!

At four months, Miss Ella is sure a talker! She grunts constantly. She loves to be held and will lay on her back or tummy for short periods of time. She does a great job holding her head up for short periods of time. She is more awake lately in between her feedings. We still wake her every 3 hours to eat. She weighs 8 pounds 2 ounces! What a big girl! All the doctors we saw this week thought she looked great.

We saw the cardiologist on Wednesday at Children's Mercy. Ella had an Echo cardiogram done. The doctor feels that the high blood pressure is not related to her heart. He said her heart is normal size and working great, as is the blood flow and arteries. He did say she has a 0.44 mm hole in her heart. This is something that the NICU doctor had put down on the paperwork, but it is something we did not remember hearing before. This is not a problem or causing Ella any harm or pain... It should have closed at birth and didn't. We will go back and see the cardiologist in December to see if it has closed. If is has not, we will look at doing a small procedure through a catheter to "fill" the hole. It would not be a big surgery and it is not for certain. It has nothing to do with her high blood pressure.

We saw the NICU follow-up doctor on Wednesday, as well. We were SO EXCITED that Kim, our favorite daytime and primary NICU nurse was working at the clinic that day! We were so happy to see her. Kim and the doctor both thought Ella looked good and much bigger. The doctor increased her feedings and kept her on the reflux medicine. She is still sleeping on her tummy for about 4 more weeks, and then we are to try her on her back.

Nurse Carol, the Children's Mercy home health nurse came on Thursday and weighed Ella. She thought her gain for the week was good. She also took her blood pressure and it was still above the average. ( I think it was about 110 for the top number--and they would like it lower than 100).

On Friday we went to the pediatrician. She was booked, so we saw her nurse practitioner that said everything was going well. The nursing staff gave Ella 4 shots, which she screamed about! Carter was just glad none of the shots were for him.