6 Months of Natalie Rose

On July 20th, it was 6 months since our little munchkin came tumbling into our world. As of this week, I am very happy to say, Natalie is officially off all medication and any medical aid for the first time in her little life. She hasn't been weighed in a few weeks, but I would guesstimate that she is over 13 pounds and a good 22-23 inches long. She is growing nonstop and has new tricks to showoff to us every single day.

Her doctor's appointments have lessened big time. She has been released from her GI and home care. Her pulmonologist appointments have gone from weekly to monthly to "see you in 3 months". She is going the her physical therapist monthly and always performing above her corrected age (which right now is about 2.5 months old).

Natalie smiles all day long and is starting the beginnings of a laugh. She stays awake for most of the day but then sleeps like a darling through the night. 11 pm - 7 am? We'll happily take it!

She is having her full baptism in a couple of weeks (she was baptized in the hospital but we're doing the full mass and party for her now) and then right after that I am going back to work. I cannot believe my time home with her is almost over and am super sad about it, which I know is normal for any returning mother. We've made arrangements so she will not be going into daycare until at least October and I am sure everything will work out.

As for Jimmy and myself? We could not be happier. She is the light in our world and we are so grateful for her every day. Every baby is a miracle, but we got an extra dose of that after the rocky first four months of her life. During her hospital stay everyone would always comment on how well we held up and I really do not think the magnitude of what happened really hit us until recently. I get very upset when I think back to the hard times or see pictures of her from when she was sick. I think now that everything has settled down I have had the time to process it all and, phew, I hope it is the hardest time we ever go through, but at the same time I just feel so completely happy and grateful for how lucky we were that a healthy, happy baby came home with us.

So, all in all, everything is going well. Between taking some unpaid leave from work and hospital bills, it will be awhile until we are back on our feet financially, but it is a small price to pay. We have the baby's first big followup appointment in September that the hospital does every 4 months for the first 2 years of her life and then we will get a real good look at where she stands on everything. Obviously, she will not catch up to her birthday age status for a couple of years, but she is doing pretty darn good.

And the only reason most of you come here - your dose of Natalie Rose: