Happy Birth Day!

Hello family and friends! I definitely haven't had lots of time to keep up with a blog, but I do need a place to post a few pictures of Foster on a weekly basis, so I decided to launch another blog. It will be more pictures and less words, but pictures are what people want, not a summary of his bodily functions for the week.

It's hard to imagine that today is Foster's original due date. Since arriving home on June 23rd, he has put on the pounds and his thriving. At his last appointment on July 16th, he was 8lbs 5 ounces. Based on his average weight gain of an ounce a day, he is likely up to around 9 lbs now. He looks huge to us, although most people who meet him for the first time think he is tiny. It's all relative...he is double what he weighed at birth, but small for a 9 1/2 week old baby. Developmentally, we use his "corrected age", meaning his age calculated from today, his predicted due date. So, even though he is almost 10 weeks old, we shouldn't expect him to pass the one month milestones until August 27th. It seems that he is on track for physical developments, i.e. he can lift his head when on his tummy and is working on turning over from his back, but he is just starting to focus on objects and hasn't purposely smiled yet (only gas related smirks). He is starting to have a few hours of alert wakefulness during which he is not tired or demanding food, but most of the time he is either eating, sleeping, passing gas, or working on a bowel movement. Your typical baby I guess! His sleep patterns are still very newborn...only for 1-2 hour stretches, and I think we can't expect that to improve for another month or two. It's been exhausting, but worth every minute of it. If I'm every totally wiped out and he is fussing at 3am, I just think back to all that he's been through and how lucky we are to have him home and healthy. It is very grounding to have had the NICU experience.

This past weekend Foster met his Aunt Laura, Uncle Halsey, Great Aunt Edie, and Great Grandmother, Terry. Although Aunt Laura is due with a cousin for Foster on August 15th, it looks like that baby will also be arriving a little early also. I'll keep you updated!

It's not a thriller, but below is a short video of alert Foster. His eyes are the new baby "slate blue" but we'll see if they stay that way!