Things are infinitely better since my last post. Things seem so much worse when you are tired and I was plenty of that when I posted last. Thanks for all those who sent words of encouragement.

My newspaper went to press yesterday so I have a bit of time now to post you some long overdue updates. Jonny’s echo cardiogram (ultrasound of his heart) came back normal. However, he has one hip that did not socket properly so they are going to perform surgery on it to put it properly in place at around 6 months. We are waiting to hear back about his blood results for the VCFS but with a negative on the echo, that greatly reduces the chance of him having any chromosomal abnormalities.

We also met with the plastic surgeon about his cleft palate and he said that they would probably wait a year to perform that surgery to close the cleft in his soft palate. he said the main reason for doing that (he doesn’t have respiratory problems or eating problems) is for speaking purposes when he gets older. The soft palate controls the amount of air that goes through the nose to make certain sounds (“N” & “M” etc…) and if he cannot close the airway to his nose, then every other sound will also resonate through his nose. After the surgery, he will have to have speech therapy throughout much of his first few years to ‘reteach’ him how to talk using the proper sounds.

We have an appointment next week with the audiologist to find out what’s going on with his ears (how well he hears out of each ear) since he failed a hearing test in one ear on the day he was born.

He has calmed down for much of the night. He will go through some fussing here and there, but nowhere near what it was 2 weeks ago. I think that Mama giving up dairy really helped. He fusses more during the day than at night but that is infinitely more tolerable. We have also scrapped all the old milk and are trying to only use milk pumped that day as he is becoming VERY picky with the milk he gets.

Still waiting for the week that he doesn’t have any appointments but it is nice to know he is so well cared for. Oh he weighs 9lbs 13oz now (50th percentile weight and length. 90th percentile EARS!)