HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Wow, we have made it to the Holidays?! Really? When Caleb was born almost 4 months ago...who would have ever imagined we would have been through so much, in such a short time! We are SO thankful this year for him and how much improvement he has already made. From getting out of the hospital after one month to getting his feeding tube out already, etc...we are certainly counting our blessings this year!

At his cardiology appt. last week he weighed 10 lbs. 15 oz! We are getting there...slowly but surely. :) He has his 4 month check up at the pediatrician on Dec. 8th, so that will certainly be a true test of his weight, as they are the ones who have been keeping a much closer eye on it then the cardiologist. At the cardiologist, his oxygen numbers were down into the 80s now, so he cut his medicine amounts in half. He feels that by next month, we will probably be off of them for good! Oh what a day!! He will still need to take aspirin to keep his shunt from forming a clot and the Zantac for his reflux, but those are certainly manageable and do not have to be given on such a strict schedule. :)

Caleb is eating/drinking more each and every day. To go from having to feed him every three hours and him hardly being interested in it, to now, where he does not like to even stop and burp! We are up to about 3 1/2 ounces, but he certainly seems like he would take more sometimes as he is unhappy when the bottle is done. We are slowly increasing his amount so that we do not aggravate his reflux! We do not want that to creep back into our days. He is eating every three hours during the day and still sleeping in between each bottle. With his heart condition that still needs to be repaired, he just does not have the stamina to stay awake longer then an hour and a half to two hours. He is sleeping good at night - approx. 6-7 hours, so again, very thankful!! :) Now if we could just get mommy to sleep all the way through that time we would be doing good!

There is truly NO way to sum up all that we have learned from Caleb already or what we will continue to learn from him each and every day in the future, but we are truly thankful for him no matter how hard it has been! We will never know why God chose us to be his parents after we thought we could not have any more kids of our own, we were even getting ready to start another adoption process! We are just so glad we did not give in to the pressure of the doctors that all said his outlook was "grim" and that if he did make it into this world his quality of life would be poor. Does that picture resemble a baby with poor quality of life?!

THANK YOU so much for each and every one of your prayers, meals, cards, gifts and most of all love and support over the last 4 months. We appreciate each and every one SO much. I hope to actually get to thank you notes one of these days.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!