What a wonderful Christmas it has been indeed!! Matthew being home for Christmas was the best present in the world! We had so much fun with him too. We had to stay home for Christmas because Matthew was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection earlier this week. We spent Sunday night to Monday morning with him in the E.R. up at Stanford. His blood and urine cultures came back positive for bacteria growth too. He seems to be feeling a bit better today, but the doctor told us not to take him out for at least a week or so. Unfortunately, he does have an eye exam tomorrow morning so we have to take him out for that.
As of today we don't know when the eye surgery is going to happen. I hope to find out more information tomorrow. The plan is to coordinate the MRI and the surgery for the same day. They don't want to have to put him under anesthesia more than they need to, so they are trying to plan on having him admitted to the hospital, do the MRI and then go right to surgery after the MRI, providing everything looks normal.
Matthew is currently weighing 9 pounds 5 ounces and is now 21 inches long. He is growing so fast that it seems like he changes on a daily basis. The nurse who came out to visit him and to measure how well he is doing developmentally for his corrected age (2 1/2 months) was extremely pleased! Of the 15 items on her list of things he should be doing like a normal 2 1/2 month old baby he was only slightly delayed on two of them. One of them was tracking with his eyes, which was to be expected because of all the eye surgeries he has had. Fortunately, he will track with his eyes on occasion, so at least we know he can see. The other thing is his cooing. He doesn't do too much of that, however, today he was doing a lot more of it, so maybe he is only slightly delayed there. The nurse did say that she was actually shocked that he didn't have more delays given all that he has been through. So his developemental progress so far is a miracle!! PRAISE GOD!
The other good news that we received last week was at his follow up GI appointment. After discussing with the doctor's about Matthew's progress in his feedings and stooling patterns, they said that he seemed to be doing just great. Everything he is going through is also what a normal baby would be going through. So they said that the problems he had with his intestines in the past could possibly be chalked up to him being so premature. To make sure they don't need to run any more tests, they want to meet with us one more time in January to see if things are the same and if they are, then we may never have to meet with the GI doctors again. Yeah!! Wouldn't it be great if he never had any more intestinal problems?
As you can see we had a lot of things to be thankful for this Christmas and we hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas too! We hope you enjoy the new pictures of Matthew! Please continue to pray for his health and healing and for his developmental progress. Thank you all so very much!
It looks like Santa is actually filling his suit. He is adorable! We continue praying for your whole family. (We agree, babies are fun to have around at Christmas.) Merry Christmas!
Beth and Ricardo
Merry Christmas! We were delighted to see the fun photos. Santa is so cute! We were always perplexed as to how Santa fit down skinny chimneys. We are glad you had a great Christmas. I see you listened to "A Little Bit of Night Music."