Bella

Here's a quick little update on Bella. She continues to gain weight, but the spitting up is the same if not worse. So, Garrett took her to her appointment at the pediatric gastrointernologist last week. He said, since she is gaining weight, then she doesn't have acid reflux. He says, she's just fine, she just spits up a bit more than normal. Actually he said that the spitting up peaks at 4 months of age--which explains why she spits up more than ever these days. But, hopefully it will only get better from now on. The doctor did say that there could be a small chance that there was something wrong with the connection of the esophogus to the stomach. So, they scheduled an upper GI test for a few days later at St. Vincent's Hospital. He didn't think that anything was wrong, he just wanted to double check, just in case. So last Tuesday, her appointment was scheduled at 9am and we were supposed to check in at 8:45. We weren't supposed to feed her for 3 hours prior to the test. So, she was up at 4 am and I fed her then, but she didn't have anything else to eat until after the test. I was so worried that she would freak out from hunger--she usually does. I was praying all morning that she would be okay and not be so hungry that she would scream uncontrollably. She woke up at seven and she was totally fine until about 8:50 or so. She started getting a little fussy, so I rocked her to sleep until they called us back. What an angel, I tell you...she was amazing!

The first thing they did was get her undressed so that they could x-ray her stomach before the test. Then she put on this little hospital gown and when the doctor finally got there, we could start the test. So, they had her lay on this table and I was standing at the end of the table near her head so that I could feed her. I fed her a bottle of something called barium, which fills and coats her esophogus and stomach. Barium is a non-toxic, non-nutritional contrast liquid that highlights organs to be studied. So as she drank this, they had an x-ray machine above her that showed on a tv screen the barium going down her esophogus and into her stomach. It was kind of neat to see actually. After drinking most of the bottle, the doctor was looking for two things. The first was to see how much reflux there was when her stomach was distended. It did show some reflux, but not enough to cause any concern. A little reflux in normal--and this was in the normal range. The second thing that he was looking for was any tear or weird connection of the esophogus to the stomach. As she was drinking, he would have the nurse and I, turn her slowly from side to side. I guess in doing this it would show if there was a problem with the connection. I'm sure there's a more in depth explanation to it, but I don't know what it is. He said there wasn't any problem, so that's all I cared about. So, there is nothing wrong with this kid...she just likes to spit up! It's just something that we have to deal with. We've done everything we can to make sure she's okay...so now we just hope it goes away or lessens as she gets older!

Other than that problem, she is a good baby. She's almost five months old. She started cereal a few weeks ago and she really likes eating that. In a week or two I'm going to start giving her vegetables. We'll see how she likes those.

She's also started rolling over last month and rolls really well from her back to her belly. So she just sleeps on her belly now. She likes to pull her legs up underneath her when she's on her belly, so I'm thinking she might be an early crawler.

No sign of any teeth yet, though she's drooling like crazy.

She just recently got a cold and has been having a hard time sleeping with her stuffy nose. Hence, I haven't been sleeping either. We actually stayed home from church today and slept the three hours. It was nice.

Bella's first time in the exersaucer.

She doesn't like to sit in her carseat anymore. She tries to roll over in it and gets stuck.

Bella rolling over.