10 months already???

Cooper is 10 months old today!! I am feeling a bit sentimental as I think back over these last 10 months. What a journey we have been on! We have had some incredible highs and some crazy lows; more highs than lows thankfully! We have met some of the best people of the face of the earth! I know we would not have made it through without them.




I can't help but wonder what the journey is all about. I have a feeling that God brought us through this for a reason. I only hope our story can bless others and bring Glory to Him! At my Wednesday night bible study, Beth Moore's Daniel, 1 Peter 1:6-7 was presented. WOW!! What a great verse! Let me put it here for you:

6 So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. (New Living Translation)

I was blown away by this verse! Kevin and I have been through the loss of our son, Grady, and 2 miscarriages before being blessed with Cooper. Our hearts have been broken in pieces and put back together. I am convinced that this pain was not for nothing! God has a plan!! I think that we have enough distance from our fire or trial, that we can truly appreciate this verse. Yes, we will have trouble, pain, and trials, BUT these trials will prove our faith is real and it will bring God's glory to the world! WOW!! Now that I am seeing parts of His plan, I would not change one second of my life. God is good! His timing is perfect! I am so incredibly blessed! I will sing His praises every day! Thank you Lord for all life's blessings!

What's new????

So, what's new with Cooper??? He is doing great! He has been eating SO MUCH better! I feel like he is gaining weight. He goes to the doctor next Tuesday, so we will have to wait on the official answer!! His clothes are getting tighter and shorter, so we are moving up from 3-6 month to some 6 month (mainly due to his length!) He is working on sitting up and can sit in the tripod position quite well. He loves being read to and as you can see in the last picture, he likes to read to Mommy. What a cutie! He loves supporting his Titans and even watches some of the game!

As I said earlier, he is eating better! He finishes at least 4 of his 5 six ounce bottles. He is enjoying cereal with bananas (or another fruit) each morning, and finishing all of it!! We are now to add 1/2 tsp of oil to his vegetables to add calories. He has been eating a jar a day and we are going to see if he can tolerate more! Hopefully he will not notice the oil...

We have our swallow study next Wednesday, so I will keep you posted!!

BPD clinic

We had another doctor appointment Friday. This time it was at the BPD clinic(Bronchopulmonary dysplasia also called chronic lung disease) at Vanderbilt Children's hospital. This clinic handles Cooper's oxygen requirements and some of his nutrition.


We have visited this clinic every month since Cooper came home in March. They have turned him down twice, from 0.8 liters of oxygen to 0.3 now .We were told that we were going to wean him slowly. They always put him on a pulse oximeter to check his oxygen saturation and heart rate. On Friday he was sating 99 so we decided to do a "room air" test. We turned his oxygen tank off and took the prongs out of his nose. He remained on the monitor and we watched to see what he would do. He did fantastic!! A "normal" person should be somewhere from 97-100%. Anything over 92% for Cooper is considered good. He remained above 90 the whole time with his average at 93%. That is a little low so she decided to put him on 0.1 liters and watched. He hung out around 95%, which is pretty good! He was up and down a bit so she decided on 0.2 liters, just to be safe...Until the doctor came in.

Cooper has been having trouble finishing bottles. He is fluid restricted because BPD babies tend to hold fluid in and it makes breathing harder. Due to this restriction, we are on a tight feeding schedule. I have asked to have it changed, but was told no because of the restriction. Cooper sleeps all night!! He refuses to eat in the middle of the night. I spent many nights fighting him for an hour to an hour and a half trying to get him to eat at 2:00 in the morning! NO FUN! Because of this bottle being removed from the schedule, we had to get the required amount in while he was awake. This made us feed him every 3 hours from 7am-10pm. When his fluid was increased, he was too full from the previous feed to finish the bottles, not to mention barely eating the solids. After terrible weight gain last week, 6 ounces in a month, we were allowed to bump up his feeding and spread out over 4 hours! Finally!! Because of this new schedule, he gained 5 ounces in a week!! Not bad, but not great!


In May, Cooper was in the 50th percentile for weight and height proportion. (We are not on the chart for weight or height...but we are close!) Friday we were down to the 1st percentile. :(
The doctors want to rule out any feeding issues, so they ordered a swallow study for later this month. The doctor didn't want to turn him down until after the study was done, so we are still on 0.3 liters. I am pretty confident that the issue was the schedule not the way he eats, but time will tell!! I am also confident we will get turned down next visit!