Cooper's 1st Halloween!

Ok....So I'm a little behind. We have been busy busy busy!! The Fall season and Halloween are my favorite time of year! I love the cool, crisp air and the changing colors of the leaves! Oh yeah and the pumpkins!! I was looking forward to having Cooper pose with pumpkins and getting lots of smiling pictures... Let's just say THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN!!

He was NOT HAPPY and kept throwing himself backward refusing to sit up and pose for a picture. I couldn't help but laugh!! We bought 3 pumpkins and decided to try again at home where we could control the situation a bit better...

This is so NOT what I had imagined...But they made for a funny story!!

I found the CUTEST spider costume for Cooper for Halloween and despite the fact that I have an irrational fear of spiders; he was the cutest spider I have ever seen!!

We took him to our church's Trunk or Treat on Halloween night and then around to the grandparents. He was such a cutie and had so much fun looking at all the costumes!! Needless to say, he was a big hit at the Trunk or Treat!

We decided to pose for a few more pictures at home....

 Enjoying some candy...

 Posing with the Jack-o-lantern...

And posing with another spider.

Happy Halloween everyone!!

11 Months!!

Cooper is 11 months old!! I cannot belive how fast this year has gone by! He is such a sweet and happy baby! I love making him laugh and smile! I cherish these moments!!

Cooper now weighs 14 pounds and 12 ounces! He is gaining weight again! YAY!! He is sitting up some, but not consistently. He is so busy that he is always moving from object to object that he will not concentrate long enough to sit still! We are still working on that!!

He is very close to being off oxygen! We have done several "room air" trials over the last few days! Mainly because Cooper has pulled his cannula completely off his face! He has kept his oxygen saturation 96-97% or during these trials. We go to the BPD clinic on Friday, Nov. 5th so we will see what they say!!

He has been crossing his eyes recently when focusing on objects, so I took him to the eye doctor and it turns out he is farsighted and needs glasses. We looked several places for glasses that were cute and inexpensive! I didn't want to pay too much because he is growing. The pair that his insurance would pay for were not cute at all! I finally found some at Wal-Mart and I only had to pay $28!!! I rarely say this, but Thanks Wal-Mart!!

Next month Cooper will be a year old! WoW!!!

A great week!

Cooper is finally 14 pounds!! We had 2 doctor appointments last week. Wednesday we went to the BPD clinic. They did another room air trial and he did fabulous!!! He stayed off oxygen for about 30 minutes and his oxygen saturation stayed above 97% the WHOLE time!!! So I was hoping for a big drop, but they dropped him from .3 to .2......The reason we were given was they didn't want him working too hard and burning too many calories... She said we can take him off for bath time and if he stays above 98-99% at home, we can turn him to .1, so we will see!!

On Friday Cooper had a renal ultrasound to re-evaluate his kidneys. The ultrasound showed that his kidneys are growing normally and looked great!! Praise God!! They took him off the preventative amoxicillin so we will see how that goes!!

Cooper is growing so fast! He is such a happy baby! He smiles at everyone he meets now and is talking away! He is such a blessing! We are still working on sitting up!! My favorite thing he has recently discovered is his screaming voice! He will now scream just to scream! It is too funny!

What's going on...

We have had a busy week!! Cooper had a pediatrician check up on Tuesday and a swallow study on Wednesday. That meant we had to get up early both mornings to fight rush hour traffic so we could be downtown by 8:30. I have a new found respect for those that fight traffic going to work every day! Whew! I don't like it AT ALL!!

At the pediatrician's office, Cooper weighed 13 lbs and 11 oz!! He gained just over a pound in a month. Much better, but I will be honest, I was hoping for more....We decided to try an appetite stimulation for a month to see what happens...Stay tuned!! :)

The swallow study was a breeze! It took longer to get there than the whole study! He sat in a chair in between x-ray panels and ate. He had to keep looking forward so they could get the images they wanted, and he did great!! He ate the berrium flavored applesauce and formula like a champ. They said he has no swallowing issues! (I could have told them that, but...) He was such a good patient. They even said that his age group is the hardest, but he was so good! He gets that from me!

We are still working on sitting up and rolling over from back to tummy. He is doing great. I try very hard NOT to compare Cooper with other babies his age or adjusted age. It is tricky because the world has these expectations for him and he is on his own timeline :) He is such a wonderful baby and he is doing great! The pediatrician is proud of his accomplishments and told me to cut him some slack, Cooper is pretty much on target. So we just keep practicing!! As I am typing, he is sitting beside me on the couch throwing his passie and laughing. I love him so much!! We are going to play now! Stay tuned...

Thank you Lord for my many blessings!! God is so good!! Trust in that!!

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!