WE'RE ON THE CHARTS!!!!

This has been a WONDERFUL day. I deserved it - yesterday was horrible! But today has been much better than yesterday was bad (does that make sense?) Anyway, today is so great b/c at Dr. Pena's office Avery weighed 13 lbs, 0 oz!!! I was amazed. This is nothing short of a miracle. This means since her appt with Dr. Khanfar (11 days ago) she has averaged over 2 oz per day in weight gain. (Before that she was averaging less than 1 oz a day, which is why Dr. Khanfar was concerned). Also, Dr. Pena, the neurologist said that he feels she is completely normal. Her head circumference is on the charts too. He is repeating a routine head sonogram (first done in the NICU) to check on the possible bleed that was reported at that time. This will be done Monday at 2:30. If everything is normal he will see us in 4 mos and release us at that time. If there are problems, he will see us right away. After Dr. Pena we visited Dr. King, the cardiologist. He still hears the murmur but says every 5 month old he listens to has the same murmur and this is not the concern. The concern is the hole in her heart, which everyone is born with but he will check her at 1 year of age and do an echo cardiogram to make sure the hole is closed. If it remained open, this could be linked to migraine and strokes later in life. So we won't see him again until December, if its closed he'll release us, if not we'll see him once a year for an echo. Her EKG was completely normal. At his office on a manual scale she weighed 12 lbs 8 oz (still averaging over 2 oz weight gain per day since June 20th). The other office had a digital scale, maybe that was the difference? Either way I'm ecstatic. In the NICU we were warned it could be a year before she was on the charts for her actual age. But today she is in the 10th percentile for 5 mos (actual age) and in the 50th percentile for adjusted age (3 mos, from her due date). This reminds me of those days in the NICU when she had not gained an ounce in a few days, I think she was stuck at 2 lbs 12 oz for about a week, and the day she got big enough to go to an open crib. I couldn't count all the miracles we've experienced in the last year. Thank you all for your prayers. Since your prayers seem to work so well, feel free to pray that we will sale the house! (THANKS!)

Here's the video of Avery eating her first meal from a spoon!