An Overdue Update - Getting Big!

• March 5, 2011 - We are overdue in posting an update here. It's amazing how quickly the time seems to disappear with a baby at home! For the last two weeks we keep saying, "let's do a blog post today," but then by the time we feed Grady Jeremiah, change his diaper, hold him, and then work around the house, the time seems to escape us! We are sure that those of you with children remember that experience of time disappearing when they first came home :-) We feel blessed that you are still visiting this site to find updates and that you continue to pray for Grady Jeremiah and us. There's so much we could say, but we will try to give you a few quick updates.QUICK STATS... Weight: 8 1/2 pounds (as of last week!) Age: 17 weeks Corrected age: 3 weeks (from expected due date) Appearance: Absolutely adorable :-) Just look at the pictures! - Remember you can click on any picture to see it larger.WEIGHT GAIN... We and our pediatrician are so pleased with his weight gain. He has been gaining more than an ounce a day. During one 10 day period he actually gained an entire pound! His growth chart looks amazing, and his growth line is quickly catching up to the expected weight of a full-term baby at this age.FEEDING... He obviously is eating well! Grady Jeremiah continues to feed on just breast milk with a multivitamin drop added to his milk once a day. That's it! On a typical day he eats 600+ cc (or ml) of milk and likes to be fed every 2 to 3 hours. When he gets fussy and ready to eat, he practically attacks the bottle and acts like he has not eaten in days! Grady Jeremiah does really well with eating from his bottle. We did have a funny experience with it... We bought these really nice bottles that minimize the air he would get from sucking. He hated them. So we put them aside and continue to use the basic, inexpensive bottles from the hospital and the low-flow nipples like used at UAB... Welcome to parenthood, right? :-)SLEEPING... Grady Jeremiah sleeps well throughout the day and night. He still wakes up several times at night. However, the last two nights he has slept four to five hours at one time. We are encouraged at such a long period of rest at night! Whenever he is asleep, we have discovered that he is a hard sleeper. He can sleep while Julia holds him and vacuums at the same time! He even slept through Grady hammering in the bedroom. Apparently he got his deep sleeping ability from his Dad who can even sleep through him crying at night :-)EYE EXAM... On February 15, we took Grady Jeremiah back to Birmingham for his eye exam follow up with the same pediatric ophthalmologist who checked his eyes every two weeks when we were in the hospital. Everything looked great! The blood vessels in the back of the eye are developing correctly and the doctor did not see any problems that are often associated with premature babies! He said that Grady Jeremiah's eyes looked like those of a healthy newborn! Thank you for praying for him and the specific requests about his eyes that we posted in the past! Also, in the last week we have noticed him making more eye contact with us and focusing more on objects. It is fun to see him developing in this way and to be able to have more eye to eye contact with him.MOVING AROUND... If you did not see our previous video post, be sure to look at it to see how strong Grady Jeremiah has become! We are amazed to watch him push up when laying on us, lift his head, turn it back and forth, and look in lots of different directions. His pediatrician is really pleased with how well he is progressing in his strength and coordination.PRAYER REQUESTS... Thank you for continuing to pray for Grady Jeremiah and for us! Here are a few current prayer requests.His continued health - We rejoice that he has not had any sickness since being home. Please continue to pray that he would stay free from any viruses, bacterial infections, or other sickness.
• Upcoming doctor & specialist visits - Over the next four weeks we will have two regular pediatrician appointments, get his four month immunizations, meet with the early intervention developmental specialist for his first assessment, and meet many doctors for a newborn follow up clinic back at UAB. Please pray for Grady Jeremiah to stay healthy as he goes to these places and for the doctors and specialists to have wisdom as they look at him and work with him.
• Ability to breastfeed - Grady Jeremiah does great with the bottle but is not very efficient at breast-feeding, though he seems interested. We would like him to be proficient at feeding both ways. It certainly would make it easier when we travel! Please pray that he would be able to learn to breastfeed soon.
• His continued development, physically and mentally - Please pray that his great weight gain and growth will continue, and that he will have no developmental delays.

Again, thank you for praying and for your many words of encouragement since we have been home.

Grady, Julia, and Grady Jeremiah

PS - If you haven't seen the newest pictures in

our photo album, take a quick look! There

are more than we can post on this page.