5 Months Old

       It's incredible how quickly time has flown by already.  Our beautiful baby girl has grown so much, and it has been so much fun to watch.  She is now rolling over the moment you set her down and just pops up and likes to look all around.  She sits up nicely when propped up on the couch.  She is "talking" up a storm making all kinds of sounds.  She is definitely taking after her mommy, being a chatty little girl! She now really loves making raspberry sounds, reaching out and pulling mommy's hair and laughing.  She is also currently working on trying to crawl, which is making her mommy very nervous because I am not ready for her to be so active and on the move! She needs to slow down!! Charlotte is the happiest baby I have ever met.  She wakes up every morning with a huge smile on her face just ready to great the day! She is a great little sleeper.  I have to wake her up once a night to feed her. 

         Currently the only struggle that Charlotte is having is her weight gain.  She has never really been on the growth chart for babies her weight at birth.  The last two months, she has only gained 9 ounces each month.  The doctors are looking for a half an ounce to and ounce worth of gain a day.  Charlotte is gaining about a 1/3 of an ounce a day.  This slow weight gain has been happening even with Charlotte receiving three fortified (supplemented) breast milk bottles (breast milk with a little bit of formula for extra calories) every day.  This week we met with a Gastroenterologist and a Dietitian to work on a plan to help Charlotte start to gain more weight each month. 

        Tomorrow (Friday, December 16th), Charlotte is going to get an upper GI test to check and see what her intestines look like.  This may provide more information about Charlotte's reflux or why she is spitting up as much as she does.  Following that we are adding one more fortified bottle a day for now.  This will be accompanied by more weight checks.  I do not know yet what the next step will be if she does not start to gain a half an ounce to an ounce a day.  One thing I do know is that she is an incredible little girl, and is so blessed to have so many people out there thinking about her and praying for her.  Charlotte is still in need of her prayer warriors out there praying that she will finally find a rhythm and start gaining some healthy weight.  

         It breaks my heart to still have all these tests that the doctors want to run on my little girl.  I am just hoping one day she will stop needing all the testing that is required. To Christopher and me, she seems like a happy and healthy normal little girl.  As I am sitting here typing right now, she is playing in her Exersaucer and having fun manipulating the toys and bouncing up and down.  She lights up when anyone says the word “hi” to her, even complete strangers.  We are just so blessed, despite the small struggles she has had, compared to what she could have been dealing with!  She is just such a happy and joyful baby.