November 19, 2008: Julia's first two weeks have been pretty smooth for us. The one thing is that she spits up or throws up her feedings quite a lot. Casey did this too, she would throw up a whole feeding about once a day for a few weeks. I had her checked out and they told me that it was normal. So at first I was not very concerned about Julia's similar habit. But then it seemed to be happening more often than not and I decided to take her in to get checked just to be sure. The doctor looked her over and decided that we should have an ultrasound to see if she had pyloric stenosis. This is when a valve in the stomach is not open and the food hits the closed valve and bounces back up. This is something that runs in families and since my older brother Teddy had it the doctor wanted to check. I took her in the next morning and she slept thru the entire ultrasound. It turns out she does not have this which was a huge relief, I was not looking forward to her having surgery at such a young age (she would have had to go in the next day to get the procedure done to correct the closed valve). So now he thinks she has acid reflux which is common in babies. She is taking pepcid for babies to help and we're hoping it will have a positive effect.
While we were in the doctors office for a visit her umbilical cord stump fell off. Also we had noticed a few days ago that Julia has a big red mark on her left leg on the outside of her knee.
I didn't really notice when it appeared. That sounds awful, but to be honest, when it is your second baby you don't have the time to look her over all the time like you might with the first. Her sponge baths are always a confusing, rushed event and diaper changes are the same way. Plus, with the winter weather she is not laying around in onsies and/or naked like Casey did being born in the Spring. Anyways, she has a birth mark called a hemangioma, and it is the size of a quarter. It will continue to grow in size for the first year or so then get smaller after that.
Julia is a fussy baby. When she is not sleeping or eating she is usually crying. She has brief moments of being happy and content but they are brief. All in all things are still going well and continue to be manageable.