3 month "birthday"

September 23 marked three months of James! It being the weekend of our anniversary as well, the three of us made our way to the Bronx Botanical Garden to celebrate. It was our first visit to the BBG, and the garden is truly spectacular. We also had a bit of fun photographing James, who seemed entirely unimpressed. I did catch him though in full grin as we made our way out of the park: the photo below is the best shot I've taken of his lightning speed smile, which usually photographs as just a blur.

Photo Book

James has a new pediatrician and a new diet to bulk him up. So far, his appetite hasn't increased but his behavior has improved. The fussiness from last week is gone, and with the new antacid medication to calm his stomach, he's once again our little sweetheart.  He visited Central Park over the weekend, brunched on the Upper East Side (no coffee for him) and escaped the city to take a hike in the woods.

He also has his first photo album, courtesy of his aunt Janan! We've placed some of our favorite photos from his first few months in this Shutterfly album:

Click here to view this photo book larger

You'll love award-winning Shutterfly photo books. Start your own today.

2+ months

It's hard to believe James is already 2 and a half months old... so much has happened in this time, yet he still seems so new to us. His personality is forming and changing. He wants to talk and play and watch things move all the time. Sitting in his chair no longer excites him unless he has a video to watch, or a mobile moving and playing music, or one of us in his face interacting with him. We try to give him lots of things to look at to keep him engaged. He 'stands' on his legs when we hold him up and he can usually, although not always yet, hold his head up on his own now.

He is finally nursing properly, although we still alternate with bottle feedings so that we can give him all of his vitamin and calorie supplements. It's so hard to decide between the immunity benefits of nursing and the calorie/weight-gaining benefits of formula. His heart slows him down, so the formula helps him beef up a bit, but nursing helps me by leaving fewer bottles to wash!

Conversation with James

James loves to play the imitation game: we make faces at him and he tries to make them too. He's not very good at it yet, but he is getting pretty good at the audio version! He is learning to exercise his voice, and he cracks up when we repeat his sounds back to him. The more we repeat, the more he talks. We made a video of one of these 'conversations':

Families like ours

When I heard the Democratic National Convention was looking for speakers to tell their story, I thought about sending them ours: the Affordable Healthcare Act, if upheld, will help ensure James gets the healthcare he needs. Under the previous sysytem, children like James can be denied insurance due to their 'preexisting condition'. We battled our insurance all summer over this...

However, the DNC got there on their own :) The convention highlighted another family who has experienced nearly the same ordeal. Their child has HLHS - Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome - the same condition we initially thought James had. His actual diagnosis of DORV with hypoplastic left heart is very similar, and he will have the same series of surgeries. The worry they expressed to the DNC was one we hadn't even thought about - lifetime limits - which hopefully will never be a concern for us.

We are grateful every day that we chose to keep our baby boy and continue the pregnancy in spite of all the fears and uncertainty over his future. We are also glad that he's insurable and can have access to these otherwise unaffordable surgeries that are saving his life!  I'm posting the link to the speech here because it's a great speech...and regardless of political beliefs or party affiliation, this is an important issue to know about and an important clause in the Healthcare Act to keep.

great speech from a family like ours

In more light-hearted news, we have discovered that James loves watching tv. Sesame Street and Winnie the Pooh episodes on youtube keep him riveted. He's also started 'talking' much more and has 'conversations' with us. He makes a range of noises and is delighted when we repeat them back.  My next post will be a video of what our baby has to say :)