Fourth month check-up

Wednesday, Samson had his 4 month visit to the pediatrician. After the physical exam (all looks good) and drilling Mama and Daddy with 20 questions on Sammy's behaviors, the medical team had 6 injections waiting for our dear baby - vaccinations plus the RSV anti-viral. Ow! At this point, Samson handles it all pretty well, but Mama needs sedation after the trauma.

Because Samson was born so early, we track his growth on two different charts, one for his birthdate and one for his preemie adjusted age. For a 4 month-old, Samson is in the 25th percentile on height, weight (13 lbs 14 oz), and head circumference. But, for a 2 month & 2 week-old, he is in the 95th percentile. This means that Samson well ahead of the growth curve for most preemies born at 32 weeks gestation.

This is great news, because robust growth is usually associated with optimum health and signals that Samson will likely outgrow his remaining preemie-related issue of the reflux. His umbilical hernia has disappeared though we were originally told that this could take up to 2 years to heal. The volume and frequency of spit-up have decreased significantly as well, to the point that we each now often get to wear a single outfit all day long; this is a big accomplishment.



Mama and Daddy are also excited because Samson has recently become much more social, giggling and cooing when he sees our faces. It's a big reward to finally be able to have a sort of conversation and we can't wait to see what he's going to do next.

We still wake up every 2 to 3 hours to nurse, but for the past 2 or 3 weeks, Samson usually goes right back to sleep afterwards. This means that Mama and especially Daddy are getting longer stretches of uninterrupted sleep. We are hopeful that within the next month, Samson will begin to sleep through one or two of the night feedings and we'll get to have 4 or 5 straight hours of dreamtime. Oh please, oh please!



Next stop, White House