"She's Perfect"

Dear Ellie,

Here you are, doing your best to make it to 
the cover of National Geographic
(Photo by: CordZPhotography)

You've never looked more photoshopped!  Er, I mean, prettier!
(Photo by: CordZPhotography)

The other day I took you to the pulmonologist.  Every time you take that trip, I get a bit nervous because your lungs have persistently been your biggest problem.  I've always had this lingering fear that somehow you'll backslide.  Even though you came home off of oxygen, your blood has never been properly saturated with oxygen.  For the first few months it was 94 percent, or 92 percent or 96 percent: evidence that your lungs just weren't functioning quite like they should.  We've been giving you nebulized albuterol treatments consistently to help keep your lungs clear.  Because of your lingering chronic lung disease issues, a hundred times a day, I check to see whether you are breathing, whether your skin has turned blue or purple, whether you are gasping for air...

This doctor's visit, though, I finally heard the words I'd always been waiting for.  The doctor clipped a pulse-ox to your foot and after listening to your chest with his stethoscope, he said: "She's perfect.  Satting 100 percent."  At just a few months out of the NICU, all of the major frailties associated with your chronic lung disease appear to be gone.  Even the nebulizer treatments are optional, at this point.  You will probably be at greater risk of asthma and lung related issues of that nature, but that's well within the probability range of what other children face.

For the past few weeks prior to your appointment, you actually went through a bit of a rough spot, but that has resolved itself rather nicely.  While normally a baby that is very reluctant to cry and easy to calm, you took up the habit of wailing at random moments and there was very little we could do to ease the distress.  Sometimes these spells lasted for upwards of an hour.  Your temperature, too, spiked and we even contemplated taking you to the hospital just to be one the safe side.  We're still unsure what it was the caused you all of that distress, but we had a few suspects (like an apparent eye infection, from where you gauged at your pupils!)  As of now, thankfully, it seems like we have smooth sailing ahead of us!