Jonah is a big brother!

Jonah is a big brother!!!  To beautiful, happy and HEALTHY baby Julia!  Who was born at the local hospital, came home 31 hours later, and is doing fantastic!  Jonah is sooo proud of being a big brother, he is enamored with her and loves to "help" with holding and feeding. 

And here's a professional photo taken by the talented Heather Beach Photography, the same lady who took Jonah's one year photos as well as our family photos last year. 

Three Year Appointment

Another whole year has passed and things continue to get better and better! No more developmental appointments since he rocked those for final time last summer, however, we still had our annual chest x-ray and surgical follow-up. X-ray went relatively smoothly. I couldn't stay in the room as I'm currently expecting (more on that later :) but Jonah was calm when I came back in and he was excited about getting stickers, so he was a bit dazed but relatively OK with the process. Surgeon said not only do the x-rays look great, but based on how things are going, no need to come in next year if we're feeling comfortable. We can still make the appointment and come if anything changes but otherwise he'll see us in two years!!! Yea!!!

As for Jonah's life, he started at an actual daycare center last spring (before this he had been in small in-homes) and I won't pretend we didn't have more illnesses. Seems like he caught every cold in the place and pink eye as well. However, no hospitalizations and no "scary" sicknesses, just the normal kid stuff with the exception of needing an inhaler a few times. We spoke with his pediatrician about it as he was on/off it for about 4 months this winter, seemingly when he would get sick it would just be hard to shake without a bit of help. We agreed to wean him off it in the spring and he hasn't needed it since April so about 5 months and counting now. We'll see how this upcoming winter goes, he hasn't been diagnosed with asthma but it's a possibility.

OK, on to the other exciting news, Jonah is going to be a big brother! I am due in two weeks and was being followed by high-risk perinatology with ultrasounds every month. Every one showed no evidence of anything amiss and as of 32 weeks, I've been given the all-clear to follow a normal pregnancy schedule from here forward.  I took progesterone shots weekly to help prevent preterm labor (Jonah was born at 34 weeks) however, my perinatologist thinks there's a good chance Jonah's prematurity was due to his birth defect and since I'm 38 weeks now, I would tend to agree.  I'm loving this "normal" pregnancy stuff, no complaints from me!

A few photos from this summer, Jonah is just an absolute joy and getting sooo big!!!