summer break: 5, 6, and 7 month update

hey y’all. i’m back. after a 2ish month hiatus from the blog (aka summer break), i thought it was time to give it some love. this post is all about months 5, 6 and 7 – the months i am calling the waiting months. the months we spent waiting for brady’s heart surgery to come, attempting to keep him healthy, failing at that, getting surgery postponed 9 more weeks, struggling with bottles, feeding and weight gain, and finally ending with surgery (and summer).

month 5: brady celebrated landon’s second birthday and my first mother’s day with my two nuggets. he started giggling more, smiling with his entire body and getting stronger and stronger in PT. we took his first trip to the beach (and really first trip anywhere). we attempted to keep him healthy and ready for surgery that lingered just on the horizon. month 5 was a big one, but we knew (or thought) month 6 would be even bigger.

month 6: heart surgery month. not exactly. i know i mentioned it on instagram, but we were prepped and ready for brady’s surgery. we planned a last minute baptism, attempting to fit it into the schedule with most of our family. we had family lined up to come in town and help with landon while we would be in the hopsital with brady. then boom, no surgery. i knew brady had caught a cold the week before. i was emailing with his cardiologist wondering if i needed to speak up to the surgical team or not. we decided to wait it out and see if his body could clear it before surgery. no dice. one nose swab test later and positive for rhino/entrovirus. no surgery. what we thought would be a 6 week bump, turned into 9 weeks thanks to school aged kids planning elective surgeries during the summer months. after this, we decided we wanted to live a little bit. we continued to struggle with bottles, so one day we tried to nurse and he took to it! we went from exclusively bottle-feeding/pumping to nursing after a 5.5 month struggle. things were looking up a bit, until we learned he was not gaining weight. between brady’s heart condition and the calories he burned nursing, he just couldn’t keep the weight on. back to bottles….

month 7: living a little bit meant we were finally going to take the trip this summer that we missed out on before surgery. so we went to connecticut to visit mike’s family, have brady meet one of his great-grandmas and his great-aunts. he took his first plunge in the pool and officially became a rolypoly. he would literally roll straight across a room if you put him down! we also started brady on solids! month 7 was a big month for him. solids started off okay, he pushed out more than he was taking in, but he didn’t hate it which was huge! brady also finally got fitted for his helmet to correct his plagiocephaly (this will be a separate post) and took to it just fine. it’s a little hot and sweaty in the georgia heat, but like everything else he encounters, just smiled his whole way through it. he looks cute as ever in his helmet too. as we continued to live life and move through more weeks of waiting, brady continued to get stronger. he started to prop sit and impressed his pediatrician with where he was at developmentally.

month 8 update is just around the corner! this little bug of ours is truly amazing and continues to surprise us with his strength, love and smiles everyday!