She is Growing!!!

Remember Lily's high fat diet. Yes, it is working, praise the LORD!
Today we had a follow up appointment with Dr. Lloyd, Lily's pediatrician. She now weighs 20 pounds 9 ounces!!! That's 1 pound and 3 ounces up from last week. And 2 pounds up from when she was weighed in Guangzhou at the medical examination!!!

Grow, grow, grow, little one! She definitely looks like she is filling out a bit. She has more meat on her bones!

And poor lamb, we had to do her blood draw today and urinalysis and stool sample. I actually brought a stool sample from home this morning :-). But I had to alloquat it into 4 different vials in the bathroom while restraining my wiggle worm in the Ergo and trying to balance the vials on the lip of the sink while not touching any poop. Goodness, who knew this would be in the job description for mom?

Lily cried and cried when she was having her blood drawn. They had to get two phlebotomists to come - one to help hold her arm still (I was holding her on my lap) and the other to do the bloodwork. Thank the Lord for butterfly needles and they got the blood vessel on the first poke!

And since she cannot pee on command, we put something called a U-bag on her. It was very interesting. Basically it is like a shaped sandwich baggie that is sterile and has adhesive on the opening. You just wipe down the baby and stick it on that area. You can see it hanging out of her diaper in the photo below. Basically, when the baby pees, you will see it in the bag. Well, have you ever heard the saying a watched U bag never fills? That is what it felt like. I kept waiting for her to pee. She did not pee during the doctor's exam, or the blood draw, or when I was separating stool samples. In fact, I had to put a new bag on her (Dr. Lloyd said that if you wait too long, the bag will get contaminated and it won't be a clean catch). Finally, finally, she peed when we went outside to hang out and eat something from the kiosk cafe outside. I think that her cortisol levels were too high during the exam and the blood draw, and that is why she could not pee. Too much stress and fear. Afterwards when we were outside and hanging out and getting a snack, she could relax and pee :-).



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And just to keep it real. Some photos from around my house :-(. It is a mess! And I feel overwhelmed. There is no way I can do much housework at all when Lily is awake. And after all the kids are asleep - I have been rushing out to do about 45 minutes of housework before apologizing to Dave that I need to go to bed. I have been missing our late night conversations and movie time. I am just too exhausted and trying to catch up on sleep and conserve energy.

The cleaners are coming tomorrow. Yahoo! But that means I have to clean before they come :-(.