Gemma at one month

I enjoyed doing the monthly posts with Ashton and Tanner. It is amazing how often I look back at them to remind myself of baby things. So to continue with Gemma, here is her one month update.

Weight: 8 lbs 4 oz at birth. Dropped to 7 lbs 13 oz at two days old. At one month,10 lbs 5 oz. Hooray for good weight gain! This is especially important with her heart defect. Weight gain is a sign that it's not getting worse.

Height: 21.5 inches at 1 month. She was 19 inches at birth.


Clothing Size: We moved her to 0-3 month clothes last week. When she stretches out, it seems she is already maxing out the length of the clothes. We'll see how long this size lasts.

Daily Schedule: Gemma is pretty predictable. She wakes up between 7 and 8 every morning, eats about every 2-3 hours, naps 3-4 times a day, and does terrific at night. She has slept through the night many times (which led to mastitis for me...). She has never woken up more than once a night since she was born. She goes to bed around 9 or 10 at night and wakes up between 4 and 6 to eat (if she wakes up). Then back to bed until morning. The last few nights, she's slept from 8-9pm to 7am! Maybe, just maybe, we got a kid who likes to sleep. Fingers crossed.

Total diapers we change daily: She seems to be a heavy wetter, which doesn't bode well for cloth but maybe she'll get better. We go through about 6-8 a day.

Total outfits we go through daily: Gemma hasn't had a single blowout yet so she typically wears the same outfit two days in a row. I'm lazy and only want to change her if absolutely necessary. After two days, I switch things up though.

Special Outings: Everywhere... with two older siblings, you don't get the luxury of keeping the baby home all the time. She's gone to Houston several times, library, stores, doctors, church, etc.

Firsts: First everything... she's taken one bath for the whole month (I promise we wipe her down other times). It's tricky because we can't bathe all three at the same time so the idea of doing two rounds of baths sounds miserable and unnecessary.

Eating: She doesn't spit up like the others did, which is nice. My plan was to pump for her as I wanted more freedom with my church calling as well as being able to take Ashton and Tanner out more. But she's so cute and a great eater so I couldn't say no to her. So we're nursing again but we do try to have her take a bottle at least once a day. She does alright with that.

Heart Update: I figured we will be receiving heart updates a lot this year. Here's a little background into Gemma's heart and the defect. No defects were detected during the pregnancy. At birth, a pediatrician examined her in the hospital and detected no issues. We saw our pediatrician two days later and again, no issues were seen/heard. Then, we did a one week check up with the pediatrician and she detected a heart murmur. She referred us to a pediatric cardiologist to have it examined and determined what type of murmur it was. Typically, most children grow out of their murmurs as they are almost always one of two types (ASD or VSD). We headed to the cardiologist two weeks later and discovered Gemma's murmur is NOT one of those two types. It is a type of murmur that is not present at birth but becomes apparent over the first few weeks of life. It's called pulmonary valve stenosis. One of her heart valves doesn't open all the way. This defect can be mild, moderate, or severe. Gemma's defect falls into the moderate category. These defects can worsen in a child up to about one year of age and after that, the defect will remain the same. However, they don't improve or go away. We will see the cardiologist about every 8-12 weeks for the first year or so to monitor and do a repeat Echo. If it doesn't worsen, then we are good to go. If it worsens to the point of "severe," then we discuss surgery. The surgery to repair the valve is done by a balloon pump/dilator through the femoral artery so we're not looking at open heart surgery. That's reassuring. The only long-term effect of this murmur is she will be considered high risk for pregnancy when/if she chooses that later on. The increased blood volume and stress on the heart needs to be monitored throughout the pregnancy but should not cause complications to her or a baby. Her next cardiology appointment is in early June so we'll have more information then. I will admit, all that time studying for anatomy in college is helping a ton at these appointments. It helps having a basic knowledge of the heart when the doctor is explaining things to me.

Sibling love: The big kids love her and ask to hold Gemma a lot. Ashton likes waking her up in the morning and is very sweet to Gemma. Tanner likes giving her kisses, touching her toes, and holding her. Aside from that, Ashton complains about getting less attention so we're trying to deal with that the best we can. Joseph is still taking paternity leave with a couple half days each week. That helps some. I think she is used to leaving Tanner at home whereas now, Tanner comes with her a lot.

Overall, Gemma is a very chill baby. She doesn't love being put down (in swing, bouncer, bed, etc) and prefers to be held. But we are thoroughly enjoying that. All it takes is one look at Ashton or Tanner and we are reminded that before too long, Gemma will be climbing, jumping, and talking back to us.


Monthly Pictures:

Content to sleep wherever and whenever.