9 Months Old!

Lucy is 9 months old!  I can hardly believe it!

Today she had her 9-month checkup with the pediatrician and she thinks that Lucy is doing great!  Here are her latest stats:

Height:  2 feet, 3 inches (25th percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs, 4 oz (10th percentile) 

Lucy is staying busy trying to get from her butt to her feet, talking non-stop and watching the birds outside.  She loves books and can hardly wait for a page to be done so she can turn the page for us.

Her feeding tube site on her stomach continues to get easily irritated and raw when she leaks.  A few weeks ago, they replaced her 12-french button with a 16-french, in the hopes that it would fit better and she would leak less.  It has definitely helped, but it is not 100% sealed up by any means, so she still leaks quite a bit around her G-tube site.  In an ideal world (if that is possible with a feeding tube), no dressing would be required.  However, it's so hard for this age not to leak, since she is constantly moving and on her belly or sitting down while touching her nose to the ground.  My mom and I have been putting our heads together to come up with a better dressing for her site since the tape we use isn't covered by insurance (it's between $15 and $20 a box) and the foam dressing we get sent from the supply company just doesn't seem to be working.

So, I just ordered some homemade dressing to cover her G-tube site.  I'm excited to try it out and hope that it will be better than what we are currently using.  I really don't want to complain, but I hate her feeding tube and cannot wait for it to be gone!  Since I'm sure most of you can't even imagine what this looks like, here's a picture of a Tubie Friend, which are stuffed animals designed to educate kids with feeding tubes about what they are (plus, feeding tubes in general don't look very nice on a baby, so this is a better way to see it):

Next week, we finally have her appointment with the feeding clinic and also have her first appointment to have her esophagus dilated.  That will involve her going under general anesthesia again, which we are not looking forward to, but we are excited to be taking this step forward in her healing process (and it should mean one step closer to her feeding tube being removed!)

Chewing on an Apple Slice, like a big girl!