The Preemie Who Wasn't

Molly had her six-month checkup yesterday -- the girl is huge! She weighed in at 18 lbs, 6 oz (90th percentile) and was 26 1/4 inches long (67th percentile) and her head circumference was 17 inches (70th percentile). Once again, keep in mind that the percentiles are for her actual age, not her adjusted age. I'm almost scared to think how big she would have been if she hadn't arrived six weeks early! Molly is meeting all the developmental milestones for her age and her doctor is happy with her progress. We haven't upped her Zantac dose recently to account for her weight gain and since her reflux has been a lot better, the doctor said we could try taking her off of it. So far, that really isn't going well -- after missing two doses she got spitty and uncomfortable.

Molly also got her shots, which never makes her very happy. She was a little more stoical than the last couple of times, although her initial screams of outrage were almost loud enough to shatter windows (even the nurses were impressed). After I picked her up, she gave a few more howls for good measure and then seemed to feel better. Once again, Molly has a lump at one of the injection sites, so she's been a little uncomfortable and crabby. She did sleep for five hours straight last night, so even nasty shots have an upside (at least for Mom ;). She still got up at 5:00 a.m. and didn't want to go back to sleep, so I ended up smuggling her back to bed with me and convincing her to take a little nap with the Mama. Yes, I know it sets a bad precedent, but there is something so very nice about snoozing with a baby. After all, they don't stay little for long.

We spent so long adjusting for Max and worrying about him catching up, that I'm pleasantly surprised that Molly has already left her obvious preemie-ness behind her. It's good to know she'll still get some "preemie credit" if she needs it down the road, but right now she's just doing just what a six month old should do.