Cautiously optimistic...

Recently returned from the OB clinic, where I'm told that things are looking "great" with my incision. I was put back on the aquacel therapy on Monday, which is a huge relief because it doesn't require dressing changes by me and I'm also in a lot less pain these days. Aquacel may be the best thing since sliced bread, in my current mindset!! :-) The wet-to-dry dressing was doing a good job, but it was irritating the wound and creating more pain than necessary, whereas the aquacel is more gentle and ultimately better for promoting the healing process. So I had my third dressing change today at the clinic, and was told not to even make a formal appointment for my next change...just to make a judgement call on when the outside dressing gets too saturated and come in as a walk-in. I'm hoping to make it to Tuesday, but we'll see how the weekend goes.

It has been officially decided that I'm definitely not a candidate for a "secondary closing" (re-stitching) because of being on Lovenox, so I'm stuck with this open wound for the duration of its healing. Perhaps I should call it the Mother of All Papercuts?? Anyway, the nurse and Dr. Kuskowski...the doc who actually did my c-section and also opened me back up last Wednesday...decided to leave closed a little bridge of skin smack in the middle of the incision, so I hope that was the correct decision. Dr. K. wanted to open it, since it's in the middle, but what swayed him to keep it closed is that the skin had matched up perfectly, when usually the skin seals together a bit lopsided. (anyone grossed out yet??) We'll see what the report is next week, but for now I'm cautiously optimistic since I'm not in nearly as much pain, I don't have to spend the weekend working around times to pack my own wound, and I'm still able to use the aquacel.



In the meantime, Cooper is doing wonderfully. We had his two-week well baby checkup on Wednesday and he's now up to 7lbs 6oz, which means that he's feeding well despite being tongue tied. Have I mentioned that in a previous post? Maybe not. Our little boy is tongue tied, where that little thingy underneath the tongue holds the entire length of his tongue, so we'll meet with an ENT doc in the next couple weeks to see about getting it clipped (if left alone, it may lead to speech problems). It's usually a bigger problem in breastfed babies because of difficulties latching on; fortunately, Cooper is able to feed from the bottle well enough to be gaining weight within the normal percentiles and, other than peeing all the way down his mommy's white tee shirt, we had a good visit with the pediatrician. He does seem to have blocked tear ducts, which is the cause of some crusty yet also teary eyes, but hopefully that will resolve on its own by the time he's 6 months old.

Last week we received some fun presents for Cooper...this one (of several) from the Girdleys made me tear up a little, it's baby's first photo album prefilled with photos:






And here's a great gift sent by Bob's command that we've already gotten a lot of use out of:





And finally....while this isn't exactly a "cute" photo, Bob and I think it's adorable nonetheless:



(PS. Thanks to other gift-givers, I don't mean to exclude anyone...hopefully we'll get photos of your gifts taken soon!)