Hopes and concerns

Concerns:

Gagging/choking: In the past couple of days, Julia has been lying all by herself on her play mat either sleeping or just staring at the toys dangling over her and she starts to gag out of nowhere. The first time we thought it was because she was spitting up what she just ate. But tonight, it happened right before a feeding just out of the blue. It is very scary. Her face turns very red and she struggles to breathe for several seconds until she finally gags and catches her breath. I'm not sure what is going on. She does this same gag kind of thing when she is trying to suck on a bottle from time to time. It's like something is going down the wrong pipe and she is getting fluid in her lungs and not down her esophagus. One weird thing is that she almost always gets hiccups after one of these episodes.

Snot: Julia has been on antibiotic for 3-4 days now and she still has yucky green snot that I have to suck out of her nose. I'm not sure if the antibiotic has done anything at all to help her congestion. This concerns me.

Bottle feeding/breast feeding: I am worried she will never breast feed. She has kind of regressed in her bottle feeding, too. I'm hoping to talk to an occupational therapist soon. She has an OT appointment in early January but I hate to wait that long.

Hopes:

Alertness: Julia continues to have longer periods of alert time. She is really beginning to focus on faces and look right into my eyes. I love it. She can also track objects pretty well when they are dangled over her head. I hope this alertness is a good sign.

Smile: One of my biggest hopes right now is that I will get to see a smile one day soon. That would make me so incredibly joyful!