3 months..

Layla is 3 1/2 months now and is just my little angel baby. She laughed for the first time a week ago, and has laughed a few times since. It's the cutest thing and makes me so happy. She has also begun reaching for toys these last few weeks. I love seeing her learn these new milestones.. She is so cute! Layla has been discovering her hands and has begun reaching for things. Once she gets a hold of a toy she isn't quite sure what to do with it yet, but she is starting to pull things into her mouth. She is a happy, happy little girl. Super mellow, easy-going and patient. I love her tender spirit. She really likes to see what's going on and is very alert and so super smiley.
She is doing really good with her feeding tube, happy and growing. It doesn't seem to bother her at all. Her tube did get pulled out a few weeks ago (my fault), and we had to take her to the hospital to get it put back in. On saturday she pulled it partially out which was scary for a bit, but luckily we avoided another trip to the hospital. A couple Saturday's ago we had a scare where she threw up dark green bile and had to take her to the ER.. It was a sign of a bowel obstruction which typically requires immediate surgery. But after a long day of X-rays and waiting everything checked out ok and whatever was causing her to throw up corrected itself. This last week was great.. Not one trip to the hospital or doctor, which was a record for us since she got her NJ tube!
So far we haven't found any answers as to why she can't swallow or why she aspirates. Some bigger things have been ruled out, like brain problems and palsy. In a couple weeks she will stay in the hospital for a night and they are going to sedate her and do a scope to look at her throat and airways. Then they will do a ph probe test where a tube is put down her nose into her esophagus and stays there for 24 hrs measuring acid levels. So she'll be hospitalized for that because her feeding tube will have to be out for the test and she'll be fed with an iv instead. We are hoping some answers come out of all that.. I guess we'll see :) If they don't find anything, it may just be something she will hopefully grow out of someday.. Until then we have gotten pretty used to it all now, found a new normal and are just so grateful she is happy and growing and healthy. We tell ourselves all the time that things could be worse, and we are grateful that it isn't. We feel that she has been really blessed. I'll keep more updates coming.. I got a blogging app on my phone so I think I'll get around to posting a lot more often!