~3 Months~

It's hard to believe another month has passed!  Next week we will have been in the hospital for 2 months.  At times it feels like we've been here for less than that and that time is flying and other times it feels like we've been here our entire lives.  A couple weeks ago we officially passed the point where we've lived here at the hospital longer than at home (with Eli) so in a lot of ways home doesn't really feel like home either, it's quite strange.  We really are so proud of how strong Eli has been and can't wait to settle back in to somewhat regular lives in the (hopefully) near future!

Our little peanut is officially 3 months old today!  He is getting stronger all the time and amazes us every day with what an amazing little guy he truly is!  Here are some things about Eli:

-Finally moved to size one diapers a little bit ago.  We went through a phase where newborn diapers were too small and he kept blowing out of them but size 1 diapers were too big so he kept peeing out of them all over his clothes.  Luckily that didn't last too long!

-Even though he gets weighed every morning, it's tough to know what his real weight is right now because he is holding on to so much fluid so a lot of it is water weight.  It's common for bone marrow kids to get pretty puffy and Eli has definitely hit that point!  If I had to guess, I'd say his "real" weight is about 11 pounds so he's growing pretty well still!

-Most newborn clothes are too small now but the 0-3 and 3 month clothes are a bit big so he wears a little bit of those three sizes.  

-Because of Eli's health issues and all of the medications he's on, there's a good chance his growth will slow down quite a bit (height and weight) and his milestones and motor skills will also likely be delayed for awhile until we can get him off of his immunosuppressants, which probably won't happen for a another year or so.  Despite all of this, we can tell he's getting stronger every day and is now quite the champ at holding his head up so that's big for him!

-Before Eli got sick from the chemo, he was starting to become a much better sleeper!  For awhile he was waking up to eat like every hour and a half but then he got into this habit of sleeping for five hours, waking up to eat, and then sleeping for another three.  It was glorious!

Here's our puffy little stud muffin at 3 months:

The biggest news we have is that our little dude can finally hear!  He got his hearing aids two days ago and it was such a neat experience for us.  We have the most adorable video I want to post of his reaction when they turned the hearing aids on for the first time but it needs to be converted to a different type of file so until then, here's a sneak peak of what it was like for him: 

He was quite alarmed with the whole thing!

It's kinda hard to see but the ear mold is camo since he's been such a fighter!
In case you're wondering, he was born with hairy ears and it still hasn't fallen off yet :)

The hearing aids are quite powerful so he can hear environmental sounds and even get a lot of speech and language now.  They are programmed to slowly increase the strength over the course of two weeks so he doesn't get too overwhelmed all at once so in a couple weeks they'll be full strength.  Our initial thoughts were that Eli would hear us talking to him and immediately respond to what he was hearing but then we realized that even a newborn with normal hearing doesn't respond to sound right away even though they hear it so it will probably take a couple months before he'll actually react to the things he's hearing.  Logan and I are so happy he has been given this ability to hear, even if it isn't complete hearing. We are so grateful for the technology that makes this possible and are so excited for Eli to experience this new part of his world!

Health Update:

Our poor little dude has some pretty brutal mucositis.  We were forewarned this would happen but it still doesn't make it any easier to see him deal with it.  He has completely given up on eating and is getting everything he needs through IV nutrition.  The worst part about this is he still really wants to eat so at least once a day he'll try eating and want the bottle so bad but after he swallows a couple times he bursts into tears :( It's even difficult for him to take a binky because then he has to swallow occasionally which is too painful so he doesn't let himself take one now.  As soon as his counts go up the mucositis should go away pretty quick so fingers crossed that happens sooner rather than later!  In order to to keep the pain under control, he gets meds that make him pretty exhausted so that combined with his body trying to heal itself is a recipe for one super tired baby!  We don't see the whites of his eyes a whole lot but when we do we sure love it :)

PCMC Shoutout:
I'm sure I've said this before, but it can't be said enough...the staff here at Primary Children's, specifically the ICS unit, has been absolutely incredible.  Everyone from the cleaning crew, to the techs, to the nurses, to the doctors have been amazing.  Obviously we wish our circumstances were different and we didn't have to be here at all but we definitely wouldn't want to be anywhere else given Eli's situation.  As hard as it is to believe, we truly do feel at home (as much as that's possible) because of how well not only Eli but Logan and I are taken care of.  This is just another wonderful blessing we've been given the past couple months!

Fight on, little Eli!