7 Months

Owen has now reached the point in his life where he is over halfway to being a one year old. It pains my heart to type those words! I am so, so grateful for a thriving baby boy, but long for these sweet, tender baby moments to last forever.

Owen celebrated his 7 month birthday last week.

You might notice that as he is getting older he is also getting much more opinionated as well....as in he is very vocal with me when he is NOT happy. I'll let the pictures tell the story:

"Yay! I'm 7 months old today!"

"Mom...I'm getting a little bored with this...."

"I tried to tell you I was finished wit pictures!!"

In general (that is when I'm not making him pose for multiple pictures) Owen is a sweet, very laid back boy. Although he is very "busy" with the care that he requires, his personality is a easy going, go with the flow type of boy! He is, of course, a Mama's boy. :) He is now becoming aware of "stranger danger" and isn't quite as open to having new faces around. He doesn't really throw fits, but he is a bit more reluctant to flash his "clown" smile. :) Our therapists have said that is a good part of natural development. :)

As far as Owen's development goes...he is (as you can tell) growin' like a weed! He weighs a little over 18 lbs! Although that may now be a large amount for a 7 month old, you have to remember he started out a mere 5 lbs 14 oz! Since Owen was a premie everything is "adjusted" for him. So for his "adjusted age" yes, he is very big! :)

Owen is lagging behind a bit in his length. This is a common problem for kidney babies. Our next appointment in Cincy is this week and our doctors are going to be evaluating him to see if he would qualify for growth hormone shots. As much as I hate giving Owen shots (he gets one bi-weekly for red blood cell counts) I know it is very important he is long enough at transplant time to accommodate an adult kidney.

We have had to do a bit more dialysis the past few days due to some yucky labs. Our docs think it because he was having great labs for a while and we didn't move up...and now he is growing quickly and our dialysis needs to catch up! We are going for repeat labs tomorrow to double check.

Speaking of labs, Michael and Owen had their Transplant Phase 1 labs drawn last week. Unfortunately Michael's blood wasn't labeled properly so he had to have his redone today. So it will be a bit longer before we hear any results. Please continue to pray that God is directing our path to transplant and that we will seek His will through this process.

I will leave you with a few shots from Owen's latest professional photo shoot. This was his six month photo shoot- a month late. :) We used a wonderful photographer recommended to us by our friends. Moonko is great...you should check her out! moonkophotography.com

Are those just not the sweetest pictures you've ever seen?! Thank you for walking this journey with us, for praying for and with us, and for loving our sweet miracle.