Last weekend was the NICU reunion picnic at the hospital. It was fun to see all the twins and triplets. We hung out with our friends the Johnson's, who have a little boy named Sam that is a few weeks older than Joshua (he was born at 28 weeks). The two girls by Joshua in the stroller were nurses that took care of him!
On another note, Joshua is learning how to smile (while awake!) and it's really fun!

Dairy Blues

So after my last posting about fissures, we took Joshua to a Gastrointestinal specialist just to make sure everything was ok. He had been having blood in his stool for about a week. The doctor (His name was Dr. Burpee, which is thought was a good name for a GI doctor!)was confident that Joshua's problem was not fissures but actually colitis. He said the typical cause is dairy in the nursing mother's diet. The protein in cow's milk goes into the breastmilk and is to complex for Joshua to digest so it causes irritation. So guess what!?

That's right, I've been dairy free since August 26. It has been SO hard and I would kill for a big milk shake. I've said it before and I'm sure it won't be the last time: Joshua, I must REALLY love you! I'm not exactly sure how long I'll manage to keep this up, but we'll see. The major downer part of this is the freezer full of gallons of frozen breastmilk that I pumped while he was in the hospital---all contaminated with dairy. Of course, this happened just as Joshua started to eat more with each feeding too, and I'm having a hard time keeping my supply big enough to satisfy him!

Now:


Then: