March for Babies

Gary, Lydia, Toffee and I marched for babies this weekend to raise money for the March of Dimes. We got up bright and early, went downtown, gathered with a few hundred people and walked 3 miles. Thanks to everyone who donated money to the cause. March of Dimes has done a lot of research for preemie babies, babies with birth defects, etc. Without their research, I doubt that Lydia would be doing as well as she is today.

We were an ambassador family with a picture along ambassador alley. The pictures were to show peeps why they were walking if they didn't have a personal connection with a baby. SO here's Lydia's sign that we found along the way. We came back for it, but by the time we got there, it had gone! We were a bit disappointed but then, what would we have done with it anyway?! Gary said we could make our own sign if we wanted to lol

Here we are walking along the battery. It was really nice to walk along the water. We took a few steps for Kayleigh Anne Freeman and in honor of Madeline Alice Spohr.

Gary and I took Lydia to MUSC for her check up today. It was the first time at the high risk development clinic. She will be going every few months for the first year, then every 6 months or so until she's 5. They were comparing her to a baby that is about 3 months old (as they go by her due date) and she did well. She now weighs 13 1/2 lbs (wow, a whole stone!) and is 22 1/2 inches long. For a 3 month old, she was 90th percentile for weight, 20th percentile for height (wonder where she gets the short gene from?) and 50th percentile for her head circumference. Developmentally she is at about 4 months, so right on track.

They also wanted her to participate in a research study. They're looking to see if body fat in low birth weight babies correlates with development. I guess they're hypothesising that the more body fat (or closer to the norm), the more on track the development. They put Lydia in a 'peapod' which was a mork spaceship looking contraption that measured her body fat and body mass using the air pressure! Lydia was at 28% body fat and the norm is 30ish. So they were happy with that. There was another baby there after ours - he was obviously older than Lydia, yet was smaller than her...he was a tiny little thing but was probably about 6 months old.

Well, until next time...