Through today...

It has now been about 7 weeks since Evyn's cataract surgery. We had a follow up visit after 2 weeks to the eye doctor who changed our her contact with a lesser prescription which was good news. It was difficult for the assistants to get the contact out (there were 2 plus me holding her!) so I wasn't optimistic about doing it myself. I had a family friend who has experience with infant contacts who came to help me remove and re-insert it twice now. Both times I tried first a few times and was unable to get the damn thing out! Her eye is still so tiny and the eye is slippery and well, it's hard sticking your fingers in a squirming, screaming baby's eye! I tried again on my own this weekend and again, to no avail. I ordered a little apparatus that is supposed to help "grab" the contact and it should be here in a day or two. I'm hoping that will help. If not, I can take her back to the doctor for help or have our friend come again. As her eye gets larger and with more practice, this should get easier. We have also patched her every single day as prescribed. The patch goes on first thing in the morning and usually stays on until early afternoon in order to get 2 hours of good wake time of patching. She sleeps a lot in the mornings while it is on, but I'm not sure whether it is connected with the patching or not. She doesn't really try to pull it off or fidget with it right now and doesn't fight when it goes on so that has made things easier so far. Her mood seems to brighten after it comes off though. The patch initially irritated her skin pretty badly, but I think it has gotten used to it. We usually cut off most of the adhesive part; just leaving enough so it stays on her eye well. It still pulls her skin and leaves marks occasionally if it's taken off too aggressively. At her most recent check up, the doctor said everything looks good. There was no change in her RX for the contact. I am not sure of what her vision is in that eye currently, but she uses the eye pretty normally while the good eye is patched. We also haven't noticed any straying of her eyes which can happen without patching and after surgery so I'm hopeful all treatment is going well. There are still many years ahead of us of contacts, patching and potential for other eye problems (glaucoma, recurring cataract(s), lazy eye, etc.), but for now we are managing pretty well! Some other notes on baby: She is getting close to the 3 month mark and is really noticing everything around her. She stays awake a lot more during the day and is sleeping 9/10 hours straight and then another couple after that each night. She smiles for us and her neck has gotten very strong. She is able to sit up in her bumbo and also grabs at her toys from her chair. One of them plays music if you pull a certain toy and she has already learned which one and will pull it over and over. It's such an amazing thing watching her grow and learn new things every single day. I truly can't imagine not being here to see all of this happen now that I am living it. I am so lucky my workplace has afforded me the opportunity to continue my work from home while taking care of her. Yes, it's a lot of work and I feel like I'm always behind (on work and life!), but it is nice to be able to keep my sanity by being useful outside of the home as well as inside.