Eli is actually a very healthy baby. He eats well, hardly spits up, only cries when he is hungry or over tired. Never ran a fever or been sick. Despite this, we've been to visit the doctors quite often!
After the
excitement of the first 2 weeks of weigh-ins and ER visits, we avoided the pediatrician's for a whole 2 weeks and only went in for his 1-month check-up. He did pretty well and weighed in at 8 lbs, 8 oz.! We were all pretty excited about this. He was still "small" (20th percentile), but at least he had gained weight. At this appt, the doctor signed us up for another kidney ultrasound, just to keep an eye on his left kidney.
During his second month of life, Eli had his second kidney ultrasound and then his 2-month doctor appointment. Turns out he officially has
Renal Hydronephrosis, which basically means that the left kidney is slightly enlarged where it connects to the tube that carries urine to the bladder. This likely means some fluid is building up there. This wasn't noticed during the many, many prenatal ultrasounds that we had, and seems to be minor. We have since gone to see a pediatric urologist and she doesn't seem too concerned yet. He'll have another ultrasound when he's about 6 months old. It will likely correct itself and everything should be OK.
Eli's regular two-month appointment went well -- weighing in at 10 lbs 15 oz! Yes -- he gained over 2 lbs in a month! He also had to get 5 immunizations! This meant 4 shots in the legs. He did pretty well (I surely cried more than he did). And even seemed fine when we got home. We gave him some Tylenol, he slept, he ate, he was generally happy. Then we made the mistake of thinking he was fine and taking him to go visit his Uncle Luke and Aunt Natalia. Biggest mommy mistake I have made!! As soon as he woke up at their place, he was a mess. I have never heard him cry due to pain before. By the end of an hour, he and I were both crying and we had to head home (Luckily, Luke and Natalia were very understanding about the whole thing!)!
As I said, the pediatrician also sent us to a urologist. Eli had the kidney issue, but the doctor also suspected that he may be developing a hernia on his left side too. Ryan may have had this as a baby and my nephew did too (actually requiring surgery), so we decided we should probably go check it out. Surprisingly, I actually really like the urologist (a rarity for me to like a doctor!)! She took her time with him, wasn't in a rush, explained things thoroughly but not like I was an idiot, and really examined Eli and pulled up his ultrasound results and went through all of those too. We're going to have Eli checked again for everything at 6 months. The kidney is swollen, but may correct itself and his hernia is likely only fluid and may also just correct itself.
While I still feel like this is a lot of doctor appointments for the poor guy, I am grateful that he is doing so well and has lots of doctors looking out for him!
