Avery's progress so far...

Now that it has been a couple of weeks, it is time to write a little about how Avery is actually doing (and how her parents are adjusting to being parents). As I mentioned, there have already been many highs and lows in this short time, which I suppose is just good practice for parenthood in general. Avery is doing really well - after the slight scare at the hospital when she came close to losing 10% of her birth weight, she is now at a whopping 9lbs 5 oz (her birth weight was 7lbs 11 oz) in 2.5 weeks. I actually asked the pediatrician if I should be concerned that she is gaining too much weight, but he said that really wasn't a problem since I am breastfeeding.

At any rate, much has happened over the last couple of weeks. Uncle Trus (our dog) came home from living with the grandparents and has adjusted very well to having Avery around. He basically ignores her, which is just fine with us since he still doesn't really like other kids - we confirmed this when Brent, Chelsea and their 7-month old son Aidan came to visit.

We also had another medical scare - Avery had a slightly elevated level on one of the conditions they test for during the Newborn Screening program. She is fine thank goodness, but she had to have extra bloodwork and a urine sample to make sure she didn't have a genetic disorder that can result in a range of conditions called organic acidemias. Needless to say, when the hospital does the screen after they are born and tells you that no news is good news, and then you get a call from CHEO...panic definitely sets in quickly. But really, she is totally fine after all.

Avery has already had many visitors, which has been awesome - and thank you very much to everyone who brought us food and/or had us over for meals over the last couple of weeks. It has all been extremely appreciated! One highlight visit was from Uncle Dan and Auntie Andrea who came to Ottawa from Calgary. They were, of course, stunned by the amount of snow we have here, but were also quite thrilled with their little niece.

Another special visit was from Grampa Kelly (who barely said hello to his daughter before checking out his granddaughter), Cassandra and Shelly. They also brought Avery a special rabbit teddy bear they created themselves at Build-a-Bear. The teddy is named Robin Rabbit, thus carrying on the tradition of the name Robin in the Pearce family.

Avery had her first Easter dinner over at Gramma and Grampa Herage's house and wore a very cute outfit (courtesy of Dana) - since Avery mainly only wears sleepers, we had to get her a little more dressed up for a special occasion. And she had to put on her Easter bib:

And finally, on Thursday Greg went back to work so Avery and I decided to have a big adventure and take a road trip to Brockville to see the Masons - particularly Avery's birthday buddy Nicholas. We spent a very nice afternoon with them and had two great meals. Nicholas is definitely a cutie - must be something about being born on March 4th! :) I didn't manage to take any pictures of the two of them, but when the Masons post theirs, I will link to it. Here they are: