New toy!

Over the past couple of month I've been wrestling with whether or not to do professional photos of Cameron. It can get really expensive once you purchase all the prints and everything and I'd like to have them done more frequently than we could afford. So I decided to forgo professional photos and invest in a DSLR camera. I've taken enough photography classes to know how to use it and I'm creative enough to take some nice pictures. I chose the Nikon D3000. So far I am really, really happy with it. It does everything I need it to do. I like to shoot in manual mode which means I control the focus, shutter speed, and aperture instead of having the camera doing it automatically. I'm using photoshop to edit the photos. Something I learned pretty quickly is that taking the photos is only half the battle if you want professional looking pictures. Quality editing is imperative, it is pretty time consuming and there is a ton to learn about photoshop but I'm getting the hang of it. So with no further ado, here is my first set of shots (which includes Cameron's very first, ever embarrassing bath photo shoot)!

I'm really happy with how they turned out, especially since I got the camera and started using photoshop yesterday! Sometime I might do a post of the before and after editing comparisons. Some of these pics in raw form don't look that great. It's amazing what photoshop can do.

I should also mention how things went with the developmental specialist yesterday. Overall it was not a very in depth visit since there's that much you can do with a newborn but the woman that came to see Cameron had no concerns at all. She thought in a lot of way she was ahead. The only thing she wants me to work on for now is getting Cameron to turn her head equally to both sides since she has a heavy preference to the right. So really not much news but I was happy with it.

Anyways, that's it for now but be expecting many more photo dumps in the coming months!

Doctor visits

We had two doctor visits this week. Tuesday was to the ophthalmologist and today (Wednesday) we went to the pediatrician. I will start with the pediatrician visit.

Cameron weighed in at 6 lb 15.4 oz!! So I'm calling that 7 pounds :) The doctor was so incredibly happy that she had gained a full two pounds in one month since the last time we saw her. She was hoping Cam would be 6 pounds by today. Cam is definitely on the growth chart for her adjusted age (how old she would be had she been born on her due date) and the doctor is really happy with that. She's really small, not quite hitting the 10th percentile but her doctor was perfectly fine with anything on the chart. She gave her another A+ checkup and said she feels that she is going to be hitting developmental milestones pretty early for her adjusted age. She thinks she just looks so healthy and strong for a 26 weeker. Overall it went great and she had nothing but good things to say. We did get Cameron's 4 month shots so that was really sad and she was pretty fussy for a while and then got really sleepy. She gets everything a normal baby would get except for the rotavirus because it is a live vaccine. I've been giving her tylenol today so I hope she isn't too achy and her poor little legs don't hurt.

We went back to the ophthalmologist for another check up on her eyes and there really was no change since the last appointment. He said there is still some ROP hanging on but was okay with having her come back in a month for another follow up instead of two weeks. I am so ready to be done with these eye appointments and for her ROP to resolve.

We have our first assessment with a development specialist tomorrow who will come to the house and assess Cameron developmentally. It's part of an early intervention program run by the state of Ohio called Help Me Grow that Cam qualifies for because of her prematurity. It is a free service that she is eligible for up until the age of three. They will come assess her developmental progress so that we can work on any areas that she may be behind in. I'm pretty nervous for this. Obviously our biggest fear is that she is going to have developmental delays. I know in some areas she will be considered ahead for her gestational age but I'm worried there will be areas where she is behind. We will see!

That's it for appointments. I will update on how the early intervention appointment goes within the next couple of days. Other than that we don't have another eye appointment until February and another pediatrician appointment until March.