I haven’t been around much over the past month or so, but I wanted to update on Claire. She will be 14 months tomorrow. Gradually, over the past 5 weeks we have found that she is spitting up less and less. Lately, there have been entire days where we forgot to even put a bib on her and the Resolve carpet cleaner has stayed on the shelf! She is finally starting to eat well and put on some weight (19 pounds this week). She loves her gradually expanding repertoire of solid foods (even some poultry and wheat now!). She has made the transition from bottles to sippy cups.
I’m posting this because I want others to know that it REALLY DOES GET BETTER!! For those who don’t know Claire’s story… she had one hell of a first year- spitting up to 20-30 times day (no exaggeration), teetered on the edge of NJ tube and fundo surgery, severe food protein intolerance, GI bleeds, FTT, etc.
Even more good news… as of this week, Claire is starting to pull up and crawl!!! We are so happy. She pretty much was at a complete stand still in gross motor development for almost six months and now it looks like the “light switch has turned on” and she is suddenly making more progress every day. Early Intervention has been great.
There are still worries (but aren’t there always?)… we are waiting results of lab work to rule out some variety of congenital myopathy. A mitochondrial myo/encephalopathy (“metabolic disorder”) is a possibility. Diagnostically speaking, that could tie up the reflux, delayed gastric emptying, and muscle weakness into a single package. We’re trying to be optimistic- I really, really have a strong gut feeling that all the tests will be negative.
On Tuesday, we stopped in to visit Claire’s previous childcare provider who we hadn’t seen since Thanksgiving. She was amazed at how far Claire has come in such a short time. This little boy (maybe 8 years old) asked, “hey, is that the little baby who used to cry all the time?” Yep- that’s her… only she’s happy almost all the time now and she’s not so little anymore!
ksparrow2006-3-9 23:39:50
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Whoooo Hoooo!!
