Sadie's weigh in

Today was Sadie's weigh in appointment. She passed. With flying colors.

Some background...at Sadie's 12 month appointment she had fallen off the charts in the weight category. She weighed 17lbs 6oz. She wasn't just going down in percentiles, I think she had actually LOST some weight from her 9 month appointment! We were told, "come back in a month and weigh in, let's hope she's gained." It's actually been about 6 weeks, and we've learned a LOT about Sadie in these 6 weeks.

1. Sadie has no problem eating. She does, however, having an appetite problem. When she's hungry she can pound 4-5 ounces of food! But 3 hours later, when you'd think she'd be hungry again, I have force her to eat an ounce and a half. This leads me to believe her GI isn't moving like it should.

2. Sadie still pukes little spit-ups once or twice a day. It's not like a gigantic exorcist puke where her head spins and her eyes shoot out lasers. It's more like a burp and food comes up with it...like spit up, but with apricots and yogurt, so it smells worse. This is more evidence that leads us to believe her GI isn't moving like it should.

3. Sadie eats generally 10-12 ounces a day (this is a lot less than a normal baby her age) and about 350-450 calories (again WAAAAAY less than a normal baby this age). She nurses, but not a lot. And most of her calories are probably from oils, pure fat.

4. Sadie is dehydrated. Since she's not nursing a whole lot (mostly by her choice *sad lip*), she should be drinking water, but she still struggles with the sippy. When she gets it, she gets it. She can suck and swallow just like nursing if she really tries. But most of the time she doesn't try. So we resort to squirting it down her throat, which leads to choking, which can sometimes lead to puke...then we've just defeated the whole purpose of it all in the first place. Maybe Sadie needs her water thickened? But I'm not sure if that will encourage her to drink. This problem still baffles me.

5. Sadie will not eat unless it's just after she's woken up from a nap. We now have a pretty consistent schedule to where she gets 3 little naps (usually less than 30 minutes) throughout the day. These serve to reset her and to calm her enough that she can eat without too much struggle. I'm not sure she's really learned what hunger is, maybe she doesn't ever feel hungry? She doesn't seem to ever indicate when she is hungry, and it's really hard to feed her if she hasn't cat napped first. Again, I'm not sure how to solve this problem.

Today was the first day in over a month that I didn't write down every ounce of food or water that Sadie has eaten. It felt so good. I didn't even add oil to every meal. I didn't stress about it at all. She drank more water in one sitting than she has ever (almost 2.5 ounces), and she ate all four meals that I fed her without a problem. I don't know how much she ate, I don't know how many calories it was, I'm not even sure what time it was that I fed her. And it feels so good to say that. I can now relax a little about this.

So, how much does Sadie weigh? Today she weighed in at 18lbs 13oz!! She had gained about a pound and a half!!! The doctor was so happy, we were so happy, it was a victory for special needs mommyland. But we're still going to go see a GI doctor. We don't know why she's not hungry, do we need to push things through her system? Or do we just need to stimulate her appetite? And we don't know why thinner foods/liquids are harder to swallow. So, tomorrow I call GI and schedule an appointment. Dr. Wendy prepared me. And I know a little what to expect. She's totally supportive and always stands behind my decisions of what I think is best. She understands our reasoning behind our vaccination decisions and our medication decisions and she understands that we don't want to put a bunch of artificial preservatives in our baby just to get her to eat or gain weight. So, she's sending us to GI, but she's not abandoning us. She even told me that I can call her and talk anything over with her before I make a decision about a medicine or test or procedure or anything. I wish everybody had a pediatrician like Wendy!

Thank you everyone who prayed for us. Thanks everyone who supported us and encouraged us. I feel like we've reached a milestone...on to the next one! (car screaming?)