8/7/08 - good peds visit

The last couple days have been an emotional roller coaster. Today I got my period. Thank god, the drama can stop. I didn't realize I was due, but it totally makes sense. Enough about me.

Ds2 was a trooper at the doctor's office today. Happy and playful for the first hour. The second hour was the physical examination, including blood draw and shots. Well, he's officially 22lbs. Doc would prefer a couple pounds, but to bring it on by food, not junk and not formula. He's not officially anemic, but at the very low end of the "acceptable" range, so we are starting a supplement, but no shot. His white blood cell count is slightly up, which means he is mounting a slight immune response. This makes total sense to me giving he is eating things he's never had, breathing different air, and sleep patterns are off. I just hope my immune system is doing the same! Doctor is cool with stopping formula and going to whole fat milk. This is a step I skipped with ds1 who gave up milk at the age of one; he prefers yogurt, cheese, butter, sour cream, and ice cream. His head is flat, flat, flat in the back, but too fused to do anything about it. That is ok, I like his head.

The blood draws were for a variety of stuff; titers to see if the vaccines he was given took, basic neonatal test required by NY state like HIV, Hep B & C, skin test for tuberculosis, because of the low iron, a Asian specific iron test for kids that might have allergies to fave beans (ok, I'm not making this one up, but it is something close to that, imagine having to avoid fave beans for the rest of your life, yep, not a biggie), and now I'm waiting to collect a stool sample for parasites that goes off to a very special tropical disease lab. All this stuff will take weeks to come back.

But there were tears, followed by screams and sweating bullets during the tears and screams. But hey, that was just me. No really, felt bad for him, but he was fine within minutes following the ceasing of poking. He's a bit pissed with me, but by bath time it seems that I had been forgiven.

On the cleft - report from peds says looks great and can't believe how much he is babbling. Told me to start getting speech therapy involved now although agreed that the first surgery isn't likely to be until around the age of four. Also get to dentist, due to the increased nutrition in the last two weeks, new teeth are poking through - yes, you guessed it those lovely two year molars that support the drool production!

Things I didn't know - many Asians have a dry powdery ear wax versus our Caucasian gooey yellow stuff. Almost all babies from Asian countries and Guatemala have big birthmarks on their butts, called Mongolian Spots. While these are purple and very noticeable, they typically disappear before puberty. DS2 only pees when I take his diaper off at home, not at the doctors office.

I'm exhausted, long day, but things I'll hit on in coming days:
mommie vs. me time competes with daddy time as well
hating/loving anyone your child smiles at