A Week Behind

So much has happened in the past week and I haven't really had a chance to blog and catch up. Tony and I have had a whirlwind week with fun things and some not so fun things. We were very blessed to get to spend the week with Tony's family: Mimi, Papa, Aunt J, Uncle Steve, Madi and Beckett all stayed in Frisco and Uncle Ryan, Aunt Erica, and little Emmy came up visit us also. We also made a couple of trips to Fort Worth to see Aunt Kerry and Uncle Eric and Wyatt and Sloane who were visiting from Houston and Nana, Pop, Uncle Tanner, Uncle Rex, Aunt Becky, Great Granny, and cousin Zack who drove down from Oklahoma for the 4th of July. We had so much fun with our family and are so thankful that we got to spend time with them. There are great pictures to post, but I haven't had time to sort through all of them yet, so that can wait until tomorrow.

Now, on to the not so great news. On Monday we took the kids to the doctor for their 6 month check up. The check up and talk with the doctor overall went alright. Developmentally, the kids are doing great- they both got an A+ and Tony and I were both very happy to hear that they are hitting their marks just fine. Physically, both kids are a little on the small side, yes, even Jack. So, our big focus now for both kids is their nutrition- even more so than it was before.

Harper's visit with the doctor brought about an official diagnosis of "failure to thrive" which basically means that she has now fallen off her growth curve (something we knew), but I didn't understand the depth of this problem. Tony has been worried about Harper for months and I kept thinking that she would get better- Monday I hit a hard realization that I wasn't doing enough to try and help her get better. The failure to thrive diagnosis is so scary because Harper is supposed to be growing at a rapid rate- both her body and her brain- and if she doesn't get her nutrition, she may suffer long-term, permanent damage. I had this in the back of my mind for months, but Monday was the first time I really acknowledged that this could happen to our little girl.

We walked out of the doctor's office with broken hearts. I never want to hurt Harper and it is a knife to the heart to think that something I've done, or didn't do, has hurt my baby.  So, first thing on Tuesday, I started calling different places trying to get Harper in to be seen by anyone who could help her. I am still waiting to hear back and get her in to see someone, though I am frustrated that I couldn't get professional help right away, I am going ot be persistent.

Here's what we have done to help both of our kids in the nutirition department: we have begun removing the rice cereal from their bottles a little at a time. Our pediatrician explained that the cereal really wasn't good for them- it was taking up space in their tummies that should be filled by calorie rich formula. So, we have started slowly backing down on the rice. Harper has tolerated this pretty well and is eating better (woo hoo) and is getting a little better about taking her bottle without fussing. Her reflux is starting to flare up, so we're going to keep the rice to formula ratio the same now until her swallow study on the 16th.

Jack, on the other hand, is having a hard time with his reflux. The bottle is much thinner now and he takes the bottle, but screams and chokes afterwards and spits up quite a bit now. He was having reflux episodes two hours after eating. Both Tony and I feel horrible for our little man. I'm going to call the GI tomorrow and see what we can do to help him.

So, I think God knew that we needed to be surrounded by family when we got the news about Harper. They not only helped to keep our spirits up, but they also helped us talk through what we could do to help Harper, and they proved to be a great cheering section when things went right- something we really needed to hear.

So, tomorrow starts the doctors calls again and, hopefully, we can get some answers to help our little ones.