I've heard from more and more folks who tell me that they not only follow this blog but LOVE it, and it's blowing my mind! I've also caught flak from many of you for taking too darn long to post about my baby girl's birthday. I know, I know, what's wrong with me, right?!Honestly, the past week is just a blur. I intended to sit down and write a heartfelt and detailed message about Caitrin's birth and her amazing first year. My heart is so full of a million words and a thousand emotions, but my family's been sick and I over-exerted myself with all the birthday preparations and it pains me to admit this but I've been exhausted.
As you know, Caitrin was sick with her first fever just before her birthday. Fortunately it only lasted overnight and she was much better the next day. Her daddy not so much. He woke up very ill on Caitrin's birthday. He was feverish until Wednesday, coughing and hacking with a sore throat and upset stomach. He finally seems to be rallying, and now I'm feeling pretty funky. Throat and ears hurt, body aches and I could sleep for a year.
Caitrin's birthday was awesome. I stayed up entirely too late the night before putting together her cake, which came out amazing if I do say so myself. We went into her room in the morning singing "Happy Birthday," and she thought that was the cat's meow! She wore a special onesie I had custom made that said "Caitrin is ONE today! Happy Birthday, Little Lady" with a picture of a big, goofy ladybug on it. Sean was so under the weather that he stayed home from church, so I took Caitrin solo for the first time. It was challenging. Since she had still been feverish the night before, I didn't feel it was wise to put her in nursery and expose the other babies, so I kept her with me. She made it to the end of the first worship set and then decided it was time to talk, so I spent the rest of the time walking the halls with her. It felt like an exercise in futility, but we thought it was a great teaching opportunity. Mom doesn't need Dad with her in order to worship God, and we don't need to be in perfect health to worship Him either. And even if we don't get to hear a word of the sermon, the point is that we set aside special time to give God the glory He deserves. She did get many birthday wishes from our friends as they went back and forth to count the offering, take their little ones to the potty, and the like.
After church Sean and I made lunch (Caitrin's new favorite: spinach & cheese tortellini) and then Pops and Nana came over. Caitrin opened presents with our help, but her favorite part was playing with the tissue paper and bows! As a testament to what a smart, cool kid she is, my daughter was more interested in her scrapbook, which I rushed to finish and wrapped up even though I doubt it means much to her yet, than the oodles of toys she got. And while she enjoyed her cake, she didn't smash it or plaster the high chair with it. She was such a lady, refusing to eat until I cut it into bite-size pieces for her.
I am in the process of editing the pictures from her special day. I'm sorry, but now that I know how, I can't post unedited photos. No matter how careful or arty I try to be when I take them, they are always made better by Photoshop. Promise I will get them up soon.
The day after her birthday, Caitrin had her 12-month checkup at the pediatrician. I guess the outcome of that visit has kept my thoughts rather preoccupied as well this week, in addition to dealing with whatever nasty bug has been wreaking havoc on my family. Deep breath. Back when Caitrin had her 9-month checkup, they weighed her at 18 lbs, 8 oz. That was pretty amazing because it put her at the 50th percentile, and theretofore she'd consistently been hovering somewhere between the 10th and 25th percentiles. Bear in mind that breastfed babies are smaller than those fed formula, girls are smaller than boys, and Caitrin was born 4 weeks premature and weighed just 5 lbs, 15 oz at birth.
On Monday Caitrin weighed 18 lbs, 10 oz. Assuming that measurement, and the previous one, were correct, that would mean she gained 2 ounces in three months. For the uninitiated, that's not okay. It puts her back between the 10th and 25th percentiles. Percentiles don't matter too much, but what does matter is the rate of growth. The nurse who weighed her was alarmed, so she weighed her again and made sure that both Sean and I agreed with the 18/10 reading before she wrote it down. When she left the room, I couldn't hold back the tears. Holy crap, what's wrong? All Caitrin does is eat, so how could she have gained essentially nothing in three months? That would mean that for a while, her weight would've dropped. How?! She hasn't been ill. She eats like a linebacker. I don't get it.
When the pedi came in she must've known we'd be panicked because the weight issue was the first thing she addressed. She thinks, as do we, that Caitrin's weight was inaccurate at her 9-month appointment. She is small compared to most babies her age, but she is right where she had been on the growth chart prior to her 9-month appointment. Her height is 28.75 inches, which puts her just below the 50th percentile, and her head circumference measured at the 60th percentile, so the doctor was happy. Developmentally, Caitrin is right on, and she even displayed her fondness for pointing and her overall cheery disposition for the doctor. The height and head circumference measurements and the fact that Caitrin is healthy, happy, eating well and hitting all the developmental milestones seemed to cement the pedi's assertion that the 9-month weight was incorrect. I kept asking if we are feeding her enough, whether we should be doing something else and if there's some dreadful cause underlying all the positives that could be keeping Caitrin from being the size most other babies are. It seems that the pedi is actually very pleased with Caitrin's health. She had five shots and has to go back in a month to have the second dose of the flu vaccine and the next dose of Hepatitis A, which we elected to postpone since she was already getting 5 others and had so recently been ill anyhow. When she goes back they will recheck her weight and want to see her at 19 lbs by then.
So I'm sure that those of you who know me have already accurately predicted my reaction. And surely you know that I can't pin it down to one emotion. Failure is a prominent ingredient in the stew, as is fear. Mix in a dash of anger and a healthy dose of sadness and you're getting close. I thought things were going so well. Where did I go wrong? Did I withhold food from her? That's a form of abuse, you know. Oh my goodness, am I a child abuser? I thought I was feeding her plenty. I've done HOURS of research on what and how much to feed her at the various stages she's passed through. She readily gobbles down cheeseburgers and broccoli and macaroni & cheese. As far as she knows, white bread doesn't even exist. She started out on the umpteen-grain kind I eat and thinks it's great. She'll eat a third of a cup of baby cereal at breakfast (and the serving size is only 1/4 cup) AND a whole NutriGrain bar too.
My sole mission in life now is to beef up my kid. I'm trying to work her up to two snacks a day in addition to the three meals she's been eating. And I bought her PediaSure. The vanilla DHA kind. There are 240 calories in an 8-ounce bottle, and I try to get her to take 2 ounces at a time with breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks. She doesn't yet, of course, but we'll get there. I just bought Fig Newtons because they're so nutrient-rich, and she loves them. But I don't want to go in the other direction, either. I weighed more at 6 months than Caitrin does now. I've never been a "big" person (though I was at least a head taller than everyone in my class until about 8th grade. And then I froze...go figure.) but my mom told me she used to catch all kinds of hell from doctors when I was a baby because I was so big. We know a little boy who is two weeks younger than Caitrin, but already weighs 40 lbs and is far bigger than my girlfriend's 2 1/2 year old. That's not what I want for Caitrin, either.
I guess I was almost finally starting to think I didn't totally suck at this motherhood thing. I guess I was wrong. I have huge dreams for my daughter. I want her to be brilliant and to excel at everything she sets her mind to. How can she do that if she's LOSING weight instead of gaining it? If her body's not growing then that precious little brain is starving, too.
Against my better judgment, I went ahead and gave my okay for Caitrin to get her MMR vaccine on Monday. I understand the importance of vaccines and she's had all the ones on the schedule, but I've never been certain that there's not a connection between MMR and autism, and I have a cousin who is autistic. The entire staff at her pedi's disavows the connection, saying the the evidence people point to shows correlation, not causation. I've weighed and debated this since I knew I was pregnant, and the conclusion I came to, while perhaps not the most scholarly, is this: Sean had the MMR as a kid, and so did I, and my brother and sister and all the kids I went to school with, and none of us is autistic. Drug safety standards were not nearly as strict a quarter century ago as they are now, so I'm going to err on the side of caution and get Caitrin vaccinated, and pray that the Lord will protect her from any long-term adverse effects.
For somebody who got 5 shots, Caitrin was a real champ. She cried great big tears that broke my heart at first, but that lasted all of 30 seconds. She was fine the whole rest of the day, so I thought we were in the clear in terms of post-vaccination fever or grumpiness. We gave her a bath that night and I thought she might feel just a teensy bit warm, but you can never really tell anytime you've just had your hands in water. We put her to bed, and when I came up around 11 pm she started to fuss. I went in since she had just had shots, and when I picked her up she felt much hotter than she had a few days earlier when her temp was 102.7. I wasn't about to subject her to the indignity of taking her temperature in the middle of the night, so I just stripped her down, gave her Motrin, nursed her like crazy and sponged her off with a cold cloth. She was very fussy all night, but by morning the fever was gone.
At this point I'm rambling, and I haven't spent time with my husband all week, and there's a debate to watch and diapers to fold and Coricidin to take so I'd best be off.
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