It isn't always fun...

Well ok, being a mommy is fun but some days it is LESS fun than other days. So for the past few days I have been in and out of the pediatrician's office with Adrianna. Funny because I was just telling hubby that it had been a while since we had to take Adrianna to the doctors...I jinxed myself.

It all started Monday morning. I had a few errands to run with Adrianna and Joe, as it always is when things go wrong, was leaving for a business trip until Friday. Adrianna and I had a good time shopping at Target and getting some odds and ends for her big birthday bash. We decided it was time for lunch so we headed for Subway. I fed her and fed myself, then it happened....vomit everywhere! Same thing happened a few days later at a Starbucks...I wrote about that and well, you know that story. So I decided it was time to take her to see a doctor because on top of the throwing up she was also not eating as much as she should be. They did a weight check at the doctors and she is 17.5 lbs. I felt ok with that weight until her doctor said she has dropped back down to the 7th percentile on the charts. Now I really start to worry and spill my guts about Adrianna's eating habits, her issue with texture and food that is not pureed completely. Basically, if you try and give her something that she can bite chunks off of she will, instead of spitting it out, throw up everything and anything in her belly. If you are feeding her something she doesn't like, for example peas, she immediately gags and throws it up. Even with her formula, if she doesn't feel like eating at the time she will gag when you put the bottle to her mouth and throw up. It's scary when you realize that your child is 11 months old and has never really had "big people" food. She does very well with Arrowroot cookies, teething biscuits, Cheerios and ice cream (go figure). She also loves chewing on bread but never actually swallows it. She absolutely does not ingest meat. I have tried chicken (pureed and chunked) beef, ground beef, and nothing.When I explained this to the doctor she told me that Adrianna, because she was a preemie, may have texture issues with food. She mentioned something about early intervention and speech therapy food and swallowing analysis but I wasn't listening. All I heard was DELAYED and EARLY INTERVENTION and then I shut down. I got home Thursday night and just cried my eyes out. I asked my mom for advice and she told me to try and make my own pureed foods for Adrianna so she could get used to the different taste of non baby food. That resulted in more vomiting and even less ingestion of food other than her formula. I was, and still am, so confused. Luckily Joe was home the next day and was able to help me sort all of this out.

The morning Joe was due home I was changing Adrianna and found a bruise underneath her rib cage. I had no idea how she got that bruise. She didn't fall and get hurt, not that I saw anyway. When Joe gets home he tells me we should take her back to the doctors to get that checked out. First thought that popped into my head, Leukemia. Have you seen that cord blood commercial where the mom says she found bruises on her sons back and found out he had Leukemia then when she had her second son they used his cord blood to take care of his older brother's relapse....yep that whole scenario is what made me get sick to my stomach. I had the worst, most irrational thought about a simple bruise. Turns out it was nothing. Thank god it was nothing. But going back to the doctor gave me a chance to get some answers about the whole early intervention thing.

Apparently, part of the early intervention screening includes ability to handle food textures. Preemies sometimes can have issues with texture of foods causing them to not be able to handle the foods that they need in order to get the extra calories. Adrianna is very developmentally on track, per the doctor, which means she may not even qualify for the service....that is determined after a few in home observations and evaluations. There is a food test done by the speech therapy/pathology department at Children's Hospital Boston that specifically pinpoints which foods Adrianna has texture problems with and can identify any other swallowing issues as well. Once this was explained to me I felt better about everything. It doesn't mean that Adrianna is behind in any way, she just needs some extra help getting used to eating "big people" food. It is also a very common problem, which I always feel is reassuring. So here we go on a very lengthy, scary, difficult adventure with food. I thought introducing new foods to a baby was suppose to be fun!

Luckily, Adrianna is so darn cute she quickly makes me forget about anything stressful and puts a smile on my face. Her she is barking along with my dogs...I love her!