Saedi Update

I promised a Saedi update when I heard back from the doc, but to be honest I haven't felt up to blogging about it. The good news is that Saedi's recent blood work and cystic fibrosis results all came back normal. Hooray! The bad news is that when the doc called me with the results he wanted to schedule an endoscopic exam in pursuit of getting to the bottom of her minimal weight gain. I verified with the doctor that he had medical reason to believe the exam is necessary and not just because I have crazy mother's intuition. He verified that yes, he saw enough abnormal evidence to want to pursue this and he assured me that their hospital does this procedure 1,000 times a year. From what I understand, this exam is the Gold Standard- meaning if something is wrong with Saedi this test will find it. Because she's under two, allergies, Celiac Disease, etc may come back "normal" in the blood but if present will show in an endoscopy exam. So, all that said, on Tuesday we'll take Saedi back to Vanderbilt where she'll undergo a half-hour upper endoscopy. They'll put her to sleep, go in her mouth and down to her gut where they'll take a sample. They're also going to go up her bottom a bit to check for any abnormalities on that end as well. She'll be asleep and won't feel any pain and we'll be with her (hopefully) when she wakes.

Mostly I'm thankful that a wonderful, reputable hospital is doing the procedure and our family is extremely blessed to be seen at such a place. I have complete trust in God that Saedi is in His hands. After all, He's the one who created her and knit her together in my womb. How much more does He love her? I'm also thankful that Riley has been granted the day off work so we can go together as a family to comfort each other. Yet, knowing all those blessings in my head and in my heart don't leave me with complete comfort. I'm apprehensive about little Saed-Saed going away with several doctors where she'll be put under. And what am I hoping for? I'm not even sure. God, make me humble. She's my littlest. My baby. A Momma's girl. And I still tear up thinking about it.

Fishing

When we saw the predicted forecast of 75 and sunny during the day and upper 50's at night, we decided to take advantage and go on a last-minute camping adventure. We headed out to Barkley Lake on Saturday afternoon, set up camp, hiked the .5 miles to the beach (perfect distance for the girls), swam, and explored. That night was another cheat night, so we filled our bellies with more junk- hot dogs, Crunch n Munch, Cheetos, Reeses-Cup- Smores (thanks Steve & Jenny for introducing us to that one), Oreos, donuts from our favorite Southern Maid shop, and soda. We feasted by the campfire til it was clearly bedtime. The girls and I went to bed while Riley ate Oreos with a raccoon by the fire. Surprisingly, the girls slept until 7 the next morning (that was later than I expected given the early sunrise and noisy morning creatures). We ate oatmeal with bananas and pb then hiked back to the beach for some fishing. Below is a video of the single fish caught. We ended our adventure with a biking trip to the Lodge where we ate lunch, packed up and headed for home. We all took naps until dinner time where Riley mentioned that he thought the family was ready for a real back-packing trip. "We could just hike a couple miles each day!" The man's appetite for the outdoors is never satiated...I love it!

Ruby Grace

A big welcome to our newest niece/cousin on the Post side born this morning around 7am...Miss Ruby Grace Lindell! Congrats to Jeff, Carri, Ty and Asher for their newest family member. We can't wait to meet Roo!

Cheat Night

During this most recent tour to Iraq Riley began following The Zone Diet. I must say this is the best he has ever looked, and it is the strongest & fastest he's ever been, but for the purpose of this particular blog, I'm not going to go into details. Simply put, Riley follows the diet strictly the entire week and then on Saturday night he eats whatever he wants (cheat night). The girls have LOVED this new tradition and I was able to capture some of the highlights of their fine dining...oreos, marshmallows, root beer, pb/chocolate ice cream cake from Cold Stone, Lucky Charms, flavored yoghurt... & I still feel like I'm leaving something out!

Vanderbilt & Frist Center

Some of you already know and some of you are hearing for the first time that we have been concerned about Saedi's small size for awhile now. Since her 9lb4oz birthweight, she has only managed to gain a measly 10 lbs in the last 18 months (weighing just under 20#); therefore, we were concerned about what we felt like was a failure to thrive weight-wise. After a lot of encouragement from other mothers I decided to get her checked out. Her local pediatrician did a series of blood & stool tests that all came back normal, but he decided to refer her to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville because he held our same concerns. Yesterday was Saedi's long-awaited appointment with a Pediatric gastroenterologist. I was impressed with the specialist and he agreed that her dropping from the 90th percentile to the 3rd percentile issued concern. Both the pediatrician and his assistant agreed that her body is probably not absorbing either proteins, fats or carbohydrates properly. So, we went to the lab for more blood work (not a fun task to hold Saedi down while they took numerous viles of her blood), and since she pooped during the appointment, that part of the lab was taken care of as well. We return on Wednesday for her to undergo a sweat test to rule out the unlikely case of Cystic Fibrosis, and then we meet with the same Pediatric Gastroenterologist in a month to go over the results. If at that point everything still comes back normal, they will perform a procedure and go into her gut to see what they can find. Hopefully we won't have to go there, but I'm beaming with thankfulness for so many things:
1. A great support system of Moms who encouraged me to follow my intuition that something with Saedi wasn't quite right
2. A supportive local pediatrician who took me seriously and did a thorough job testing her (that's was the Specialist said)
3. Living close to one of the best Children's hospitals in the nation & being assigned to a someone who will do what it takes to find the problem
4. Having Riley home to be my rock
5. Having a God who cares about all the details of our lives.
We'll keep you posted on the process of this little journey. Saedi is happy, appears healthy, and is full of vibrant life, so we're praying that there will be a simple fix to a small problem.

On a lighter note, after our 8am appt in Nashville, the girls and I ventured a couple miles to the Frist Center (art museum in Nashville) where the girls had a blast playing in the kid's section. They made watercolor paintings, printing designs, textured copies with crayons, digital kaleidoscopes, cut-and-paste projects, and checked out every station. It was one of those "to visit" places that I'm thrilled we had the privilege of visiting. The workers were delighted by the girls and more than helpful walking them through the various craft projects. Definitely a 5 star rating from this momma!