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!