Holy Cow! Kaitlin is 11-Months Old!

I can hardly believe it has already been 11 months since Kaitlin was born. The time really has flown by and it's getting harder and harder to remember how tiny Kaitlin was when we brought her home. Kaitlin has made a lot of progress this month and she really likes to show off for her grandparents. When Keven's parents were in town for the 4th of July, Kaitlin started waving and clapping her hands all the time (way more than she had been). And this past weekend, we traveled to Virginia to see my family and Kaitlin started to do a lot of crawling. I would say she now crawls on her hands and knees more than on her tummy. She does resort to the army crawl if she is in a hurry though! When we got home Monday night, Kaitlin was very anxious to be out of the car and moving around. She "cruised" along the couch for the first time ever! And this morning, she pulled up on my legs and let go! She stood on her own for about 2-3 seconds. It just amazes us how suddenly she starts to do new things. Here are a few pictures from our day.

4th of July

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from the 4th of July. We had a great day. We spent most of the day doing stuff around the house, but we ended up at the pool eventually. Then we met our good friends, the Gaddis', to tailgate and watch fireworks. By the time the fireworks started, Kaitlin was exhausted! She watched them for a few minutes and then bounced around between Pop Pop, Mommy, and Daddy. She was definitely ready to get home and go to bed. We had wonderful food and a great time visiting with everyone. Here are some pictures from the day. There are some cute pictures of Kaitlin and Jake on Jake's blog if you want to see more.

Update

We went to the hospital for two more tests yesterday, a urinalysis and a sweat chloride test. In order to collect the sweat, they put two electrodes on Kaitlin's arm for about five minutes to initiate her body to make sweat. Then they put this little watch looking thing on her arm for 30-minutes to "collect" the sweat. After a half hour, they pulled a tiny tube out of the watch looking thing that had the sweat in it. Kaitlin was a champ for the entire process and the employees at the lab just fell in love with her. We were allowed to roam the hospital for a half hour while the sweat was collected and when we returned to the lab they told us that they'd made Kaitlin their mascot for the day. Now for the good news, all of the tests came back normal. Yeah!!! We are very relieved! We will follow up with another weight check in a few weeks. Thank you all for the encouragement and support while we waited for news! Now I must go before Kaitlin gets into something she shouldn't!

Weight Update

Keven talked to the pediatrician this evening and Kaitlin's blood tests came back normal. Her thyroid is fine and her hemoglobin was a little low meaning that she is borderline anemic, but the doctor said that is normal for her age. Hopefully the other tests will be normal as well.

The Three Worst Words

It's only noon and already this day has been filled with overwhelming emotions. I took Kaitlin to get her weight checked today. She weighed in at 15 lbs, 14 oz and is 28 ¼ inches long. Unfortunately, her weight has now dropped off the growth charts and the words "failure to thrive" were written on her chart. As a mother, I have to say that these must be the three worst words to see written about your child. Along with the overwhelming dread that there is something seriously wrong with her, I am now filled with uncertainty about my mothering abilities. What am I doing wrong? Is the schedule I have her on causing her to not eat enough? Am I missing her hunger cues? Are we giving her too many solids? Not enough?

To top it all off, I had to watch my 10-month old cry in pain and confusion as she got blood drawn. It was a miserable experience. So, now we await the results of a blood test to check her thyroid and for anemia. We go back to the hospital on Monday for a urinalysis to check her electrolytes and, although the pediatrician has assured me she doesn't have it, a sweat chloride test to check for Cystic Fibrosis. Dr. Young said that usually with any of those problems, a baby's height usually drops off as well as the weight which hasn't happened, so hopefully it's nothing, but doing some tests will help us know for sure. We'll be switching to a higher calorie formula and hopefully that will help Kaitlin get a little meat on her bones!