Multitude Mondays–Our Healthy Girl #50

Being the mama of 3 is much easier than being the mama of one or even two. No, I don’t have more time to myself or more money than I had with one or two kids, I have something much more valuable. I have more experience. I have history.

When you have your first baby, everything is new. Both the good and the bad have never happened before. You only have the experience of others to go by. The information your doctor gives you. The opinions of friends and those darn growth charts.

Based on the above it is easy to be thrilled when your child is hitting the average sizes and growth rates and quite devastating when they slow down or otherswise land outside of the norms. Be it good or bad, that is the information you have.

As you may know, I have the experience of two little girls who did their own thing developmentally and growth-wise.

I remember falling completely apart after the doctor we were seeing told me Caitlyn was showing signs of failure to thrive, due to low wieght gain, and should be weaned and given whole milk with Chocolate or Strawberry Syrup in it, at 9 months old. Yes, you read that right. I cried and cried and agonized. We were expecting Sue at the time so I had a midwife appointment. I took Caitlyn in, held her up to my midwife and said, “they say I have to wean her and to give her whole milk with chocolate or strawberry syrup in it and I have to have her assessed for developmental delays.” My midwife looked at her, said, “she looks fine to me. Here’s the name of my family doctor, call her, tell her I sent you.” Between my midwife’s referral and my tears on the phone, we got in the next day.

Fast forward more than 3 years, Caitlyn is fine, no delays of any kind.

Now on to the next child. Thankfully we were now at a wonderful doctor who watched Sue close, but did not freak out when the child decided growing was optional and she wanted to option out. Sue is perfect, just petite. Our doctor gets that. She follows Sue’s growth, only using the charts as reference to follow Sue’s progress against her own growth, not the average of all the kids out there. She knows my first two kids slowed down in their growth significantly around 6 months. She even noticed that adding solids to Sue’s diet did not help her growth, rather, her weight slowed down even more. So we backed off solids to make sure Sue was nursing a ton. And we continue to have an amazing, petite little girl.

So then Patrice comes along. And the kid ate and gained weight from the beginning. The doctor and I were AMAZED. We truly marveled at this new member in our family. Two appointments ago she was at 50th percentile for weight and 70th percentile for hieght. Who was this kid? Then at our 4 month appointment, she slid to 25th percentil for weight. And this last week, she proved she belongs in this family when she hit 10th percentile for weight. Yup, she’s ours. She is gaining, or not, right on our schedule. We are now watching her weight gain and some other developmental markers. Like a hawk. Oh yeah, we’re gonna be back in…two months!

You can totally tell our doctor knows us, when she panics so much she wants to wait two months to see how the weight is going.

I am so thankful for the history of my other girls; it allows me a freedom from worrying I did not have before. I am thankful for a doctor who listens and pays attention to her patients rather than charts and graphs. Above all, I am thankful for my girls.