Update

Two doctor appointments this week, a whole lot of endo pain, a sweet husband with an eye problem. There; you're all caught up. No?

Tuesday was met with horrible endo pain and an appointment at the GI doc for D. GI doc increased Zantac slightly for D's weight gain (15 pounds, 12 oz, yo) and promised to send a note to the feeding specialist to have them call me about starting therapy sessions. She watched me feed D a bottle and saw how she fights and fusses, and said that this plus her eating almost half of her formula at night are typical of a baby with severe reflux that's starting to get better but who still has the food aversion. She said that at night the baby is so sleepy that the hunger instinct just takes over and overrides the desire to push the bottle away, so they eat more. She did feel that D needs some therapy and didn't seem pleased that the specialist sent us away without therapy and also that the specialist hadn't sent her any reports back.

Unfortunately on Thursday the feeding specialist called Alan instead of me, and apparently he was kind of rude and told her that no, we didn't want to do any therapy. So i'm not really sure what to do at this point :(. Poor kid. i can tell you that i'm not going to put formula in the sippy cup as the therapist suggested because i don't want her to associate sippy cups with pain. Sigh.

Thursday we had D's 6 month appointment. 12 pounds 13 oz lol. Also nearly 25 inches. We had asked the pedi about a letter that discusses D's medical history, issues, and potential issues moving forward to submit to the "adoption assistance" people. We don't know yet if D will qualify as "special needs", which means she'll continue to get some benefits from the state (actually from a block grant from the feds). She would get slightly less than her current board stipend, continue on Medicaid, qualify for something like $5k for college (not sure if annually or whatever) in-state down the road, some preferential treatment for some schools like magnet schools, and would qualify for the full $12k federal tax credit at the time of finalization. Of course, we view this as HER money, not ours, and while it makes us really uncomfortable to have to fight for it, we also feel like it's her benefit and we have to be her advocate and get what she deserves if she does, and we would invest this for her future.

Anyway, we asked the pedi to please write a letter that outlines laryngomalacia, reflux, whether or not they may have been caused by either the lack of prenatal care or the drugs/cigarettes/etc, and any future complications that could happen. She said she began the letter but it was really hard to write. One thing she wanted us to ask the caseworker (we did) is whether or not a Barrett score was done on D. This is a test to estimate gestational age based on factors like skin, hair, position, muscle tone, etc. Anyway it wasn't in the medical history the pedi has, and could make a huge difference. Apparently there was notice that the birthmom said that she thought she was in the 7th month, but D was pretty big for that so it's kind of suspect info.

Otherwise everything went fine with the appointments and all, other than D getting a fever from all the shots :(.

Developmentally she's still amazing me on a daily basis. The other day she pulled herself up on my fingers and then walked 9 steps while holding my fingers. That was Tuesday i think. Then Wednesday she balanced herself standing for about 3 seconds. And then today she was cruising (which means walking while holding onto furniture) at the coffee table and decided that she apparently does not like walking sideways, and instead she turned so that her right arm was draped over the coffee table like some kind of frat boy, and took a few steps walking forward. Then she tried to reach for something on the table with her right hand, and couldn't balance and fell backwards on her tushie. She's such a sweet little clown!