Warning…LONG post ahead. No knitting at all.
I haven’t given a Liam update in a while. He is now 8 months old. How can that be? Where did the past 8 months go? We had his 8 month check up and he was 18 lbs, 13 oz and 27.5 inches long. That’s 50th percentile for height and weight on the normal growth chart; 95th percentiles for the Down syndrome growth charts. He’s easily 19 lbs now; I know he put on those 3 ounces over the past week and a half. He’s doing okay health-wise. The past checkup was the first time the pediatrician heard a heart murmur. No one has ever been able to detect it before, however, the pediatrician is unconcerned about his heart. Obviously if he’s growing so well, his heart isn’t giving him any problems. Our pediatrician does a urinalysis for all babies at the 8 month visit. They detected white blood cells in Liam’s urine so the next day we trek over to Mason, wait, we went to West Chester Children’s first, was told the lab was closed on Saturdays (despite the orders being sent on Friday and confirmed with us Friday afternoon), then drove to Children’s in Mason. Liam was catheterized to draw a urine sample. This was not fun. Not fun at all to hold your child down. He has an UTI. UTI’s are fairly common, right? Not so much for boys, but he’s uncircumsized which increases the chances for developing an UTI. We started the antibiotics the same day. A few days later, the pediatrician calls with more tests she wants run. She wants a renal ultrasound and a VCUG (I have no idea what that stands for except that it means another catheterization) to rule out anatomical defects as the cause of the UTI. What? I had a freak out the day she called with all of the talk of kidney defects or urinary tract defects and damaged kidneys and whatnot. What I can’t figure out is if this is routine protocol for a UTI. Is she just being overly cautious because he has DS? I’m not quite sure what to think, but we’re going back to Children’s next week.
Developmentally, Liam seems to be pretty much on track. We had our visit to the DS Clinic. They said he was delayed in gross and fine motor skills because he wasn’t sitting independently yet. The following week, his sitting skills improved drastically. It just clicked. He can now sit and play with his toys for at least an hour on his own. He reaches forward to grab toys and brings himself back upright to play. He does still have a wipe out when he’s sitting, but that only happens when he leans too far to grab something. He scored very high in communication and problem solving. He does "talk" with communicative intent. If you’re not paying attention to him, he lets you know. Loudly. He babbles with obvious "b", "l", and "d" sounds. A typical sentence for Liam is "la la da da da blah blah blah". He’s quite adept at blowing raspberries as well. He’s also developed this screeching grunt noise that drives me up the wall.
We’re working on getting Liam onto all fours to start crawling. He’ll have none of it. It’s either on his hands or on his knees. Not both. He can scooch himself backwards and pivots on his belly. He has managed to logroll twice now. Once he rolled himself right off the bed. Give me the Bad Mommy Award for that one. I cried more than he did.
We’re also working on feeding. He eats Stage 2 baby foods with no problems. The pediatrician wants us to start feeding table foods and be off baby foods by 10 months. Last night, Liam tried some mashed potatoes. It wasn’t very successful. The taste was fine, but the texture made him gag so hard I really thought he was going to puke. We’ll just keep at it a little bit at a time. I am giving him tastes of what I’m eating. Tomato sauce got some weird faces and noises. He does like yogurt. No problems with "grown up" applesauce. Today we might try some refried beans or maybe some soup. The sippy cup is a big failure. He’ll grab it and then bang it all around. If you put it up to his mouth, he’ll take a sip and then spit it all back out. We really need to work on this.
One last thing, this past Friday was the anniversary of when my OB walked into the room and said, "I think there’s something wrong with your baby." While I’ve accepted Liam’s diagnosis, really, I’ve never had a problem with it, I’m still not over the way things were handled during the second half of my pregnancy or during labor. I’m not ready to write about it yet, mainly because I haven’t sorted out my feelings. Right now, anger is the primary emotion, especially thinking about what I saw in my chart during labor. It’s all a little too complicated to deal with now.
This week Liam will meet his grandpa and his other Aunt Tracy (Doug and I both have sisters named Tracy). He will also get to meet his cousin Teddy who is 5 months old. I hope it cools down before they get here. It’s too damn hot to do anything. I really don’t want to be hauling two babies around in this heat.
Hi there! I don’t think I’ve ever commented before, but I had to after the UTI thing — my little boy, now 17 months, had a UTI which became a kidney infection at 12 months. It was — as you noted — a horrendous experience, and they did all those tests you’re talking about above — the ultrasound, the VCUG, and another couple because of the kidney infection. He also had to be hospitalized for three days because it had gotten so bad.
Since then I’ve heard that up to 40% of children are born with reflux, which is what the VCUG is testing for, when their urine goes back up into their kidneys. It puts them at higher risk for both UTIs and kidney infections, and repeat kidney infections obviously pose a risk for kidney damage. So it’s definitely worth getting tested.
We were lucky, in our wee guy it was just a one-off, he didn’t have reflux. Most kids grow out of it, and if you know he has it, then you just watch him for infection and treat it before it gets to his kidneys (or you can give your child antibiotics daily), so this is definitely something that is easily coped with. Not fun, but cope-able. And it’s not just a DS thing.
If you want any information on the tests, let me know. I always felt better if I could go in to the tests with my boy and know exactly what they were going to do and how long it would take, so I could tell him when it would be over.
All the best!
Wow that is a lot to take in all at once. I hope that it turns ut to be nothing. I guess it is the better safe than sorry approach.
It seems that Jeannie gave a ton of good info on it. Glad that she has been there and it isn’t just something because of the DS.
Hope that it all goes well.
That’s a good news/bad news post, huh? I hope they’re just being super cautious about the kidney stuff.
Developmentally he sounds like he’s doing really well. I know another baby who shouts for attention. It cracks me up.
I haven’t been able to write about Abby’s diagnosis either. I want to but I can’t. Someday it will be less raw…I hope.
Joey has had a couple UTIs, he couldn’t be circumsized at birth (he was too tiny) and also, had to be cathed a couple times to check for UTI’s (not fun at all). Thanks for the Liam update!
Bummer about the UTI, and the need for further tests.
For what its worth, in terms of milestones he’s keeping identical pace with Ivy, so that sounds great to me!
I’ve had one doctor who handled the emotional aspect of pregnancy issues very poorly. The pregnancy ended at 16 weeks and I sent him a very long letter along with a request to send my medical records to another OBGYN.
I’m sorry for your experiences with the doctor and the hospital. The birth of your handsome Liam shouldn’t have been tainted by thoughtless people! Here’s to many wonderful years with Liam!!!
I hope the UTI and other tests come back just fine. It’s no fun to have those unknowns is it?
Liam sounds like he is doing so great – he sounds like such a cutie! Delphine hates being on her knees to crawl too.
I’m sorry that the 2nd half of your pregnancy wasn’t so great because of the docs. It’s such a shame that so many docs handle a DS diagnosis so terribly.
Again – I hope the additional tests go smoothly and you can put them behind you!
Sounds like he is doing very well. The US and VCUG tends to be standard practice for ANY baby who gets a UTI under the age of 1. My son has DS and had a UTI at about 8 months (he’s not circ’d either Dr. said it probably wasn’t a contributing factor). It was probably more traumatic for me than Nicky. One good outcome of the VCUG was they did another urinalysis and found that the antibiotics hadn’t knocked out the UTI completely, even though his fever was gone. May have saved him from kidney damage.
Hi Mindy..Lynn from the yarnshop. Kendall had the same tests and did have reflux both on voiding the bladder and filling the bladder. We did 9 months of a low dose antibiotic and we never had any more problems. We had an ultrasound done the second time and I wouldn’t do the cath again unless she had another infection. The doc told me the reflux could go on until she was about 6. We think it was resolved way before then. Liam is a cutie. We are still going to Buddy Walk for Team Pickle.
Glad to see Liam right on track developmentally!
I found your site through Ravelry. I came to look at yarn and found myself absorbing all the details about Liam. He is such an adorable guy. I do hope the UTI has cleared up. My babies are now teens. Enjoy every hugable, snugglable second you have with him while he is thi small. They grow so qickly.
I recently came back in contact with someone from my teen life. My high school boyfriend’s little brother was born with Down syndrome, probably due to a non-dysjunction event as his mom was 43 when he was born. Lonnie was always a great kid and recently I was glad to see he has grown up to be a great adult. My boyfriend was killed when we were in high school and after high school I had moved away and hadn’t seen Lonnie in years. I saw him last summer and he is now approximately 35 years old, happy, enjoying life, has a job, and loves to tell jokes. Many blessings to you and your son.