Negative

Gracie's 18 month doctor appointment was scheduled for 2 weeks after Jack's diagnosis. I'm glad there was a little bit of a gap between the two because it gave me time to gear up for what the doctor might find wrong with Gracie. I really was expecting the worst.

She is a petite little girl and her developmental strides have been small in the past few months. I know it is not always good to compare your children to others, but at this point I needed to in order to know if I should be worried about her. This shows you just how tiny she is:

- She wears 3-6 month or sz 1 shoes. On a lot of her shoes I have actually have hot glued traction onto the bottom since they don't expect 3-6 month olds to be able to walk. She would fall flat on her face with our slippery wood floor otherwise.

These were bought last Christmas when she was
6 months old and are just now fitting her.

-She wears sz 3 diapers, but could technically still fit into sz 2 pretty comfortably.

- Most of her clothes are 6-12 months size. I am currently putting away the 6 month old pajamas (also didn't have any traction)

- Her hands still look like 3 month old hands to me. Small hands run in the family though, so that doesn't surprise me quite so much.

- She is still in her infant car seat and may not reach the weight limit until she is at least 2.

- People have commented on what a smart 9 month old I have to be walking and jabbering like she is. They are always surprised when I tell them how old she really is.

Our past doctor didn't worry too much about her, but now we were going to a new pediatrician, the same one who diagnosed Jack, and I kept thinking about what else this new doctor might find in my children.

My suspicions were correct that she was small, although I was surprised that she had gained less than two pounds in the last 6 months. I thought she would have at least gained 5. She at least felt heavier to me.

She is not even on the charts for her weight (16lbs 12 oz) and her height (28.75in). Although she is following Evans suit with a larger head for her body at 25%. At least we know her brain is growing.

Developmentally she is on the lowest end of the spectrum but she is starting to catch up now that she can walk. She talks like crazy and most of what she can't do is because of her size. However, I still am currently looking into some intervention just to give her a little jump start.

As for her tiny body: The doctor recommended first a celiac test since that can inhibit growth. We immediately went to the lab to get her celiac blood test. They called the next day and it came back negative. That was a huge relief to me. Before I knew her results I started looking into what it would take to do a gluten free diet for our family in addition to Jack's diabetic diet and I was completely overwhelmed.

Next the doctor recommended a chloride sweat test to detect cystic fibrosis. We made an appointment for the next day at Primary Children's since I was already going to be down there for Jack's diabetic class. The only appointment they had open for the test was 8:00 am. Ahhh! There was no way I was leaving our house at 6:00 AM with two children in tow, so we stayed the night at my grandma's who lives close to the hospital. Jack's class was at 9:00 AM, which I ended up missing because they didn't start Gracie's test until 8:30. I was not a happy mom that morning. Luckily they had an unusually large amount of new diabetic patients in the last 2 months and were holding an afternoon class to accommodate everyone. Someone was watching out for me that day!

The sweat test was the most interesting test I have ever seen. It is one that has been done to detect cystic fibrosis since the 60's. I actually don't really know why this type of test is done, but they said it is the best indicator what whether someone has cystic fibrosis that they have found.

First they put cloth on her forearms and hooked her up to a machine that stimulates the sweat glads. They said it kind of feels like having your arms get tingly and fall asleep. They had her on the machine for 5 minutes. She pretty much screamed through all of that 5 minutes.

Then, they put a clean piece of gauze on both of her arms and wrapped them multiple times in plastic wrap, then in bandages, a heating pack, and a reflective blanket. This has to be left on for 30 minutes and then they remove it all and collect the sweat drenched gauze at the bottom which can tell them whether or not her sweat is salty enough to indicate cystic fibrosis. Really weird.

During the 30 minute wait we got to walk around the hospital. She was really freaked out by all of the wrapping at first but soon got used to it as we roamed the halls and everyone told me how darling she was.

The next day the results were back. Negative. Thank goodness. I really was not sure I could handle another diagnosis. The Dr. told us to keep feeding her bacon grease and get her weighed every few months. If she doesn't progress then we can look into something else. She is tiny, but at least we know it is just because she is tiny and not because of something else. A piece of mind (at least for right now) was worth every little bit of crying and sweating that went on that morning.