As Time Went On

We always knew Liam was not going to be 6 foot. Daniel, my husband is 5'6 and I'm 5'3. So at his normal well baby  appointments when He was still not on the growth curve The doctor didn't seem concerned because he was still curving up. At his 2 year appointment The doctor mentioned he s seemed a little bit smaller but still didn't seem concerned. Danny and I started getting concerned when Liam was about 2 1/2 and seems so much smaller than his friends and other kids his age and his weight was not going up. Finally, at his three-year appointment his doctor put in his height and weight and this time was  concerned. Liam's curve was no longer going up, it was starting to level out. We discussed at length what to do and our options were to wait another six months and see if he was just a late bloomer, or do some testing to see if there were any diseases, genetic issues, autoimmune diseases, growth hormone problems or anything else causing this problem. We didn't discuss any one problem specifically yet since we weren't sure. Since I have Crohn's disease and hypothyroid he would be tested for those as well. At first we decided to wait because doing bloodwork on a three-year-old just seemed very very traumatic. Danny and I prayed a lot and we both felt God's pull not to wait for the testing. So the next day we called the doctor and went in and he was more than happy to order the test for us. These tests consisted of a urine sample, which was much more traumatic than the blood for some reason, he just thought it was NOT ok to go pee pee in a cup, lots of blood samples, which is the only part he still remembers- probably six small tubes, and an x-ray of his left hand and wrist. The blood work was testing for all his body functions, different genetic disorders, autoimmune indicators etc. the x-ray would tell the doctors his "bone age" what age his bones looked. In the next post I'll write about the results and the next part of the beginning of this journey.

Liam at 1 year