I thought I'd write tonight about all that's been happening here with Allie and Hunter.
Allie is now 6!! I see her growing up into the sweetest big girl every day. It's amazing to watch her mature into a caring, smart little girl. Allie had her 6 year well check on April 23rd. She was in the 50% for both weight and height. The appointment was smooth sailing until her Dr. listened to her heart, and after some time listening told me that he was hearing a dropped heart beat, and that she needed to be referred to a cardioloist. You can imagine any mother's worry when something unexpected happens like that. So, we told Allie that she would go get a special test of her heart and to let her know that NO shots were involved! We were lucky to get an appt. later in the same week, and Brian and I took her. They did an EKG, which did show what the Dr. had heard, but it was explained to us a little different. The cardiologist doctor says she actually has an extra smaller heartbeat, and that because it's there, then the heart has to kind of re-calculate itself to the beat. (therefore making it a longer pause between beats). He then did an ultrasound of her heart, which everything on that showed up fine. Finally he wanted to do a 24 hour monitor of her heart. This required her to wear a monitor with 5 wires hooked to her chest and a monitor hooked to her pants. She was not happy at all about this, and lots of tears were shed. But, alas, we left the office with the monitor on her. She was sad and first, but then started moving around a little that night. I could not believe she slept through the night, but thankful she did. She even was such a brave little one, and wore the monitor to school. Right after school, we got to take it off, because it had been 24 hours! About a week later, we got the results of the 24 hr. test, which we also great. This extra beat is happening about 5% within a 24 hr. time frame. So, he said all was good! He wants to see her back at age 7 for a recheck, but if nothing has really changed she will be discharged as a patient. WHEW....that was a long 2 weeks of doctors and waiting.
Hunter is 23 months! I feel like it was just yesterday that I was getting ready to have him. He's still the most loving child ever. He goes to his tumbling class, has his play groups and has speech therapy. Nothing new as far as words go, but the therapist has already told me, it will probably be slow. Right now, we are working on his imitation skills with noises, just to try to get his mouth moving! He is starting to copy gestures to songs such as Itsy, Bitsy, Spider (which is probably his favorite). He knows lots of body parts, and will point to them, and is a super picky eater. Today, we went for a hearing test, just to have his hearing ruled out as any kind of problem in relation to his speech. Brian and I already knew he hears just fine, but I felt like he should have the test anyway. Hunter was awesome there. He never made one sound, never cried at all. He let the nurses and doctor check his ears and then I took him in a booth, where he did a hearing test for little ones. He sat on my lap never moving, just turning his head like a champ has he heard all the various sound pitches. His hearing is perfect!
So, that about wraps up doctor visits for the last month. Once Hunter has his 2 year appt, next month, we will be done hopefully for a while with kids and doctors!
VERY HAPPY that BOTH kids had great outcomes from their respective doctor visits :)
