We have had a lot of people curious about what we found out at Mari's doctor appointment last week, so I thought I would let you all know what happened.
For those of you that may not be totally aware of the situation with Mari here is a little update. Mari is very tiny for her age. She is only 15 pounds and 26 in. long, and is 20 months old. She is very petite. She was born normal size, but from the beginning of her life they have been worried about her lack of growth. At about 9 months they finally referred us to a specialist in Salt Lake. At first we were just encouraged to increase her calorie intake thinking that would help. They also ran a lot of tests to check her hormone levels. Everything came back normal, so once again we were told to try to fatten her up. It seemed to be helping because she was starting to put on weight and grow a little.
When we down last week I was pretty confident that the doctor was going to pat us on the back for doing so well. She had grown a whole inch and almost a whole pound. That was unfortunately not the case. He was impressed with her weight gain, but he is still worried about her lack of growth in the height area. He told us that her weight is following a consistent curve, her own curve since she is off the charts, but a consistent one. Her height on the other hand is not doing that.
He is having us rerun the tests for her growth hormone. We also had to get a hand x-ray to check for bone growth. If these test come back normal than we have to do a test called the 4-hour test. They will basically inject something to make her body release the growth hormone to see if it is releasing the right amount. It does not sound like it will be a fun day for her if we have to get it done.
That is what we know right now. To be totally honest I have never been way worried about the situation because I always attributed her littleness to genes, but after this visit it made me realize that there really could be something medically wrong with my little baby. I am just hoping and praying that she will be OK. It does make me extremely grateful for modern medicine and for the doctors that have stayed concerned about her and not just put her aside. We were told that if there is something wrong with her, we are lucky it will be caught so early.
We are grateful for that little girl. She may be small, but she really does bring a lot of joy into our family and everyone she comes into contact with.
We will keep you all updated once we know the results to all the test. Thank again for all your concern.
