Papa Bear was away for most of this week, so Lemon and I have been enjoying an abundance of mother-son bonding time. As a coping mechanism, I have adopted many of his daily strategies: frequent snacks, avoidance of any foods that require cooking, and declaring the day done at 6:30pm.
We had probably our best visit ever at the CF clinic on Friday. I was concerned because our appointment time was 4pm, which I thought for sure would mean a long wait. Instead, they took us right at 4 on the dot, and since some of the folks at the clinic had already gone home for the day, we "only" saw the nurse, the doctor, the respiratory therapist, and the clinical study coordinator. What a breeze! Lemon is the fattest he's ever been, up to 35th percentile for BMI, which makes everyone very happy. We are officially off of "hospitalization watch," meaning if Lemon gets sick again we can treat him at home with oral antibiotics. And, he got fitted for his vest, which will soon replace the PT that I've been doing manually since he was tiny. So all good news.
Then came today, when I had a 32-week ultrasound for Lime. Unfortunately, the news there wasn't as good as we would have hoped. He has asymmetric growth restriction, meaning that his abdominal circumference is disproportionately small compared to the rest of him, which is on the smaller side but still very much within the normal range. Right now I have just been put on a very rigorous monitoring schedule, with twice weekly visits with various practitioners to track his growth and heart function. I suppose there is never a good time to find out that something isn't quite right with a pregnancy, but this was particularly terrible timing since we were supposed to go on our last pre-baby trip this coming weekend to see all our extended family on the east coast. We are terribly disappointed not to be making the trip but it's the only responsible choice for us right now. The main thing we have to focus on is giving Lime the best chance we can at getting to full term at a good size, and that is what we are doing. It is incredibly frustrating that we've tried twice in the last 6 months to get to the east coast to see family, and failed both times. Hopefully the third time (whenever it is) will be the charm!
