9 month checkup

Here are a couple of crazy pics of Rebecca. She is modeling her "baby legs" (or maybe she is sorry she missed out on the 80s) and her Baby Ugg boots. Isn't great to be on the cutting edge of fashion for 9 month olds?

This morning, Rebecca and I went to her 9 month well-baby checkup. She weighed in at 16 lbs, 4 oz. and measured at 27 inches long. I don't really think the length was accurate, because I think she moved up on the table when they were about to make the head measurement. If so, that would be the 47th percentile, and she's definitely shorter than half of all 9 month olds! But she's still hanging in there at the 10th percentile for weight. They did a toe prick to check her hemoglobin, and she was well within normal range - no danger of anemia. Dr. Jeng wasn't able to hear her heart murmur at all when she was standing up, and he didn't hear it when she was lying down either, but she was not cooperating. It should be more pronounced lying down. But either way, it definitely hasn't gotten worse and may have disappeared. She is exactly where she should be on social and language development, and she is ahead of expected on both gross and fine motor skills. Dr. Jeng proclaimed her to be perfect, healthy, beautiful, and comical.

The biggest issue we discussed is that she has basically been sick for the last month - she had a cold, followed by the double ear infection that wouldn't go away, and then the upper respiratory infection. I told him about how she pulls at her ears randomly and how she cries out in her sleep and grabs her ear if she is lying flat. Dr. Jeng suspects that what is driving all of that is allergies, especially since she has eczema, I have a lot of allergy problems and come from a long line of allergy sufferers, and Ramy's dad has asthma (another predisposing factor). He thinks that she is staying congested because of the allergies, which is pushing pressure into the Eustachian tubes. The pressure would be the strongest when she is lying flat and is probably causing her ears to pop when she sleeps. With the chronic congestion, the fluid in the tubes is less likely to drain, making it more uncomfortable and more likely to cause more ear infections. He wanted to be completely sure that there was no underlying sinusitis, so he put her on a whopping dose of amoxicillin for ten days (twice the amount each time than what she got before, and now she gets that 3x a day instead of twice). And then if she is the same (which he suspects she will be), then we'll put her on a maintenance antihistamine.