River's health concerns

Recently, I took a hiatus from blogging that lasted longer than anticipated. It began due to some scares we had with River's health. Specifically, she fell off the weight charts. Not like she was low on it, not like she was just a little underweight, she had NO CURVE. She was growing in length, she seemed ok mentally and was developing well, but she was SKINNY.

River in October, 2010

Now, I'm no large person. Actually, I have a pretty standard explanation that I have to give doctors along the lines of, "no, I'm not anorexic or bulimic, I'd love to gain weight, but I just can't seem to." That said, I didn't really panic when she was seeming skinnier than most.

It took some pretty, in my opinion, immature behavior on the part of my family to make me finally see that there was a real issue with her weight. Specifically, during a family trip, my entire extended family apparently 'had a discussion' about River's weight, and while they were all perfectly fine with critiquing my parenting decisions (specifically attachment parenting) none of the talked to me about her weight. Instead, after everyone got home from the trip, my grandmother called me and my mother had a discussion with me about it.

They were right, she was underweight and was starting to look sick because of it. So I took her to the doctor. The doctor wanted us to see a specialist, but during the wait for my (now) ex to get insurance, I changed her diet and she started gaining weight regularly again. We still don't have insurance (thanks to the ex), but she's gaining so steadily that our family practitioner is satisfied with just keeping a close eye on her to make sure that she doesn't plateau again.

More recently, look at those cheeks!

I'm not going to get into the whole ex thing yet, that's a post all its own.

Anyways, after the first visit, my mother decided to tell me that one of my uncles had actually threatened to call DCFS (Department of Child and Family Services) on us because of her weight. There is some disagreement about whether he was actually earnest or was just offering to drop the shoe to get me to take River to the doctor (which I guess they didn't think I would do for some reason). Either way, he seemed to think it was a valid threat to make, and my mother seemed to think the threat was needed even after the fact.

Needless to say I WAS LIVID. It was a medical issue, we took her to the doctor as soon as someone talked to me about it in a serious way and I realized that there actually was an issue, and in NO way should that warrant a call to DCFS. Not to mention the fact that my uncle's son has ALWAYS been larger than normal, so he doesn't exactly have a standard basis of comparison.

Setting all bitching aside, River is now steadily gaining weight and is approaching a normal weight, looking healthier, showing no developmental setbacks, and has some amazing chubby baby cheeks! Now I just make sure that she's eating at least three big meals per day, getting a variety of foods, and continuing to gain.

(only a couple days after the first doctor appointment, when we were still terrified, was when I found out my ex was cheating on me >.< it was quite a blow)