April 20, 2020

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34

When Sophia was 8 months old, I started to notice that she wasn’t finishing her 6 ounce bottle in one feeding (she had to take a 10 minute break after every 2 ounces). I decided to bring the feeding issue to her doctor’s attention at one of her doctor’s appointment and Sophia’s doctor decided to send her to a special therapist to get it checked out. We met with the therapist and she asked me to feed Sophia in front of her. The therapist was surprised and said that she had never seen anything like this before in her life. The therapist reassured me that there is nothing wrong with the way Sophia was swallowing, nothing wrong with Sophia’s development, and that Sophia’s weight is perfect for her age according to the charts. So, even though the therapist was surprised at Sophia’s eating habits, she was not concerned and told me not to be concerned. The therapist figured that Sophia is just a petite baby and that her stomach was just small.  I am not going to deny it, it was very hectic to try to feed her all day long so I can be sure she got enough nutrition. But I figured it’s ok, as long as she is healthy and ok, hopefully when she grows up, it will get better. 

Sophia’s one-year checkup came and we went to the doctor, of course you go through that list they give you and answer all these questions. So, I went in and had to explain my answers to her doctor because I didn’t have the clear yes and no answers to many of the questions. Is Sophia crawling? Yes and no. She started crawling but very slow crawling not the same way you see other kids crawling. Is Sophia walking? Yes and no. She walks but has to hold on to something, she can’t walk by herself. Her doctor was not concerned and said kids can start walking by themselves between 1 year and 18 months so she is not late, especially since she started to crawl and walk. I asked her doctor if she thought that Sophia’s issues with crawling and walking were due to her being weak from the feeding issues I mentioned 4 months ago, which we were still dealing with (she still takes a break in between feeding). The Doctor reassured us that according to her growth chart she is more than perfect and on top of all that, she met all her developmental milestones, without missing a single one. So, she said not to be worried but she will send her to pediatric physical therapy so that they can provide Sophia with some exercises to help her with the crawling and walking. I said ok but honestly as a mother something was not sitting right inside me. Everyone who knows me, knows that I worry too much about everything and also, I am a very impatient person, so I figured it was just me worrying too much. 

I took Sophia to her first physical therapy appointment and her therapist was very sweet. She examined Sophia and couldn’t identify anything wrong with her, so she advised that she believes Sophia’s issues with crawling and walking might be a combination of two things. The therapist believed that Sophia may be scared and also may be a bit weak so the plan was to work on those 2 things. Sophia was initially approved for 1 therapy session every 3 weeks, so the therapist had to show me what I should do and do it at home until the next session 3 weeks later. Although the therapist examined her and couldn’t find anything wrong with her, I still had fear but didn’t know why, maybe because I compared Sophia to her sister, who started walking at the age of 10 months. So I kept trying to convince myself that every child is different. 

Lessons Learned:

• Don’t worry about tomorrow
• Trust your instincts

PLEASE NOTE – for all of the “lessons learned”, we did not always see it that way during the events that were occurring which are mentioned in the posts. Many of these lessons were learned weeks, months, or even years later when we looked back and reflected on the circumstances.