Happy Birthday Matt and Emma

Oh my, the poor neglected blog! Well it's pretty late, but better late than never so Happy Birthday to Matt and Emma! Matt turned 32 in April and Emma turned 5. I cannot believe how time is flying by. Emma is getting so big and is ready to start school this fall. She had a great time at her birthday party and we had a good time seeing some old friends from St. Joe. Since it was a "big" birthday we had her party at the John Ball Zoo. They did animal presentations and the kids got to make breakfast for the Spider Monkeys. Here are a few pictures.

Emma Update

Emma had her 6 month check-up with the endocrinologist yesterday and we finally have some good news! She was up to 34 pounds (from 31) and has grown almost 1 and 3/4 inches in 6 months! She is now 38.75 inches tall and moved up almost 2 percentiles on the charts. A big thank you to those of you who have been supporting us these last few months. It hasn't been easy lifestyle change and we are grateful to the people who have been sharing recipes and helping us try new foods. In other news, Oliver is 6 months old today! Where has the time gone? I can't believe my sweet little baby is half-way to 1.

Emma's Allergy Testing

Emma had the basic allergy scratch testing done on December 22 and she had no reaction, so they did a "patch test". That's what you see in the picture here, well the aftermath of the patch test. They take little metal well, about the size of a nickel, and put pureed food in it. Then it's taped to your back for 48 hours and after the time is up they look to see if you have a reaction. Well we know that she had to have a food allergy and the patch testing was the better than the alternative. The alternative was eliminating the 8 major allergens (wheat, soy, peanut, tree nut, fish, shellfish, egg, milk) then waiting 6-8 weeks to have another endoscopy(scope). If the scope was clear after that then we would slowly reintroduce the foods back in and keep having her scoped to see if there was a reaction. Matt and I both hated the idea of her having another scope, so we are hoping the results of the patch test are good enough for the doctors now. Her patch testing showed a wheat, rye, pork, and string bean allergy. She may also have an allergy to corn and soy, but because she is not symptomatic we are not eliminating those 2 right now. So for now, we are gluten free plus pork(which we don't eat anyway) and string bean free. After a few months she will have another scope to see if the irritation and damage to her esophagus has healed then we'll know whether to eliminate corn and soy from her diet. I REALLY hope we don't have to get rid of corn/soy as they are found in almost everything you buy at the grocery store! So far both of the girls have been doing good on the gluten free diet and seem to be growing now.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Family Pictures 2010

We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago by some good friends of ours. If you are interested in having pictures done and are in the West Michigan Area I would highly recommend Alexis. She does a great job, is very professional and has a cute new baby! This is the link to her website: http://www.studioxplore.com/ and here are a couple of my favorites.

Celiac's Sucks!

Today we officially got Emma's diagnosis of Celiac Disease. For those of you who don't know what's been going on I'll give you a brief version. Emma was referred to an endocrinologist because of her short stature and her failure to grow/thrive. Basically she hasn't grown in the last year and has almost dropped off the growth charts. They ran a blood test and found she was testing positive for Celiac. So we had an endoscopy done last week and they took some biopsies. We thought that would be the end of it, but they also told me today she has Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EE). As I understand it she has damage in her esophagus due to a food allergy. She now has to have allergy testing done and more endoscopies to check for healing/damage. There is a possibility that the inflammation in her esophagus is from the wheat/gluten and once she heals from that she may be "normal".

So our new diet has started, which means we can no longer eat most of our favorite foods. Gluten is found in just about every processed food so we are still trying to find alternatives. Please don't be offended if we don't want to go out to eat or have dinner at any one's house, but we have to get all this figured out first. It's very overwhelming when you start learning about cross contamination in the kitchen and how much it's actually hurting her. All we want is for her to be healthy again. It looks like this coming year is going to be just as hard as this past, but hopefully we will get everything figured out soon.

On a side note, Isabella is also testing positive for Celiac and has an appointment in a few weeks to see if we should do further testing. Matt and I are also going to do genetic testing to see who is the carrier for Celiac. If we are both carriers then there is a good change Oliver has it too and that we can also develop it later in life. We will also be urging people in our families to get tested as well.

Isabella's 3rd Birthday

Isabella turned 3 over the past weekend and we had a little party for her. Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated the day with us. We had a good time and good food.