Visit to the doctor X 3 and a blood draw X 2

This month is full of doctor's visits. We saw Dr Rosen last week and she was very happy with Maya's development and growth. Maya is following the normal growth curve without compensation for prematurity.

We also did one blood test last week but had to go back again last night to do the test again since Dr Kidney wasn't happy with the results (and neither was mom and dad). It's time for all of you to again keep your fingers crossed, hall tummarna, pray, send positive thoughts etc for our little girl so the results come out better on Thursday when we go to see Dr Kidney.

The week after next we have a follow up with the Dr Development at the high-risk-infant-follow-up-clinic.

We'll keep you posted on the progress....

9 months old

Update from the 9-month check-up with Dr Rosen:

• Doctor Rosen discovered that her first tooth had emerged. Tooth #2 is right there too.


• Weight, height and head size are all increasing nicely and following the normal curve for full term babies now. No more compensation for prematurity needed on the growth scales.


• Back of her head on the left side is a bit flat so we got orders to put her on her right side.....good luck with that. Maya isn't exactly a stationary sleeper anymore. She rotates like a propeller, doing 360's all night long


• Her tone, flexibility, movement and general development is great and she is right on par with other nine month old babies.


• We are stopping iron supplements since it's making her constipated and her hemoglobin is above average now.

General update:

• Maya is making a lot of new sounds. Baba, dada, gaga etc and generally talking non-stop.


• Has learned to wave good bye to dad in the mornings when he leaves for work.


• She can now pull herself up to standing postion in the crib. Exciting and worrying at the same time.


• Can crawl backwards, much to Maya's own frustration. She gets really upset when she keeps moving away from the toy she is aiming for rather than closer.


• Rocks back and forth on all fours, which apparently is a sign of imminent forward crawling .


• Loves books but destroys every single one with sucking on it and tearing off pages. Dad's favorite baby book with machines is now falling apart

Dr Kim was happy and so was mom and dad.

So daddy did what everyone tells you not to do....he looked at the test results before we talked to the doctor. The outcome of that was a sleepless night since one of the test values, BUN, had gone from normal range to above normal. So dad searched for high BUN level on the internet and that was not a good idea.

Fast forward to the visit with the Kidney doctor....The BUN value was of no concern at all. This value apparently fluctuates a lot based on what you eat, how much you drink etc. The value has to be 4x what Maya had for them to even be concerned. We were very relieved to hear this great news. Her kidneys have improved slightly but the creatinine is still a tiny bit above normal. Dr Kidney wants to see her again in 4-5 months so this time we got a further extension in the test frequency. Unfortunately (or it's probably a good thing really) they will continue to follow her up to age 18 YEARS, to monitor that all is well. So dad better get used to the idea of blood draws, worrisome test results and visits with Dr Kidney.

Maya had a great time in the doctors office and played with the ear-investigation-thing and tore up all the paper in sight.

Bayley-III High Risk Infant Follow Up

Today we had our first follow-up with the high-risk-infant-follow-up-clinic. We got to see Maya's physical therapist, a specialist nurse and a specialist doctor.

First the basics:
Height: 63.5cm (25 inches)
Weight: 7.5kg (16lbs 9oz)

In summary she is above average for weight and head size and a little bit on the short side. Sounds like a carbon copy of dad. :-)

The tests were some questionnaires for mom & dad to fill in and play time for Maya.
Maya got to play with rings, blocks, strings, a bell and dropping a spoon. The bell made a lot of sound and was her favorite toy. The most sophisticated test was when they put the ring on a little towel just out of reach. For Maya to get to the ring she had to reach out and pull the towel towards her to finally be able to grab the ring. Our little princess figured it out right away, pulled the towel, picked up the ring and put it straight in to her mouth to chew on. They checked her reaction to sounds and our voices, her movement, strength, stability and reactions such as smiles and giggles.

All these tests are called the Bayley III scales and Maya got scored in several different categories. Normal score is 8-12 range and Maya scored 12-15 in all areas. Very good news and Maya made her parents very, very, very happy today. The final verdict read "No signs of complications from prematurity and Maya is developing normally". Those simple words mean more than you can think for worried dad.

Now, this is just a first test and by no means all encompassing but so far so good. We will be back for another follow-up in six months. This will get real interesting in the future when they start testing language skills....I hope they bring a Swedish/Chinese/English speaking doctor to assess her responses.

The paper cover on the doctors table was a lot of fun!

Maya 6 months old and yet again new numbers are in.

Maya turned 6 months last week. The week before last, we had our 6 month check-up with Maya's doctor. Maya is doing very well and continues to catch up with full-term babies. She is now 80th percentile when adjusted for her premature birth and 50th percentile compared to full term babies at 6 months. So Maya is now exactly average for a 6 month full term baby, amazing progress and Dr Rosen was very happy (and so was mom and dad). Our little Swedish/Chinese meatball was 61cms(24 inches) and 6.72kgs(14lbs 13 oz)!! She has grown so much the last two weeks that she is now too tall for 6 month clothes and we have stepped it up one size, to 9 months.

Pictures of Maya on her 6 month birthday:




This weekend we went to see the Aztec New Years Celebration at the Hispanic University. Unfortunately it wasn't the Mayan New Year but we'll try to catch that one next :-). Amazing costumes and loud hypnotic drumming. The whole area was infused with sage smoke and it was actually very interesting to see despite daddy being very sceptical at first. Maya slept through the whole event and wasn't bothered at all by the loud drums.

Hmm, what's the name of that bug in Swedish again?....

Reading
Originally uploaded by MattiasC

Maya is very excited to be welcoming farmor and farfar tomorrow. She can barely sleep tonight from being so keyed up. Mom and dad are also very much looking forward to it.

She has been busy all day studying Swedish with her favorite book as you can see on the picture here.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. We start off with a doctors appointment at 10am tomorrow. Followed by vaccinations again. After that a quick lunch and then off to the airport to pick up farmor and farfar. We'll bring them home and then I'm off to IKEA to buy an extra bed for them to sleep on. We only have one guest bed so it's time to invest in a second one. I don't want to put my parents on the big green air mattress we have that slowly but surely leak air.