The appointment at the children's hospital went pretty well yesterday. Lilah's development is right on target for her 21 months. The medical professionals say that for every 3 months a child is institutionalized, it delays their development by 1 month. After the math (18 months in an orphanage), Lilah should have the development of a 12 month old, but nope, not our Lilah, she has no delays whatsoever. We are so thankful and proud of our girl.
Lilah's height and head circumference are a perfect average, which is such a relief. In orphanages, because of poor health standards, regularly weight gain and head growth are depressed. Her weight is definitely on the lowest end of normal, so we were told to feed her up! She already eats lots, so I'm not sure how we're going to accomplish that! We were told her weight is not really a big issue though. Also, the doctors still have to rule out the fact that she may have an intestinal parasite. Again, this would be very common for a child coming from an institutional care setting.
She had a lot of blood drawn from those two little arms and she wasn't a happy camper at all. We all came home exhausted from that, not to mention she missed her two hour mid-day nap. Poor little Lilah. We go back in 6 weeks to find out more about her health from those blood results. Also, we now have to start getting her immunizations. There are certain immunizations China doesn't do at all, so we are starting with those. We will find out if she needs any others from the results of the blood work.
Regarding Lilah's eyes, unfortunately the ophthalmologist we were referred to died a few weeks ago, very sad. So now we are awaiting another referral and appointment.
Here and here are read worthy articles regarding institutionalized children. They are a reminder of what these little ones go through and why their development is lacking for the first little while, or possibly longer. We will never know what Lilah's circumstances were like for the first 18 months of her life, but I find these articles good to read so I can be aware of what our little girl may have went through.
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I read and saved those articles. So much of it is so true for so many children. It always makes me tear up to think about it. We take so much for granted, don't we? Glad all went well at the check up. I look forward to hearing about her eye visit. Eliza's is amblyopia now.
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