Happy Birthday Landon!

So I posted that video before I was ready. But anyway here is the rest of my post.

I thought I would give my baby boy the spotlight, so this post is for him.

Landon Wyatt Stark was born Sept. 25, 2006. He weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz. and was 20 in. It was so surreal to add a another baby boy to our family. As some of you know, at Landon's 6 month appointment he weighed in at 10 lbs. 10 oz. Not only was he not gaining weight but he had lost a pound since his 4 month appointment. The doctor had some blood work done to see if we could find out why he was not gaining weight. The results were definately not what we wanted to hear. His platelets were low, his red blood cell count was low, basically he wasn't getting the food he needed and his body was feeding off of itself. Imagine the feeling of finding out your little one is malnutritioned. The questions came..."How much does he eat? How often does he eat? Does he seem hungry all the time?, etc." Of course he seemed completely normal to me. We knew he was small but never would have thought anything was really wrong. He seemed to eat, not as well as Jackson, but every child is different right? Might be too much information, but he was only having one bowel movement a week, which can be normal for some babies, and a sign something is wrong for others. Taking that into consideration his doctor thought he may have something called Hirschsprung's Disease. http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hirschsprungs_ez/index.htm

So of course I come home and research what I can online. He seems to fit all the criteria, but of course we don't know anything for sure. The doctor schedules him to have a test at Primary Children's to find out if this is indeed what he has. I am trying to remember everything, I really wish I would have wrote some of this down. So, I am thinking, well if he does have this, we will know what is wrong and we can fix it. On second hand if he does have this he will have to have surgery. So, Kenny, Landon and I are off to Primary Children's. Let me just say, he was such a trooper through all of this the past two weeks. All the blood tests, all the poking and prodding. After this test we head home to wait and hear from the doctor. Somehow excited that all this unknown is about to come to an end. But no, the test is inconclusive. He may have it, he may not. So we are back at square one. So we are told to just keep pumping him full of food and watch his bowel movements. We took him for weight checks every two weeks. Over time he starting gaining weight. We were so happy with all his progress, but were still wondering what could have caused him to drop so low.

And now at one year he is 18 lbs. 3 oz. and finally on the growth chart at 3%! To this day, we don't know why he suddenly stopped growing and not getting the nutrion he needed, but I do know that I love my sweet baby sooo much and I am so glad he chose to be a part of our family. I Love You Lando! Here are some pictures from his 1st Birthday Party.

The Cake

He loved his cake! He kept grabbing the dots. He was very upset when I took it away. I think he would have eaten the whole thing, if I would have let him.

Birthday Prince

The life size Elmo chair was a little frightening at first. I set him in it and he turned around and dove right out of it.