I suppose the title of this could be slightly confusing, but as I make my way through it, I believe it will make more sense.

Before we left for our trip to Colorado (Read about it Here), we started Aveline on an iron supplement for her low iron levels, and began discussing that she should be assessed by a speech therapist for her problems with not eating and choking. Of course that was put on hold while the girls and I were in Colorado. When we got back things began to move forward. Aveline was assessed by speech, and it was determined that she would have therapy once a week to help with her eating, but also came to the realization that she wasn’t speaking and the few words that she had said in the past she was no longer saying very often or at all.

Her iron levels continued to drop, and now the words anemia, and anemic became part of our daily vocabulary. We tried everything imaginable to get our sweet girl to take her iron supplements, but she was too smart and could taste the nasty meds. Finally our pediatrician told us that her levels were so low that it was beginning to affect her developmentally, her speech began to suffer more, and we are unsure if there will be any other developmental delays due to this. Our little pale skinned baby bruises like a banana, and her doctor said, “if your baby didn’t like the carseat you would still hold them down and strap them in for their well being…well that is where we are at with Aveline and her iron supplement, she HAS to have it more than ever now…”

It stains horribly, so we hold her down naked in the bathtub and force her to take it. It sounds awful, IT IS awful, lots of tears, and screaming. When it is down it is down though, she hasn’t been throwing it back up, and she is happy as a clam once it is all over. Did I mention that being a parent you have to do hard things that are best for your child and it downright stinks sometimes. 😦

She sees her speech therapist once a week. We work on ideas of food introduction, and right now we serve her things that we know she will eat with every meal just so we know she is eating something, which isn’t much; and she is working with us on sign language and different aspects of speech.

It was determined that Aveline would need to be assessed by the feeding team at Children’s Hospital. We got our insurance referral, got all of the pages of paperwork (took us about 4 days to do all the food and bowel journals, and 300 question questionnaire, and long questionnaires about textures, and how she acts and reacts to every food under the sun) only to be told that they couldn’t see us until July of 2018!!

So that is where we are at right now. Trying to figure out if we can be seen at University of Wisconsin instead; they have a much shorter waiting time. We also will not be here next July, and we need to get our girl eating and healthy. Our pediatrician is going to work up a plan to help her in the meantime until we can be seen by the experts. She is also going to be assessed by physical therapy for her right leg that is turned inwards that she trips on regularly. The Coast Guard is deeming her special needs as well, this will directly impact our transfer next summer as we will be limited in where we can go so that we can be closer to facilities and caregivers to help her in all of the hurdles she may experience through this process.

There has been talk that there was more nerve damage to her right side than they thought from her traumatic birth experience (Read it here). So we will see, time will tell all. We have been pretty overwhelmed with everything, but we are trusting that the Lord will continue to carry us through all of this. He has always been faithful to us so we are leaning on him and having faith that all will work out according to his perfect plan.

Aveline is otherwise a very happy and healthy 16.5 month old little lady. She giggles and laughs lots, has a personality for days, can do lots of fun animal sounds, and is smart as all get out! She love to give hugs and has been learning sign language since she is not speaking. She has been learning a new sign every week and can communicate 2-4 word sentences in sign language. She understands lots, and learns quickly. In the meantime, the Frazier Frontier is learning ASL (American Sign Lanuage) little by little.

To those of you that knew all this was going on, thank you for your continued prayers and support. To those who didn’t, please begin praying for us in all of this. It is a challenging journey for certain, but we know the Lord has a plan for all of us in this chapter of our lives. Thank you everyone for reading and for your support and prayers.