This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link up. We write for just 5 minutes on a one-word prompt without heavy editing and see what happens. Today’s prompt is “well.”
All parents know the drill. Every few months of a new baby’s life, they go to the pediatrician for a “well check.” This would be as opposed to a “sick visit.” At our pediatrician’s office, and I’m guessing at most similar offices, there are two separate waiting rooms for the well and the sick.
As a parent, I was always grateful for that. I wish there was such a thing at an adult doctor’s office!
But I digress.
At these well checks, height and weight would be recorded, lungs and heart listened to, eyes, ears, nose and throat checked. The doctor just wanted to make sure that everything was progressing as it should in our babies.
When our second was 4 months old, the doctor noted at his well check that he wasn’t gaining enough weight. That led to the dreaded “failure to thrive” diagnosis. He was thriving as far as we could see, doing all that he was supposed to be doing, but we had to do all this testing to rule out anything bad. Turns out—and his doctor figured this the whole time—my milk just didn’t have enough calories.
So we supplemented with formula and he was fine. So when the same thing happened at our youngest’s 4-month appointment, we didn’t have to go through the tests. We just started giving her rice cereal.
I was thankful for their doctor, and I was thankful for those well checks. It was always good to know that, for the most part, everything was going just fine.
Have you well-checked your heart lately? Listened to it? Checked its pulse? Determined that it’s staying soft?
Psalm 139:23 & 24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
That’s a very good place to start.
Compelled 
I can definitely identify with those types of well checks! All three of our girls started off slow in teh weight gain category, but only the third continued with a slow enough weight gain to merit formula. So tough to figure it all out and navigate through that!
That experience with our 2nd made me crazy with our 3rd always wanting to weigh her and make sure she was OK. I had to let that go many, many times when she was a baby.
Never had kids, so a well-baby-check was never part of life.
Just as well. I’d have raised hooligans.
And, for what it may be worth, you inspired a sonnet…
They say it’s a vital thing
that my heart stay soft,
but I’ve heard the war-bells ring,
so please forgive me if I’ve scoffed.
This is now the day of battle;
we are constrained to hit, and hard.
Sentiment is made for cattle
en route to the killing-yard.
Lord, I hope you will forgive
my vicious ardour for the fight,
for it is all I have to give
to save Thy kids from hell’s own night.
The sheep are helpless before the leopard,
that’s why they need a fighting shepherd.
#2 at FMF this week.
https://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2019/06/your-dying-spouse-629-you-only-keep.html
Being a warrior doesn’t make your heart hard, it makes it courageous. You are very courageous.
I remember the well baby checkups. My youngest who is now 18 was diagnosed with failure to thrive because I wasn’t producing enough milk.. Oh it was terrible. She had to spend a weekend in the hospital while they fed her high calorie formula. She was eight weeks old and had to stay on it until she was about 4 months and then she was able to have regular formula.
Anyway, I followed from Five Minute Friday. This is the first time I have done this. Do you know how hard it is to write for only five minutes?
Thanks for stopping by, Regina! I apologize for not seeing this comment before now. Sometimes wordpress doesn’t inform me! Yes, writing for 5 minutes is a challenge, but it’s such a good exercise. Welcome to the process!
Our babies are 35, 33, 26 and 24, but I still remember those well-baby checks like they were yesterday. Thanks for the reminder to check my own heart as well. (I notice you’re a fellow Redbud!)
Yes! We are Redbuddies! I think I just coined that term. Funny how we never forget some of those baby years experiences. Thanks for commenting.