Growth Hormone?

Julianne is little. Ever noticed that? Our doctor has. He's been watching Julianne for a few years now. And even knowing my history, (I was a serious "late bloomer"...aka Consitutional Growth Delay) he still was "concerned" about Julianne. Dr. Lindsay doesn't get "concerned" easily so I sat up and paid attention. It just so happens that Dr. Lindsay, as well as being a pediatrician, is also an excellent pediatric endocrinologist. Lucky us! He's sent Julianne in for various tests recently checking thyroid and growth hormone levels. Those came back normal. He also sent her in for a bone age scan. The scan came back with a bone age of 10. Chronological age for Julianne was 10 and 3/4. Growth age was 7. Which means, although she was 10 years old, she looked like she was 7. For Julianne to just be a late bloomer like me, her bone age should've been closer to her growth age of 7. But it wasn't. It was closer to her chronological age. Which is obviously what it should be if she's growing normally. Which she's not. (Did you follow all of that?) So, educated predictions put her at an adult height of 4'8''.

Four feet, eight inches?? That's when my heart started sinking. That's just too short. What if she can't drive a car? What if she always has to stand on a stool to reach the kitchen countertop. What if no boys want to ask her to the prom because, as cute as she is, she's just too little? And that's when I started to cry. I know what it's like to be short. I hated kids calling me "shrimp" and "short stuff". I hated it that none of the boys would flirt with me at the mall because they thought I was still just a little girl. I hated it when wise grownups would tell me that even though I looked young now, when I was in my 30's and I still looked like I was in my 20's I would be grateful. (Which is true by the way....but I hated hearing it then.) I just wanted to be normal. Rebekah and Julianne are both small. They handle it better than I did. According to Dr. Lindsay, Rebekah is like me, a late bloomer. I'm okay with her dealing with being short if I know that eventually she'll put on a growth spurt and end up normal like I did. But for Julianne...to be that short for her whole life? I don't want that for her.

So, Dr. Lindsay has now officially recommended we "intervene". And now Bryan, Julianne and I have to decide if we want to subject Julianne to growth hormone. It's expensive. Insurance companies don't like to pay for it. We're worried about side effects and risks. It's kind of tough making a decision now for something that may or may not happen in the future. Because when it comes right down to it, predicting Julianne's adult height really is just an educated guess. She's a healthy, happy little girl right now. It's not like she has some disease where it becomes obvious that she needs medical help. But I'd hate to do nothing and then watch her struggle...emotionally, physically....knowing we could've done something. So I guess we do research and we gather all the information we can and then we pray and pray and then pray some more that we will do what's right for Julianne.


This picture is of the test Julianne took yesterday. It was a more serious growth hormone test. She went in to the doctor's office fasting. They gave her some medication and sent her down to the lab to have her blood drawn a half hour later and then again a half hour after that. Then back up for another kind of medication and two more blood draws. She was amazing! Didn't flinch, didn't complain. The lab worker said Julianne was the best 11 year old she'd ever drawn blood from. I was so proud of my girl!