All in the Family

Yesterday we had our appointment with the geneticist.  I was really apprehensive about this visit for some reason, I think mostly because I didn't know what to expect, and I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen since they didn't have us do any labwork ahead of time.  I did what I normally do when I am nervous about an event: overdress.  I put Juniper in a fancy romper (See how adorable she is? Nothing is wrong with her, right?  RIGHT?) and hoped she wouldn't puke on it in the car (she didn't).  

 Did I forget to mention that I also made her dance? Right, I dressed her in her fancy romper, then I made her dance.  She's working on it, but she's still not quite up to par, she loses it at the end there.  Pesky head control.  

I guess I thought that the appointment would be kind of a waste of time since we didn't have any labwork, and I expected that we'd all have to get that done and go back in a couple of weeks.  When the doctor came in and started asking some weird questions about lymphedema (Why would your OT emphasize in Lymphedema? That's a strange thing to focus on.  Um, I think you'd have to ask her.), I thought we were in trouble. But, things quickly improved and I actually ended up liking the doctor.  He checked Juniper all out.  He looked at her spine, tested her reflexes, remarked on her fancy outfit, and generally basked in her cuteness.  He basically said what I already knew: there's nothing wrong with Juniper other than the lymphedema.  He scoffed when we mentioned Noonan syndrome (Who brought that up to you?).  He also put to rest the tiny head issue when he busted out the measuring tape and measured Daniel's head and my head.  Turns out that D and Juniper have the same percentile sized head.  I, on the other head, have "a rather large head for a woman." 

He said he hadn't seen a baby with lymphedema in at least ten years, and didn't seem to think that it was a genetic issue, rather just a fluke of nature.  His reasoning was that if there was a gene mutation at play then the lymphedema wouldn't just affect the one leg.  Now, this is different than most of what I've read about primary lymphedema, but it works for me.  In his opinion, Juniper's potential future children would be no more likely than anyone else to have lymphedema, and neither would any potential future children of Daniel's and mine.  
I don't know why I felt such immense relief when we left the office yesterday.  I didn't really ever think that there was anything else going on with Juniper, but I am just so happy to have someone else say so. I also appreciated the fact that he basically made like the whole thing is no big deal, and really it isn't.  I'm reminded of that every time we go to these pediatric specialists, and I know that I do really need to keep it in perspective.  Obviously it's no big deal to Juniper.  

One more time because it's freaking hilarious