Rust juice, anyone?

We brought Rosabelle for a check-up at Amcare yesterday to check on her iron-defiency anemia. Poor girl got stabbed once in the veins on both food for them to gather enough blood samples. Four nurses, and they did not get enough blood from the left foot, so we had to take from her right foot as well... rather inefficient and clumsy, I must say. We kept her distracted with videos on my phone, and she only wailed when they stabbed the needle in, but was otherwise quiet and even observing them at work. Brave girl.

We got the results in today and she has the right amounts of all the minerals in order, but still has low red blood count, so the doctor prescribed 10 days of iron tablets, which we started on yesterday. We had to mash the tablet into powder form before I added some water to mix it up and syringe-feed her. Strangely, she did not protest at all, but today, maybe I added lesser water, and the iron smell was really strong, so we had to hold her and feed. Some 'rust' juice even dripped onto her clothes, and adios to them, no amount of scrubbing could remove the stains. Rosabelle smelt quite strongly of rust after, hehe!

Hopefully the tests will come out well at the next check-up...

But we have not been resting on our laurels! The nanny added a teaspoon of sesame to her cereal yesterday, as it's high in iron content, and it made the cereal smell nice also. We also let her eat Kellogg's corn flakes for breakfast (in thawed EBM) - she liked it, especially when she could feed herself the dry cereal as well.

Think I seriously need to explore self-feeding soon (i.e. with spoon), as she now prefers adult-like utensils, only wanting to drink water from Wayne's big mug that covers almost her whole face. I've placed an order for a suction-base bowl, once that's in, we will try giving her a spoon to see if she's ready for some meal-time independance!