Free

We got a new pediatrician recently, when M and I switched to Sacha's insurance, and she actually agreed that M's original blood lead levels had been high enough to warrant some concern. This was different from his original doctor's opinion, which had been that I should stop worrying. The lead levels had started to move down on his second test, but his old doctor had balked at ordering a third one. The new doc thought we should get him tested again to make sure the trend of them going down had continued. And so we did.

A couple of weeks ago, we got back the results of M's latest blood test and his lead levels were down to being essentially undetectable!

Needless to say, this was a huge relief. It also made me feel rather validated, after a year of repainting, mopping, wiping down surfaces, and generally trying to contain the lead dust that seemed to be circulating around us.

As I've mentioned here several times, the whole thing has really stressed me out. When we got the blood test results back, I felt like it had all been worth it - all the cleaning and such, which had started when Sacha was newly pregnant, sick and tired all the time, and I really didn't need another thing to add to my plate - because now we have a lead-free boy again!

Turns out, we have a lead-free house, too. What?? I know. On the very day we got the test results back, we got our house tested. We had finally decided to do it. A guy from an environmental testing firm came out (who had tested my aunt and uncle's house a few years back) and took paint samples from all our rooms and one windowsill and one door. Mateo followed him all around the house in fascination, gleefully showing off his toys as the guy tried to work. It was pretty funny.

A few days ago, a letter with the results came in the mail. It basically said that we have no lead paint in our house. The threshold is something like 5,000 parts per something (million? billion?) and our highest number was 1,800 (which was in our bedroom, of all places). Most of the other walls were much lower than that - 50 to 500, for the most part. Even the window trim, which seemed the most likely candidate for lead, showed nothing major. Certainly, there is some lead in our paint, but not enough for it to qualify as lead paint. Not anywhere near enough.

This made us simultaneously ecstatic and confused. Ecstatic for obvious reasons, and confused because M obviously got it from somewhere. We did have a heating grate in our bathroom that he used to play with and that we replaced because it was unquestionably covered with lead paint. Or, he may have played with a questionable toy or something like that. Or eaten some dirt outside. Who knows. I wish we did know, so we could avoid that thing in the future...but mostly I'm just happy to not have to be so worried about our house anymore.

And, I'm sort of hoping our new cleaning routines have become ingrained over the last year, because it sure is nice to live in a clean and freshly mopped house - especially without the fear of lead poisoning hanging over our heads!