Into the fire........

Sorry its been so very long, I think about things I want to post about and then forget to post! I would blame mommy brain......but that seems cliche so I won't!

A lot of things have been happening here.  Z is still not walking, however he has taken a few steps here and there and we are hopeful that one of these days he is just going to take off.  I am sure that once he has taken off, I will regret those words but in the meantime we are hopeful.  I had thought he had until 18 months to start walking, but apparently its really only 15 months before they get worried and we have hit the 15 month mark.  Because you know, this mommy didn't have enough to worry about.

N is doing really well.  His hands seem to be loosening up a bit more and only seem slightly involved at this point.  We have been seeing an oral/motor specialist for a few months now and N is finally able to drink from a straw and now has the independence to drink all by himself.  It is so wonderful to see the look of pride and satisfaction on his face as he drinks his milk all by himself!  I am also hopeful it will allow him to gain some more weight.  Z weighs 4 pounds more than N and I think that has a lot to do with their milk intake since they both eat and feed themselves the same foods. We are also in the process of ordering his gait trainer.  He has been doing really well with the one they have at the hospital where he receives PT each week.  We had tried him in it in June and he just wasn't quite ready, but two weeks ago we tried it again and he just took off.  I was so very proud of him and he was most definitely proud of himself.  I don't expect to to receive it much before Christmas but the fact that the process has been started and my little boy will finally be able to move around by himself in a method other than rolling is so very thrilling. We are still working on crawling with him, and I am hopeful that maybe by the end of the year he will be able to at least military crawl.  I hate it that Z can crawl into the kitchen or wherever else I am if he wants to and be with me, or go into the cabinets, or just have some freedom and N is stuck wherever we put him.  Yes he can roll and it has given him some sense of freedom and mobility, but it's just not the same. I want my little boy to crawl...........amazing how things that most parents think are "little" mean the world to a parent of a child with special needs. 

I finally got Early Intervention to give us speech therapy.  It has taken a lot of pushing, but both N and Z were evaluated last month and both deemed to be (shocking to no one in this household I can assure you) more than 50% delayed .  So both boys will now get speech therapy one time per week.  I really wanted twice per week, but the compromise was once a week for now and in three months we would sit down again and re-evaluate how things are going and hopefully add in that second weekly session that I think they need.   It probably seems crazy to be getting speech therapy for two 17 month olds (15 months adjusted) but my boys haven't said "mama" they haven't said "dada", they don't say much of anything.  Sure they babble and make noise, but they don't talk, they don't say words.  I don't understand the concept of "well lets wait until they turn 2 and see how its going".  Why? Why in gods name would we wait until they are two to give them any assistance in speech?  If most children say a few words, or at the very least "mama" or "dada" by the time they are 12 months old, why would you wait another 12 months to intervene? It makes no sense to me at all, feelings I made very clear to our case manager.  I don't think she likes me very much, but I am looking out for the best interests of my kids not to make more friends. 

And in other news............we have started another round of IVF! Yup, we are totally crazy.  No, we really aren't but I am quite sure that most people will think we are.  We have always wanted 3 or 4 children and although we were planning on waiting another year there are some things that have required otherwise.  We have wonderful insurance coverage through DH's employer, coverage that allows us IVF coverage.  Unfortunately this coverage only gives us 60 sessions per year of therapy (combined speech/OT/PT).  Now, that doesn't matter much right now because almost all of N's therapy is done through early intervention. Of course without the session limit we would be able to submit the co-pay we make for reimbursement, but its a manageable monthly payment and so we are doing ok without that.  However, once N turns 3 he graduates into the school program, and while they therapy will then be done through the school, I'm not sure if it will be enough and I may want to get him more private therapy.  In order to do that, we would need to change the plan we currently have and the plan we would need to change to does not have any IVF coverage and we would have to make that switch next November.  Seems like a long way away, but it's really not not in infertility world at least.    So I started my lupron shots last Friday and we are hoping for a retrieval date of November 14th.    It still kills me some days the amount of people and decisions required for DH and I to decide to have another baby, something that really should be just a decision between DH and I.  But, I try to accept that it is our life and on most days I do ok with it. 

Life is never dull in this household!