About a Mom...: Doctors, Specialists and Therapy..... OH MY!

Wow who knew a 2 hour apt could bring you such relief and so many answers. Yesterday ECI came for an appointment to meet with Chris and I. The specifics of it was to figure out what services we would need, what the target areas are that H needs help with and to answer all of our questions.

Our meeting was at 2pm at our houses without H. We discussed the target areas that needed to be addressed and any other new worries or concerns. They had about 3 pages worth of items that needed to be addressed. Speech of course being one, transitioning, controlling temper and aggression and some other social emotional and gross motor skills. We are thrilled that his therapy will start next Tuesday morning at 9am! We will get speech from them two times a month and one other therapy I can't recall also plus they will give us some counseling to help us cope and take care of H when he has these melt downs. This is a huge relief to us.

H will be adding a new doctor to his list. We will meet with a pediatric specialist that will detect exactly what is going on and how he falls on the spectrum. This doctor, of course does not have a practice in Abilene so that means ROADTRIP! This doctor is in Lubbock so next week we will get the paperwork put together to submit a referral so we can get an apt. Once we get this appointment she will do a test called the MCHAT. This test will tell us exactly what we need to know. She is one of the only ones who will do this test under that age of 4, I believe. So now we have an ENT, Pulminologist and now the pediatric behavioral specialist.

Since all of this we have talked about switching where H would go to school. We have been looking into the best possible situation and environment that would be suitable to his needs. After our experience with home care last week and his jealousy towards the baby and him biting a child I decided this was not going to be suitable. It's not fair to put him or the provider in this situation. Obviously Chris and I can not afford a nanny or for me to stay home so the only options I could think of were to leave him at the CDC and pray that ECI and WTRH have magic and he wont get any worse and he would improve or taking him back to a downtown facility that has a high tolerance for aggression. I'll be honest I don't want to take him off base to a downtown facility because the level and quality is not the same. I have done some research and investigating and realized there was a possibility that he could qualify for Early Head Start. This is the cream of the crop, top notch child care.

After a long discussion with our ECI and them telling us H qualifies for their services it was like the heavens opened and angels sang! I was thrilled to know that my son was possibly about to get his amazing opportunity with an abundance of resources to help him. For those not familiar with EHS, it is for children birth to 3 years of age. A teacher is given 4 children and those 4 children stay with this teacher until they age out of the program. ECI and WTRH will be able to help him along with other resources the school provides. They have parent education classes that can help Chris and I with things we might need to focus on. Oh did I mention this is a federally funded program so services for us would be free! To qualify you have to either have a child with disabilities, be in poverty or be a teen parent. They are submitting H's file to EHS and next week we will submit the paperwork to be put on the waiting list. We have been informed there is a small waiting list but fingers crossed we don't wait long!

When H turns 2 we will begin the transition out of ECI. At about 30 months we will meet with the school district to see what services he will still qualify for. He would be eligible to attend and get services from Locus Head Start, which would be pre-k. Again this is amazing because this would be such an amazing opportunity for him because this is going to help him transition into kindergarten. If we continue to reside in Abilene he would attend Dyess Elem which is an amazing public elementary school! Of course when we do move back to Dallas all of these services will still be available to H but the EHS and HS programs are very limited. I do hold hope that he will be able to attend those programs when we go back to Dallas.

While Monday did get off to a rough start the rest of the week for H has been smooth sailing! We have learned to celebrate the small things and when we hear that he has not hurt any children we get super excited. When we can go somewhere and he behaves so well, again we get very excited. I know we are corny but still. He loves it when we praise him so as often as we can we do it.

This weekend we are heading to Dallas for the NICU reunion at Medical City. I am so excited to see our old doctors and nurses as well as the friends we made! We have found pictures from when he was in the NICU so we can show off just how far he has come. Sunday we will celebrate Hannah's birthday. I know it's not until July but with summer coming up and them being out here it makes the most sense to do it now so all her friends and family can be there. I am so excited to spend some time with my babies. School is almost out for them and in just a few weeks they will be hanging out here with us for the summer. Of course we plan to make this special and fun filled.

Sean did his first musical for his middle school this past week. He said he really enjoyed it. I am so excited that he had fun with this. This summer he will be doing basketball. He has talked about basketball off and on for a while so his stepmom and dad decided to sign him up. I hope he enjoys it and finds something fun to add to his activities. While the girls are out here I am going to see about putting them in gymnastics or something along those lines. They will be at the Youth Center when I work so maybe they will have some activities for them to get involved in and help them make some more friends.

Well it's off to go see what H has gotten into. He is just a ball of energy lately and so curious about everything he can get his little hands on. Thanks for checking our update. I always appreciate when people care enough to read how things are going. I do not write these for pitty or to make people feel sorry for us. I am not wanting to burden or stress people with things. I simply post these to update people at one time and to have an outlet to the ongoings in our life. So we appreciate those who have offered encouraging words and support and truly care about what is going on. You guys mean the world to us!