Thursday, February 10, 2011

Developmental Assessment

Yesterday was Dalton's appointment at the developmental clinic at Oakwood's NICU.  This appointment was made when he was discharged from the NICU back in August of last year.  I've been looking forward to this appointment...since he was discharged :)  The actual date was last Wednesday, but due to the "fake blizzard" of 2011, it was rescheduled to yesterday.

As a preemie parent, you are always concerned about whether or not your little one is catching up to babies his age, whether you are missing something as a parent, and so on so I was very nervous about this appointment.  I believed Dalton was doing great...but I'm a little biased!  So we get there, with just a few minutes to spare and no morning nap.  Not a really great combination!  Well, he was such a good little guy while I filled out the paperwork and Dr. Hughes decided to come over and talk to him while he was playing with his paci.  He's had this fear of "strangers" as of late and will scream bloody murder if anyone looks at him wrong, so I was expecting the crying to start- oh no, not today, he was all smiles. 

The nurse, one from the NICU that I can't remember her name (but was not one of our favorites) came and had him weighed - 15# 15oz!- and then asked us a bunch of questions about his health and then we waited for Dr. Hughes.

She took us down to another room and soon as we walked in with Dalton, we saw 3 therapists sitting in this small room.  It kind of made me nervous!  1 physical therapist and 2 speach therapists (I think the 1 speach therapist was a resident or something because she really didn't talk much).  The physical therapist was sitting on the floor and she immediately held out her hands for Dalton, so I passed him to her.  She immediately laid him on the floor and explained that she was going to do some tests on him.  She laid him on his belly and put this big red old fashioned apple toy down, while asking me if he could roll over from belly to back.  I replied that he had done that many times when he was about 3 months old, but only when he was mad.  As soon as I said that, like on cue, he rolled over with the biggest smile on his face!  Of course he's going to make me a liar!!  She put him back on his belly to see if he would roll over again, and of course he did.  She did several things like seeing what he would grab, how he followed toys with his eyes, and so on.  The speach therapist asked us alot of questions about how many sounds he was making, did he stop crying when we talked to him, what did he vocalize, and so on.  I found out that both therapists send their kids to Dr. R and went on & on about how wonderful she was...which made me feel so good about taking Dalton there.  We love her too!

So both the speach & physical therapist said that he was not only progressing at his "adjusted" age, but that he was developing at and above his actual age!  They didn't have any concerns about him and gave us several sheets of things we can work on with him.  Dr. Hughes was very impressed with him too and said that while he was in the NICU, they didn't have too many concerns about him but that they sent all babies under 32 weeks to the developmental clinic. 

So he is officially discharged from the NICU and the Developmental Clinic, but we could call them if we had concerns up until he was 2 "adjusted".  Then Dr. Hughes encouraged us to go upstairs and visit the NICU, where we saw Doreen, one of our favorites, and Valerie, as well as Dr. Purifoy who was excited to see Dalton.  The only bummer was that we didn't get to see Dr. Baer.  Overall we are just thrilled with his development.  I still question why he came so early (10 weeks early!) but know that God had a plan and I'm convinced that He was protecting our little guy from something that could have happened later down the road. 

I can't believe he started this small...





And look at him now!