yikes.
Today is the for-real evaluation. They scheduled it for a couple of weeks from now, when we'll be out of town (of course), and the rescheduled date was WAY earlier. Today, in fact.
Why am I nervous?
He's my boy. They're going to watch him and make decisions about his development without the benefit of knowing him. This is good, I know. If I got to make the evaluation, it would say, "Noel is the best baby ever. Obviously the most handsome and sweetest. Oh, and as far as I can tell, he's still keeping up with most of the milestones I bother to look at- because the things that may be behind... well, I just don't notice, so much. So, A+ for Noel".
And that evaluation sucks, so we have professionals for this sort of thing. Still, though, even though he's not going to know any different, I know that this will be the start. Here, I've been told, there has to be a 25% delay before we can get services. Stupidity, if you ask me. Anyway, I don't think he's that far behind now. Later? I don't know. Not now, though.
So here is where we start checking to see how far from typical he is. Every time I think of it, I want to cry. I don't want him to be measured out in ability. A little rolling over, a little grasping, a little eye contact, a little bit here and there of what he can and can't do.
I know it's necessary. I know it's good.
But he's my baby.
UPDATE:
So, turns out the appointment I thought was at 1 was really at 10. Oops. I didn't have enough time to worry about it at 10:15 when our coordinator called to see if we were still coming. We ran out the door and got there, and it was fine. FINE.
Our early interventionalist is great. They were nice, and Noel is right on track for everything. We're going to start seeing our EI in 6 weeks or so, after we get back from vacation and she gets back from vacation...
Also, that 25% thing is BS. We're in with the diagnosis. Apparently I got bad information on that.
So. Overreacting, again.
Yay!
just because I can
Last year on father's day I started my Lupron. This father's day I have this stunningly handsome little man, and a husband who gets to be the dad. I love it.
mommy meltdown
So, last night we got lucky and babi (my MIL) watched the boy for a couple of hours. Approximately two minutes after leaving Noel I had a pint of Guinness in front of me. Followed by several more. It was fun, we saw an old friend, and the grownup conversation was nice. Just to prove that I haven't lost any cool points to the baby, I squirted milk on a dare. Um, yeah.
We picked up Noel, came home and then it happened. All the doubt and fear and worries... there they were. "What if we're not good enough parents?" "What if we miss something?" "What if I screw up the kid by being a crappy mother?" "What if he totally dies from a papercut?" Thankfully, T has had some experience with talking down the crazy drunk. This morning I woke up with a headache and the distinct feeling that I'm taking all of this too fucking seriously. Honestly, he's only eleven weeks old. Any of the stuff that we'd be doing with a typical baby is what we're doing with him, and I shouldn't worry so much about where he stands developmentally and how I can maximize every second of the day. We sing songs, we play 'hold my finger', we eat and sleep.
I have to stop feeling like his entire life's potential is decided this minute. Like if I don't actively try to engage him RIGHT NOW he's going to lose ground and grow up to be stupid and smelly. See? Crazy, even without the drunk. Maybe I'd be this weird even if he was a 46 chromosomed kid. Maybe not. But I'm really going to try to unwind a little. Promise.
Oh, and the EI meeting this morning was just paperwork. We have an actual evaluation sometime in the next few weeks, once they schedule it. Today's thing was really boring, but our coordinator chick seems nice enough, and at least we're in the system. It's a start.
Can't I catch a break?
And the answer to that would be, "No, dearheart, of course not".
So the daddy-man brought home a cold nigh upon ten days ago. The boy and I were fighting it, and doing fairly well, but that's over now. He started with a slight fever three days ago, which blossomed into a stuffy nose and a cough. I woke up this morning with the scratchy throat- hopefully I won't get bogged down with the whole thing. I don't often, at least.
We have the humidifier running- because that's what you're supposed to do, right? Even though it's, you know, summer in Florida? With the humidity built right into the heat? Whatever. We still have the humidifier on. Hopefully this will blow over soon- mostly because the poo is still stinky and gross, and with a cold on top of it... this mama's tired of the sick.
We have our intake evaluation on Monday, too. As much as I said I didn't want to do it, I'm looking forward to it. Just to get our feet wet, to get started with the system, to see what they have to say. Now, I was under the impression that because we have a diagnosis we are automatically 'in'. The person I spoke to mentioned that there needed to be a 25% delay before they offer services. I'm not sure how that pertains to us, and I guess we'll see on Monday.
Now I have to go watch the World Cup. I'm pulling for Trindad & Tobago- that's where we honeymooned, and I'm a sucker for the underdog.
Sometimes...
Sometimes I still expect to wake up, and it's cycle day 3. Late, of course, for bloodwork, for the dildocam. Bleeding. Not pregnant. No baby.
That all of this is one of those wretched dreams of having a child, of loving it and feeding it- then waking up to nothing. As much as those dreams were nice while they lasted, waking was bitterly disappointing. And I would wail with the loss.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that he's really mine, and I am awake, and I am this lucky.
Rotavirus is on its way out, although geez, the stink. Still. Yuck.
Unfortunately, it got a little worse before it got better. After the original obvious poop problems, we got ourselves to see the pedi (more about him later). He said looks like rotavirus, watch for dehydration, yada yada. That was on a Wednesday. On Saturday night, about eleven, the boy started SCREAMING. My boy, the one who barely cries. He can, mind you, and does on occasion, but it's rare. I freak out. Daddy freaks out. Gramma, who is visiting, freaks out. We call the after-hours number. Groggy pedi calls back. End of the story is this: Noel stopped screaming and fell asleep. Never did it again. It's a mystery.
We're all feeling better now.
We love our pedi. He sees mostly special needs kids- mostly kids on the autism spectrum. His son was born with a hydrocephalus. Had to have something ungodly, like 11 surgeries before he was a year old, so he's been on the recieving end of scary-parent-stuff and special needs kid stuff. He's very understanding- like when I call and it's the middle of the night on a holiday weekend and I'm in a panic. He has a Jerry Garcia doll in his office, and a bellycast of his wife hanging, too. He's viciously supportive of breastfeeding, and of our decisions to selectively vaccinate (yeah, we're
those people). He called me a week before Noel was born to check on me. He kisses us both when we come to the office. We love our pedi.
Yesterday we paid a neighborhood kid (eh, 15-ish?) to rake our front yard. It's been way too long, and the oak leaves are like, inches thick. He stopped a couple of times to 'go home and rest', knocked on the door a dozen times just to make conversation, and at one point, yelled at passing cars (when the husband went out to tell him to stop, he then yelled at some squirrels). Now, this kid has an older brother. An older brother who has been the neighborhood terror, vandalizing property, stealing, whatever. I know they live with their grandparents- not that there's anything wrong with that, but I expect it's the result of something going wrong. I feel bad for the kids. At the same time, I don't want to direct any attention towards us- the older brother used to hang out next door. I used to talk to him in a 'gee, how's it going, kid who lives in my neighborhood' kind of way, not excessive or creepy. Until he spray painted 'bitch' on the driveway and broke a window on my car. Up until yesterday, we kind of thought the younger brother was, um, potentially less affected. I guess we were wrong.
Of course, there's a sherrif's car parked at their house a couple of times a week. Maybe we should've known better.
We can't wait until Noel's old enough to mow and rake.
And, in conclusion, we are all paid up on the boy. All the deductibles, co-pays, and whatever other crap we've gotten bills for related to him and his birth are current, from the last bill from the embryologist to the last bill from the hospital.
Yay!
