The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential?
Anyone know about
this organization? I was bouncing around on
DownSyn and came across a reference to it. Seems to have been started by a
Dr. Glenn Doman.
There is also a group called the
The National Association for Child Development, which seems to be a research-based program started by Robert Doman, Jr (a nephew I think).
I've also come across a book entitled
No Time for Jello, which is a critical account of one mom's experience.
Just wondering if anyone has looked into these programs, and if you did, what you found.
Oh, and I just found
this at Quackwatch, which is very interesting, too.
And
this, published in the St Pete Times. OF COURSE the organization is linked to the
Scientologists. Of-
friggin-course it is.
I hate houses
Not really. In fact, I have the opposite problem. I got emotionally attatched to that damned house. Stupid house. Built in 1918, big front porch. Had a fireplace. Had a garage, much to the husband's delight. Small yard, but the dogs are old and crotchety anyway. They don't need a lot of running around room anymore. Needed love as far as the interior went, but we were willing to make it pretty again. It isn't bad, just cheap updates that do nothing for the house.
Got a call from our realtor this morning. She contacted the seller's agent, who told her there was an offer on the table. An offer of full asking price, no repairs requested.
Bastards. It has a considerable amount of wood damage, so this seems ridiculous. Our realtor said they may be making it up to get us to offer full price. She said that even if it IS a real offer, maybe their funding isn't a secure as ours (remember all my approvals? I guess I did something right. We're sure to have some funding, after all). But still.
Anyway, we're going to look at another house tomorrow. It's a better location, neighborhood-wise, but worse, as it's on a busier street. WAY better price. It's a steal, no doubt about it. We'll make an offer on the first house, but I'm not holding my breath. And when they tell us they're not dealing, we can say that we have a second house to make an offer on, and mean it.
So there.
And yesterday? I had a ton of traffic, like three times normal. Only three comments, though- what? Did I piss you guys off?
Just to be extrordinarily clear about my feelings, though... Noel is a treasure, a blessing. Not because of his Down syndrome. But because he's my son.
plugging right along
Yesterday we had a visit with our pedi- Noel is still off the typical growth charts, but he's solidly around 50th centile on the Down syndrome one. We've officially switched over to that one now. To be honest, I don't really care. It was nice to be able to say, 'well, our dr feels that as long as he's progressing well, we should treat him as typically as possible', and it was true, but growth charts are a bunch of hooey anyway.
With a mama that's barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, and who lies to say she's five feet tall... maybe the teensy factor isn't all that extra chromosomes fault, ya know?
And speaking of chromosomes.
The internets are all atwitter over this:
ACOG recommendations for pregnancy screeningThen the National Down Syndrome Congress rebutted with this:
press release (it's at the top of the page, and it's a Word doc)And just because I like to get in on the action, here's what I have to say about it all.
When we first found out there might be a problem, I was still under the care of my midwife. We got a triple screen back that put me at higher risk of a chromosomal abnormaity. That test has the tendancy to return false positives (not really a false positive, because it's not a positive/negative test, but you're more likely to hear that you're over the cutoff for 'typical' results even when everything is fine) so we blew it off. We scheduled the targeted ultrasound to see what was going on.
Basically, there were some soft markers, but a) nothing that was a strong marker for DS, and b) nothing that was really a health risk. I was asked if we wanted the amnio immediately, and I said no.
We paid for that pregnancy with our souls as much as we did with cash, and who would put that at risk for a slight maybe? Not me.
The perinatologists group that did the first targeted ultrasound continued to see me for the next two or three months. There was a feeling of resignation almost from the people I was seen by there- that I was the one declining further testing, and thereby making it clear that we would not consider termination. Nobody said as much, of course. It was just a feeling I got. Maybe I'm wrong.
The funny thing is, though, is that I'm pro choice. I'm STILL pro choice. If we had really thought that there was the possibility that the baby had Down syndrome we probably would have talked about terminating the pregnancy. What would we have decided? I don't know.
I was very sure, though, that we had paid our dues already, and we were immune from any other problems. It was hard enough for me to get pregnant- we should have been shielded by our karma or something. Denial is a fascinating thing.
I guess that's not the point, though. The point is really this: every person we spoke to in that perinatologist's office- every last one of them- acted as if a baby with Down syndrome was a tragedy. These were the people that were supposed to know about high risk pregnancies and babies with issues, and they made me feel stupid; stupid for continuing the pregnancy, stupid for declining the amnio until it was too late to terminate, stupid for considering staying with the birth center (before we got the amnio results back).
When I finally scheduled the amnio, I was thirty weeks pregnant. My husband went with me, he held my hand and watched the fluid fill the syringe. The doctor performing the procedure said to us, "Now, you know that this is for information only, right?" Amazing, no?
I don't begrudge anyone the right to choose. I just wish that parents were given all the information to do it. Nobody told us any of the good parts.
We could have missed all the good parts.
Not dead yet...
No, I haven't gone and fallen off the face of the earth.
Buying a house is wicked stress, guys. We picked one. STILL have not made an offer yet, but we're
this close, I swear. Have two pre-approval letters in hand (because I am crazy paranoid about not having the funding). With me not working, our annual income is less than we're used to, and with no real firm plan for me to go back to work, we need to be able to pay the mortgage on his income alone. So.
The house we want is listed at a price that is well above it's value right now. It has also been on the market for a very considerable length of time. It is also owned by a real estate investor (under the name of his company), not a 'people' owner.
I am so clueless about how to come up with a first offer.
We have comps from the area, and from a purely numbers standpoint, we should first offer about 25K less than what the asking price is. But good gravy, I've heard of sellers becoming offended at a lowball offer, and I don't want to fuck up the negotiations, I just want to buy the house. It will appraise for probably right at the asking price. It's definately worth it. The neighborhood is definately worth it.
This sucks.
Happy New Year!
I don't make resolutions. It all feels so arbitrary- if you want to change something, do it. If not, don't. But to make these huge, impossible to keep plans based on a box of the calendar, well, it just feels really forced to me. So I don't do it.
We survived our first major potential injury- I was picking up laundry and Noel was playing on our bed. (You can see where this is going, right?) Kiddo took a header off the bed, and landed flat on his back. Took that l-o-n-g quiet second and then started wailing. He's fine, I'm fine. There will be more in the way of bumps and bruises in the future, I know, but geez. Dad's just happy it was on my watch that it happened.
On my head? Two grey hairs. I'm SO not old enough for this.
We're starting the house hunt in earnest now. We've walked through several- one in a great location, but not quite enough yard, one excellent house in a crappy neighborhood, one pretty good one on a pretty good street (with a garage- yay; also with an 80's style rock wall fireplace- not so yay), and one just amazing house right at the top limit of our budget, in a great neighborhood but with the smallest living room ever. Oh, and no central a/c, which is truly a dealbreaker, but the owners said they'd have one installed or make allowances in the purchase price. Doesn't fix the fact that the living space wouldn't fit the big leather chair/ottoman that my husband HAD to have a while back.
All coversations now are just continuations of past conversations about houses. They start midstream. "Well, the yellow house-" "Double lot yellow or Main St yellow?" "Main Street. It has that porch, but no fireplace." "Yeah, but the green house has the original hardwood floors. "Right, but what about the backyard? Looked like it would flood".
These conversations never really end, but taper off, only to be picked up again later. We have to compromise someplace, and we'll pick something eventually. It's just gonna be a lot of back and forth till then.
