Disappointing News

This is a difficult blog post to write for me.

The RN Evaluator from the Health Department came over yesterday for Vi's evaluation. She was super fun and friendly and the normally stranger-averse Vi adored her and put on her extra charm with her big toothy grins and laughs. The first part of the 2 hour appointment was giving Vi toys to play with and tasks to complete. She played with a peg board and wouldn't pull the pegs out, but when given, would pound them together. For fine motor, she could drop a block, using a raking grasp, but not a pincer grasp (8 month task), pull an object on the end of a string (10 month task), and could not self feed (8 months). Thus she was found to be 1 month delayed in fine motor skills which was a huge surprise to me.

Gross motor wasn't so good. They assessed her as 2-4 months behind. No crawling, pulling up, not tripoding, not much rolling over, and the most concerning was the head lag (4 months). Usually if you pull a baby up by the arms from a laying position, her head remains steady. Vi's flops back ever so slightly, but not severely so like a newborn's would. Daycare had been telling me about this as well and I blew it off. The good points were that she sat up on her own, and that she when tipped in various directions puts out her hand to steady herself. She also is trying to crawl and can scoot backwards.

Cognitively and verbally she is on track and ahead in some areas. So that is a relief.

The good and bad news is that she is not severe enough to qualify for weekly therapy. The are going to give me exercises to do with her and check back in two months. If she has not improved by then, she will qualify. So what is the reason for her delay? They do not know. But the health department RN said we are the most educated and well-off families on her subject agenda. Thus, Vi has a lot of advantages to catch up.

I woke up in the night thinking about it. I love my baby so much. I will do whatever I can to help her.