assessment

Well, today we had a nurse and a therapist from ECI come out and do an assessment of where Sophie is at. They will be helping with both her oral motor skills and general development. The assessment was basically just them asking us a lot of questions about her behaviors and capabilities. The good news is that on most things she is in the 3-4 month range, developmentally. Technically, this is ahead of where she should be, since they count her developmental age as going from her due date, which would make her only 2 mos. She is behind a little bit on lifting her head up and propping herself up on her elbows, but they said that being in the brace can hamper that a little. However, she does squirm her way around when we put her on her tummy.

We are excited because we are really starting to notice a lot of changes in her behavior and she is becoming more interactive. She started making cooing noises and will now "respond" to you if you ask her a question sometimes. I have to say that is pretty amazing. Also, she just seems to have discovered that she has hands this weekend. She will kinda stare at one of them at arm's length, then bring it closer to her eye (getting cross-eyed, of course), and rub her eye or scratch her face. She still doesn't reach for other objects yet, but this is probably not far off.

The other good thing that came from the interview is that nurse verified that it sounds like Sophie has some form of reflux. It was never diagnosed in the hospital, but she always spit up a little after feedings. But most babies spit up some. However the last week or two, she has started throwing up more regularly and also making awful retching coughs at other times. Then in the past few days we noticed that she was getting really mad at feeding times, turning her head to avoid the bottle, and crying after each swallow. They told us to call our pediatrician. The nurse at the dr's office talked to him and they called in a prescription for us. I'm not excited about yet another medication, but hopefully it will help her get through this and she will outgrow it soon.