Renewed faith in Vaccinations

Although yesterday was one of my more hectic days in quite awhile, it was a day for good news. Oh how I cherish the good news days! First of all, Carson DOES NOT have pertussis. My faith in my child's immunity is renewed. What a relief it was to hear our nurse say that his test came back negative. Now we just need to figure out why he continues to cough like a dying emphasemic for hours upon end. But he doesn't have whooping cough and I will take that result any day. The house echoed again overnight with Carson's song and his voice is beginning to sound hoarse but overall he is feeling a bit better. Hopefully the coughing will stop soon so we can all get some much needed rest.

Now on to the other good news from yesterday......

Eli had his routine scheduled neonatal clinic follow-up appointment yesterday at 10:30. They periodically bring him in and make him perform like a small monkey, measure him from every angle, scrutinize him for possible defects, analyze the events that transpired between visits, schedule tests, and make diagnoses at these wonderfully *short* 3 hour appointments. Eli did splendedly. I was one proud mama bear! We always have the same developmental pediatrician and PT doing the assessment on him and they were quite pleased with his progress since his last visit. He scored well on his Bayley Infant Neurodevelopment Screening Test which ended up placing him at his adjusted age for development!! This means that Eli is at a 12 month level for most of his developmental skills. He is four days shy of being 16 months actual, 12.5 months adjusted. This is big news for a parent of a micropreemie and for us because 6 months ago he was 3-5 months delayed for his adjusted age. So, all in all, Eli has made up for about 4 months worth of developmental delay since his evaluation in April!!! Now, I know that he is still 4 months delayed for his age and that the day he turns 2, they will no longer give him the extra 3.5 months of adjustment for his prematurity......BUT, to have him be at his adjusted age yesterday was wonderful! They only downside to this was that if his assessment was two week earlier, Eli would have scored with the same 3-5 month delay he was showing in April. Due to Eli learning how to clap, point, wave, stand, and walk all in the past two weeks he majorly boosted his score.

I don't care.....the numbers aren't for what he could do two weeks ago, they are for what he is doing now! They also mentioned that Eli most likely has an extremely mild form of CP that is not and will not affect his movement function. We were expecting them to tell us that so it was not a huge surprise. As parents of a 25 weeker, coming out of the NICU alive is amazing but having a walking, babbling, smiling, 12 month developmentally appropriate 16 month old......is nothing short of a miracle. I'll update more on Eli's NICU appointment later but I have a huge critical care exam on Monday and my textbooks are calling my name. Although I do tend to complain a bit (okay a lot sometimes), all I need to do is look around me and see how truly blessed we are with our two special boys. What would I do without them?