Whirlwind...

Overall since Hailey has been about 6 months old, her appointments seemed to slow down.  It seems though that the follow-ups all happen at the same time!  Monday, Hailey had a repeat hearing test with audiology.  All I can say is yuck!  I do not like the booth hearing test.  The results were what I expected...inconclusive.  She had a little fluid in both ears according to the tempanogram.   The intern gave us two options...a sedated ABR to see if there is any hearing loss or we can repeat the current test in two months.  We don't have a concern that she is not hearing.  Do I think she reacts to EVERY noise in the house...nope.....she has two older brothers.  If she didn't tune some stuff out, she would lose her mind!  They did tell me to follow up with her pediatrician (we had a 9 month check out scheduled for the next day anyway) to make sure she didn't have an ear infection.  I'm just not comfortable having her sedated again when we know she is hearing.

Yesterday we headed to her 9 month appointment.  I also had my 4 year old with me.  Her actual check up was rather uneventful.  I filled out the 9 month questionnaire even though the nurse tried to tell me she didn't think I needed to because Hailey has Down syndrome.  Dr. Evans and I went over things from the last 3 months which wasn't much...just her stomach bug last week really (which the poor thing...she lost weight last week).  She is running about 30th percentile on weight, length and head.  She is running about the same size Ian did at this age.  He told me that she is running right alongside a full-term, typical 9 month old and she was 4 weeks premature, has had open heart surgery and has Down syndrome.  He told us to keep up the good work.

As far as her ears, he agreed with repeating the test in 2 months.  If the results are again inconclusive, he wants to refer her to an ENT to explore the possibilities of tubes to keep fluid from building in her ears.  I'm okay with that.  The doctor said she is showing true signs of hearing but she could possibly be not hearing low tones due to fluid.

After our reassuring visit with the ped, we had the horror side!  Hailey is due for bloodwork to check her thyroid.  I should have asked for the orders and taken her to Children's, but I didn't.  I will next time.  They dug for 45 minutes and still could not draw her blood.  My poor baby...I feel so bad that I didn't stop them!

We are going to try again on Friday.  I'm praying that it is better on Friday than yesterday.  Today, Hailey had therapy again.  We missed last week because of the traveling stomach bug :-(  L was quite happy to see Hailey and Hailey was equally as happy to see her.  L was super happy to see how straight Hailey is sitting...finally, no rounded back.  We worked on army crawling and patterning.  We'll see how it goes this week working on it.  We are working on that and kneeling over the next week and that will be our last session for the year.  I'm still hoping to get Hailey crawling but we will see....I know that might be unrealistic but that is our goal.  Everyone has to have a goal to work towards, right?!?

I also went to Mom's Night Out last night.  I'm so glad I did.  Several of the moms have little ones that are in the 4-6 years old range.  I like listening to what they are doing and how they are doing.  It is also great for me to think ahead at some thing and it will be nice to have them when we get to that point and need suggestions on how to deal with preschools, administration, etc.

I'm hoping life slows down a little soon.  I want to be able to enjoy the holidays with my 3 children.  I want to "stop and smell the roses" so to speak.  It's too important not to!

I haven't taken many pics the last few days but here are a couple new ones.

I wonder if she will ever retire this expression and give me the same one...with her eyes open!