First Developmental Follow-Up

Early this morning, Ella had her first developmental follow-up back at the hospital where she was born. The developmental specialist took Ella and placed her on a little blue mat. She held patterns up in front of her and some small red blocks. She gave her a light-weight pink rattle. She placed her on her back and pulled her up by the arms looking for Ella to lift her head. She placed Ella on her stomach to see if she could push up. All the while, she was, I suppose, observing Ella and how she did and did not react to things. Then a doctor came in to assess Ella. She said Ella is hyper flexible or something to the effect that she thought she was a contortionist! That’s funny since Marilyn is not really flexible at all. In any case, she also commented that Ella was chunky…that’s a good thing since a lot of former preemies have trouble gaining weight. She concluded what we already knew…that Ella appears to be doing fine, however, her upper body strength is a little weak, which is very common for preemies that were born so early. She said that Ella was borderline. The conclusion -- they wanted to refer Ella for home physical therapy sessions, however, they warned that the physical therapist may come out to the house and say that Ella is not really a candidate. If that were to happen, she gave us some copies of exercises that Marilyn and HER HUSBAND (unbelievable…who in the world did she think I was?...my quote of the week is “don’t confuse ignorance with malice”) could do with Ella to strengthen her upper body.

After our visit, Marilyn called up to the ICN to see if HN J. was working. To our surprise, she was on today, so we wound up meeting her up in the lobby. She was happy to see the girls and couldn’t get over just how big Ella had gotten.