So I
haven't really blogged about the things going on with us over the last year. Let me tell you ..it has been one crazy year but it has been the best year of my life. Savannah is an amazing blessing and a wonderful addition to our family. I'm going to try and catch everyone up without making this a novel and hopefully tell things that I haven't already told.
When we came home, just a week before Christmas 2009, we knew it was going to be rough for a few months. See, the doctors scared us to death. They told us before we left the hospital...."DO NOT GET HER SICK"!!!! They were very
adamant about this and told us all the scary things that could happen if she even got the slightest little cold. You see the common minor cold to an adult could be life threatening to a preemie with no immune system to fight it off yet. She also had a shunt in her brain...this complicated things even more. Needless to say, the doctors accomplished what they set out to do and we were absolutely petrified of getting her sick. This meant staying at home, with the exception of doctors visits, until cold and flu season was over. This also meant being very very careful about the visiting process. So I stayed home everyday with Savannah and went nowhere except to the doctor with her. Daniel went to work everyday but he had to strip his clothes at the door everyday and go straight to the shower before he was allowed to sit on or touch anything or anyone. At work he carried hand sanitizer with him everywhere and he did not touch anyone...not even to shake a hand. (And he was in sales at the time so you can imagine how that went). Only immediate family were allowed to visit Savannah and they were required to come straight from their house with freshly washed clothing, wash their hands thoroughly when they got here, sanitize, and where a mask and gloves. It was very hard telling people they could not come visit but it was for the safety of our daughter. Most people understood, there were a few who didn't and they got offended, but that was a small price to pay for my daughters well being. Let me just throw in that most preemies are in and out of the hospital fighting for their life due to all sorts of infections such a
pneumonia and RSV during the first 3 years of their life. Some of these can't be helped... I understand that some of these HAVE to be put into daycare or have siblings who are in school. BUT..I have control over these things with my child and if I can prevent them from happening then I am going to do everything in my power to do it. Savannah is now 14 months old, and though many people laugh at my
OCD germ issues..
lol, she has only had one sickness in her entire life. That is a very rare thing for a preemie. Anyway...Savannah's first time out was on Easter. We were able to start taking her to church and places like that then. We still had to be careful about hand shaking and who held her..making sure they were not sick and that they were sanitized first. We still do that to this day. We have recently had to take her out of cradle roll at church due to cold and flu season being here again. Once she is about 3 years old we won't have to worry about all of this so much and I know we will probably have to deal with
a lot of sickness due to her having no immunity to it..but hey..that's the life of having a preemie.
Now an update on her development. Let me just refresh your memory. At 3 days old we had a doctor sit us down and tell us that she would probably have to be institutionalized and would not even know she was in this world due to how bad her brain bleed was and the damage it caused her brain. She would more than likely suffer from Severe Cerebral Palsy, Blindness, Deafness, Mental Retardation, and she would probably never come off the ventilator or feeding tube. We also had docs along the way tell us that with a grade IV bleed you almost always have devastating lifelong disabilities and that while she COULD prove them wrong the she more that likely would NOT. Well let's just say our sweet girl keeps proving them doctors wrong left and right and she keeps proving the power of PRAYER!! As you read before she came off the ventilator pretty quickly and then the feeding tube while still in the hospital. Her eye exams have been great and she has passed all hearing exams with flying colors so far. Now as far as other development. As far as cognitive she is right on target with where she should be. Somewhere between her actual and adjusted age. She is very verbal. She talks non stop. Of course most of the time we have no idea what she is saying but she is perfectly aware. She does have a small vocabulary though. She can say Dada, daddy, mama, mommy, book, bye bye, baby,
Trixie, hey, no no, she says
ba ba for bottle, and yeah. She shakes her head yes and no when asked a question. She understands what no means (although she is a daredevil and will defy you). She loves to give love and kisses. Physically is where she is delayed. So far she has been delayed only...she has been able to do everything she should its just been months behind. She rolled over late but she did it. She sat up on her own late but she does it. She crawled late but she does it. She has yet to walk but I have no doubt that she will do that too. She has a physical therapist that comes to our home every two weeks to work with her. Her upper body is amazing and has no problems. She feeds herself, uses both hands, claps, etc. But her legs are a little tight. Mostly her hamstrings. We stretch them daily and that helps bunches. Some docs think she may have very mild Cerebral palsy in her legs..mainly her right, but some think its too early to tell. She has some little pink braces that she wears right now only when we are practicing standing to keep her from being on her tip toes. The thing with not being 100% right now is that she is still at an age where it is hard to tell. See a little leg tightness can just be a preemie thing. But either way..whether she does or she doesn't..we treat it the same way. All docs do seem to be
agreeing that she will walk. Most
micro preemies don't walk til they are two anyway so we have a while to work on it. At this point...I am just so grateful for all that she can do that they said she would never be able to, that this little set back just isn't that big a deal to me. Now with all of this said...we still won't know 100% of the damage to her brain until she is probably in school. She could have trouble in math (who doesn't), behavioral problems, ADD, etc. But what we do know is that for the most part she is going to be a happy, healthy little girl. I do know that she is such a blessing to be around. She is so beautiful..not sure how she turned out SO beautiful!! She is such a happy person and she loves life. She is fun and smart and teaches me so much about life. She makes me want to be a better person.
An update about our family for the year. As you know we moved to
Prattville while Savannah was in the
NICU. We love living in
pville. We have however already outgrown our apartment, even though its almost twice the size of our last one. We are now members of
Prattville Church of Christ and we are SO happy there. That is truly and amazing congregation and we have made some amazing lifelong close friends. I am so thankful for all the members there and I am so happy that Savannah will have such a wonderful church family to grow up with, with tons of children her age. They keep us very busy but we enjoy every minute.
Oh and I forgot to mention that back in April that Savannah had her permanent VP shunt placement surgery and did really well with that. It is working great!
