NICU Follow-up

This morning Giuliana had her, what we now know is the first of many, NICU Follow-up. We didn't know what to expect, but when I checked in we discovered this is a 2-3 hour appointment. First they performed a hearing test on her. This is a different hearing test from the newborn hearing test (which she passed). They put a probe in each ear which sent a tone to her inner ear. When the inner ear receives the tone it vibrates sending a message back to the machine that she heard the tone. Giuliana passed in both ears.

After approximately 15 minutes of waiting, we were seen by a Speech Therapist. Since Giuliana is so young, plus we have a Speech Therapist come to the house through EI, there wasn't much done at this appointment. After a long wait, we then saw an Occupational Therapist. She was very friendly and came to check Giuliana's movements. The Occupational Therapist was pleasantly surprised with Giuliana's level. Giuliana scored in the 75-90th percentile on this test. She called Giuliana a Rockstar! You'll see in the video below, Giuliana is sooooooo close to crawling, which puts her way ahead of where she's supposed to be. Most babies start to crawl around 8-9 months. While Giuliana is advanced for her age in milestones, we do need to work on some excercises at home. She tends to be a little stiff at times, so we just need to do a few excercises throughout the day to keep her loose and "chill."

Then after another long wait, we saw a Fellow. I'm not really sure exactly what a Fellow is, so I'm going to have to do some research on that one. I think he is a doctor because he mentioned that he was a Pediatrician before he became a Fellow. He pretty much talked to us to see where we are with things, address any of our concerns, and then did a brief examination of Giuliana. He then reported to his supervisor, and she came in to recap everything for us and examine Giuliana herself. So, we were there the 3 hours and this doctor told us we will be back every 4 months until she is 14 months, then at 2 years, and 3 years. I'm not sure if there are any visits between the 2 and 3 years because by this point both Giuliana and Giovanna were screaming their heads off, so it was difficult to hear. I figured between Joe and I, we'd caught the entire conversation. When we got back to the car, I asked Joe if he caught the whole how many times we come back conversation, and he missed it just like I did! Oh well, we have our next appointment scheduled (which we need a referral for!!!) so we're good for now and know we have many more visits to come.

Yesterday we took the kids to Magic Waters. Giuliana loved the Lazy River, Giovanna did not. The part where water squirts out at you, Giovanna would scream her head off all the way through. Then she'd look at Giuliana and say, "baby wet," and see she wasn't crying and then she'd stop crying. That is until we got close to the next section of water squirting! She really enjoyed the kiddie area though. Giovanna even made a friend at the end. Gunnar had a blast on the waterslides. We had a really fun family day.

On Monday night, Giuliana started these phenominal moves! This morning she even got up on her knees! She is on her way to crawling. I can't help but be excited at her accomplishment, but at the same time mommy sad that she's growing up so fast before my eyes.

Giuliana attempting to crawl