Medical & developmental check-ups for Nate

Over the last month, Nate has had a couple of follow ups around his health. We deliberately timed a few of these for this month, knowing that Robin and I would both be around, and trying to get a few things sorted before Robin's new job starts and Baby Bean arrives!

So a few weeks back, Nate was put back under for a through hearing test. They try to do fairly regular hearing tests at Starship, but I guess they don't trust a 3year old's diligence and focus for completing them! Wise call with Nate, he gets bored about half way through everytime (to be fair, so do we!). While being put under comes with risks that we hate (not to mention, causing our little man some anxiety), it does allow them an accurate read. Unfortunately it showed that Nate's hearing has worsened in both of his ears since his last proper read, they verbally used the word 'drifted' to describe it, but our follow up paperwork notes it as 'significant change'. His left ear still falls within normal range, inspite of this 'drift', but the right ear has worsened further. We are now awaiting another appointment to get a stronger hearing aid for his right ear, which hopefully will be beneficial to his speech too. We are not overly surprised by this as we can see there are some hearing impacts - for example he will often sign 'wait' when hearing the word 'white', and of course this is likely contributing to his severe speech delay. They will also test again in two years just to see if what we are dealing with is progressive or not. Still it is what it is, and hopefully we can get the new aid sooner rather than later.

Winter morning swing, after a fluffy & brownie outing!

We have also had numerous therapy check-in's this month. We have seen the CDT physical therapist and occupational therapist, for reviews of Nate, and advice on what else to be working on next with him. They visited his daycare to see him in action, and have formed plans to help us with next steps, around balance, co-ordination, and also working in his self-help skills for feeding, dressing, toileting etc. He is very good at getting his shoes and socks off now, as well as his pj bottoms, but we're still working on tops and trackpants, and putting shoes and socks on. He is also getting pretty good with a spoon, but a fork remains a challenge for him. Favourite food would still be hand-feeding himself chippies though!

Picnic-ing indoors with chippies and his camping seat

We also took the opportunity to catch up with our EIT (Early Intervention Teacher) from MOE this month, to talk about what Nate's future schooling options might be. I suppose I was hoping for a more positive expression of the future, and what some suggestions about what specific suburbs / schools we might be best to consider. However MOE work with all schools, and all schools are required to support kids with special needs. Clearly there are some that will be better than others at that, but it's appears that that is down to us to figure out. So over the next six months I might be visiting a few of the schools in the local area to see what might seem best. We may also be up for having to pay for teachers aid support in the years to come too - given his challenges we are likely (although not guaranteed) to get a few hours a week allocated to him but this is not likely to be sufficient to actually support his learning. So that might well mean a house move is on the cards for us....

We also had another session with Taikura Trust, to see if we qualify for any carer support. We're applied before but we were turned down, even though it was forthcoming in Nate's first year (likely because of the medical demands we faced in his first year). However Nate's anxiety, amongst other developmental things, does really limit living a typical family/toddler life. Hopefully some support might better enable us to achieve a more even keel around here, we shall see what the powers that be think this time around.

On a lighter note, here is Nate enjoying one of his favourite past-times, wrestling Daddy! That has become an evening event, and often Nate drags him into his bedroom and turns out the light, and takes great delight in being 'scared' by Daddy and then wrestling him! The squeals of delight are hysterical to listen too, but if I go in and turn the light on, I get 'waved' to go away! At best I am allowed to sit on the seat in the room with them, but only if the light gets turned off and he goes back to playing hide n seek in the dark! Here are some shots of Nate practising his chiropractor skills on Daddy....

Later this month, Nate starts private music classes which we are feeling very hopeful about! Nate loves 'Singing Rainbows' at daycare, and his group music class that he goes to on a Tuesday. We're hopeful that the private sessions will encourage his communication through music, and that we might see a lift in speech - apparently some research has shown a link, but of course this is very child-specific. With the support of our speech therapist support, Nate's signing has continued to expand, and he is also getting used to using a picture chart to point at signs/words, however speech remains pretty elusive for us. We do get the occasional word, but it doesn't seem to be something he can retain or that comes easily for him. Fingers crossed it does one day. On the up note, his receptive communication skills continue to be much stronger and he understands a lot of what we say. His negotiation skills are also developing - when asked to do something he doesn't want to do (clean teeth, go for a nap, come for a shower etc), he holds one finger up, which his way of telling us 'one more'. We have to respond verbally and with the signs for 'okay', 'one more', and followed by a clear 'finish', otherwise the negotiation will continue on and on :-). Some things are universal for 3year olds.

Finally the other change we have noted of late is Nate's eating. He used to be a dream! We would blend meat and vege for him every night, and he would chomp through like an absolute champ. Fish pie, shepherds pie, mince and vege, roast vege and roast meat, baked beans....you name it, he would eat it. Mostly still blended, as it is easier for him to manage. Unfortunately he has started turning his nose up, and will just refuse dinner full stop. In fact he will also knowingly refuse dessert or a treat (because he won't eat dinner), so calling his bluff hasn't worked at all :-(. Right now we are settling for spinach and avocado smoothies in the afternoon, and trying to get him to nibble on chicken nuggets and fish fingers in the evening. Smoothies are a success, but the other trials have been of mixed success so far. Lucky mashed potatoes and French fries are still acceptable to him though. Sigh! At least he knows his own mind!

Anyway this was just meant to be a very quick update, which has become a bit longer! Here is another quick pic of me and Baby Bean! Who would have thought we'd make 35 weeks?! :-)

Baby Bean at 34w4d

Me & Bean at exactly 35 weeks!

We do have a follow up scan tomorrow, so hoping to hear that her abdominal measurement has bounced back up, or at least continued on the same percentile. Everything has been tracking consistently around 50-60% percentile, but our scan of nearly two weeks ago showed she had dropped a little around her tummy to the 20% percentile. This caused us a little scare as that is of course what prompted Nate's early c-section - he had stopped growing at around 30weeks across all of his measurements bar his head and pretty much dropped off any percentile charts (this is natural apparently, babies protect their heads when IUGR happens). However our specialist is pretty relaxed, and says it isn't unusual for one measurement to drop off and that this is often resolved by the next scan with either the baby catching back up or just staying consistent on the new percentile line. Given my dopplers were shown to be normal at my last scan (which means the cord blood flow and placenta are working fine and carrying nutrients etc), this should hopefully be the case. But I guess if they are worried that she might have dropped further, then we might well see Baby Bean a little earlier than her planned c-section date! Lucky we are pretty well sorted now, if that is the case. But it would be nice to get a little further along if we can :-).

It proved more challenging to get a shot with both Baby Bean and Nate......of course we had to have Teddy in the shot too :-). Conceptually we don't think Nate has clued in fully as yet around Mummy's tummy. We point to it and say and make the sign 'baby', which he often repeats, but I'm not sure it's fully sunk in. Time will tell!

35weeks 3days

Update post our scan from earlier today (Mon 18th July)........everything is looking good! Baby Bean's abdominal circumference has bounced back beautifully, with everything looking great. She now weighs in at a healthy 2.8kg, and we can see hair on her head, and a little layer of fat around her tummy :-).

The umbilical doppler is also holding up well (which supports her weight gain over the last two weeks), but the two cerebral ones (MCA PI and CPR for those into the medical jargon) are less ideal - the MCA PI is just below the 5% percentile (not ideal), while the CPR is just above the 5% percentile (borderline). These are 'early signs' which could point to placenta ageing or late-stage IUGR - this means we will be watched again within the next week, and the c-section could well be brought forward. But at 2.8kg and about to hit 36weeks, we're not in a bad position! Unfortunately we weren't able to get any clear face photos today, she was far too much of a wriggly bean (post my trim latte and cheese scone!), and was more interested in sucking on her hand. We might have a thumb sucker in there :-)

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