PT

Kaitlyn gets physical therapy one day each week. She also gets little lessons from a "Teacher of the Deaf" every other week to help her learn to localize sounds. I often get interesting reactions when I tell people about her therapies because Kaitlyn is still so young. However, there is so much going on in the first few months of a babies life and the more you work with them in the beginning, the better the outcome. For example, most of the language/sound development in the brain occurs in the first 3 years of life. The most crucial occurs in the first 6 months.

Anyways, about physical therapy. Our therapist comes to our home for 40-60 minutes each week. We are currently working on building Kaitlyn's neck and leg strength and helping her become more aware of her hands. She has been coming for the past 4 weeks and Kaitlyn has improved immensely. She also had a blood transfusion recently and that has seemed to help as well. Kaitlyn has finally started to consistency reach for objects and her hands have loosened up a great deal. She is getting closer to rolling over and has started to bear some weight on her legs. I know these seem like normal baby milestones, but for Kaitlyn they are huge! Each and every one is promising. I told the therapist yesterday that Kaitlyn seems to be about where Kinsey was when she was 3 months old (Kaitlyn is almost 5 months). She agreed with me. I also told her that I feel like Kaitlyn has started to develop (physically) very quickly and is starting to catch up. She agreed with that as well. There are so many reasons that Kaitlyn could be behind, we really don't know what to attribute it to. She was early (3 weeks) but she was also growth restricted. When a baby is growth restricted, they are expected to be behind but it is hard to pinpoint just how far behind they should be. Kaitlyn was about the size of a 32 week old baby, which would put her about 8 weeks behind. She was also very sick when she was born and slept almost all day. At 6 weeks, when most babies are starting to figure things out a little more, Kaitlyn became severely anemic and was either sleeping or screaming throughout the day. Any time I put her on the floor she would throw up and that would be that for tummy time. She has continued to battle anemia and neutropenia since that time, both of which zap your strength and energy. There is also a possibility of cerebral palsy, due the the virus, but we are starting to worry less about that. We are hopeful that if she does have CP, it will likely be a mild case.

Kaitlyn's therapy wears her out so much that usually falls asleep before her session is over. This was her yesterday...