NICU Follow-up

Kaitlyn had her NICU follow-up last week. It went really well. We saw a nurse practitioner, speech therapist, physical therapist, nutritionist, and a general pediatrician. Despite being so far behind in gross motor skills, everyone was really happy with the progress she's made since our last visit and how close she is to walking. Her fine motor skills are right on track. The things we are watching closely now are language development and general cognition. They told me that there is generally a huge language explosion between 18 and 24 months. They'll asses her again when she is 2 and we will hopefully get a pretty good prediction of her future at that time. Right now she is doing super and we think and hope that she'll continue to grow and develop and make huge strides like she has done so far.

We met with a nutritionist because her growth is still below the 3rd percentile for everything. They said that technically she could be labeled with "failure to thrive" but she's always been little and will probably always be little as a side effect of CMV. She looks healthy and they aren't too worried (she's still under 19 pounds at 18 months). The pediatrician said it is actually better that she is little because she has such low muscle tone. It will make it easier for her walk.

We started her of Prevacid to combat what we think is silent reflux. Kaitlyn has been waking up repeatedly through the night for over a year (I know she's a baby and babies do that but this was waking with blood curdling screams--not just normal baby waking). I had a suspicion that it was caused by reflux, and I convinced them to treat her for it. We are currently doing a 2 month trial to see if it helps. She's been on it for 4 nights and has slept through 3 of them. Hopefully we've figured out what is going on and can all get a little more sleep!!!

So that's it! She is right on socially and charmed everyone she saw :) We love our little peanut!