preemie follow-up

So,
wednesday was julian's one year evaluation at the CHDD
http://depts.washington.edu/chdd/ucedd/ctu_5/hrifclinic_5.html

He made everyone's day by walking into the appointment with the developmental psychologist!
Yay! Yay! Yay!

He scored for his adjusted age exactly on target for motor skills as a 12 month old 8 pounder at full term would have scored at one year and as an 11 1/2 month old intellectually.

The developmental pediatricians told us that they almost never see micro premies walking before 13 months and have never seen a micro preemie as sick as jules ever walk before 13/14 months. A few doctors came to feel his muscle tone because they were so surprised at how strong he was. They told me they usually see kids on oxygen for 2 - 3 months who have very poor tone and problems and they don't have the opportunity to see babies on oxygen for more than a year very often and they were surprised to see how healthy he was given those circumstances.

They wrote that he is on "signigicantly fortified feeds" due to growth lag or whatever and I realized that on the part of the form where they typically list all of julian's issues that for now, that was the only one in the box -- tackling growth. It is a big one and I am going to focus on that being the center of my discussion on 1/19 when jules has his next pulmonary clinic day. And they cautioned me to be on the lookout for some of the common pitfalls concerning preemies, like attention problems, etc...

I was sick to my stomach walking the long tunnel into UW and quite anxious about these appointments and can't begin to express my RELIEF that they are over. We don't have to go back till he is 2!

Our NICU physical therapist called me personally last night to tell me she went to read the reports from the team and to chat with them about jules and she wanted to tell me how extraordinary our outcome is and how delighted they were with him.



Yay!