Elias' 20mo Evaluation

 Today Elias had his evaluation with Early Intervention. In general, it went great. He's 20 months now,  and here's how he scored:

Fine Motor: 21 months
Cognition: 21 months
Expressive Language: 20 months
Receptive Language: 18 months
Gross Motor: 17 months
Social/Emotional: 26 months
Adaptive/Self Care: 20 months

The only thing that really aggravated me was his receptive language score. Receptive language is him following directions and how he seems to understand when you talk to him. Some things they asked him to do were point on a page to certain pictures and to point to body parts. He has known all the basic body parts for MONTHS now (eyes, nose, mouth, hair, ears). But this part of the evaluation was 30 minutes into the test, and by that time he was losing interest. He pointed to half the objects on the page (milk, dog, ball), but then got bored and wouldn't to point to the last two (baby and car). Again, he totally knows ALL those objects. His PT even said to the team, "I know for a fact he can do this". However, if he doesn't do it for them, he doesn't get the points for it. Its just disappointing knowing that he absolutely knows how to do those things (and we've worked hard to get him to do those things nonetheless) and since he didn't do it during those 45 minutes, it doesn't count.

His gross motor score is just a little behind, but we expected that. Gross motor involves things like walking up and down stairs and building a down with small blocks. He's starting to walk up and down steps holding onto the railing, but still needs assistance because sometimes his foot with the brace gets twisted when taking steps. And with the blocks, even though his thumb is now SO much better than before, he still can't bend it at the knuckle like his other fingers, so its harder to grasp really small items using his left hand with that thumb.

Overall, we are very pleased! We are so thankful for Early Intervention and all its done for Elias. I'm a huge believer in the program, and I've seen its positive effects on so many children. Please, if you have any question about your child's development, don't hesitate and have your child evaluated! As far as I understand, its usually covered by the state or your insurance. Its worth it, and actually I see it as an advantage for Elias. Come preschool, he'll already know some things because of E.I. that others might not have been introduced to yet.

Quick Gavin update:

We went in yesterday (Monday) all prepared for them to take us for a c-section if needed. First we had the NST (non-stress-test) and it actually went very well. They put two belts with sensors around your belly, one picks up the heartbeat and one picks up his movements. They look for at least 2 accelerations of 15bpm or more in the 20 minute test. Gavin had 4, so that was great. It also picked up a lot of his movements and kicks, and showed they were pretty strong ones at that. So he didn't appear to be in distress at all, praise the Lord! I still wanted to talk to the doctor, as we were going crazy thinking about this low fluid problem I have. They paged my doctor, who wasn't in clinic that day but was in the hospital, and she came right over to talk to us.

I told her how scared we are about the fluid problem, and that we really want a c-section whenever she'll allow us so that we can get him out before he's in any danger. She assured us that the second they see something troubling or questionable, now that we're at full term, we'll go right back for the c-section. But if he's continues to look okay and not in distress, we'll keep going until 39 weeks (June 27) when we'll do the elective c-section. She even took us to the other room and did an ultrasound herself to check my fluid levels just to put our minds at ease. Fluid levels looked okay, not in the danger zone yet, so that was good! We're going twice a week now until he comes for them to check up on him, so Thursday bright and early we'll be back for another ultrasound. And just in case, we have our bags packed and in the car ready to go at a moments notice :)

Please continue to pray for a hedge of protection around our little boy until its time for us to finally meet him. Thank you so much!

We're ready for you, Gavin!