Ryan's February '10 Blog

February 4, 2010 - Well January 26th has come and gone and baby Megan has not yet graced us with her presence so we've officially passed the timing when Ryan was born!  Mom will be 26 weeks tomorrow.  Big sigh of relief!  At Mom's last ultrasound her cervix was measuring really good so that put our minds at ease a little as well.  Mom has been feeling really good but is noticing she is slowing down in terms of walking and things like that and gets out of breath a little bit more. 

Ryan has been doing really good.  The Botox has kicked in and we've seen a huge improvement with his ankles which has led to him standing up straight (versus on his toes and legs bent).  We can't tell you how nice it is to see him standing now.  As you can imagine we've been working on standing a lot more.  We saw the orthopedist today and he was so very pleased with how Ryan's legs looked.  This next Monday we go to get fitted for braces for his legs.  PT made a break through (we feel) on Tuesday in terms of crawling.  We didn't have time to work on it yesterday but will be today to see if that break through is true.  He was much closer to army crawling Tuesday night than we have ever been.  Keeping fingers crossed!  We've been hitting the sitting hard - we've regressed since our Christmas break so we're trying to get back to where we were and more.  We've been busy getting evaluations done for his transition into the school district.  Our meeting with them is in 2 weeks and today we went and looked at the elementary school where he will be going.  It looks like it will be a great program - they even have a bus that will pick him up and bring him home.  We loved seeing the school setting and are really excited for him to be part of it other than we know we have a lot of work between now and August!  We have also got him on the waiting list for the Jumpstart program that is a therapy based developmental preschool.  This week we've been without the caretaker.  If you remember a couple months ago Ryan broke her nose.  Well it didn't heal right so on the 28th they had to break it and reset it.  She tried to work on Monday but it was too much and the doctor told her she can't come back this week.  The great grandparents have been really helping us out with staying with Ryan this week.  We so appreciate it!  We're keeping our fingers crossed the caretaker will be back next week but there is a possibility she'll be out one more week.

February 21, 2010 - Things have been busy for us.  We've still been without the caretaker (she has had a heck of a time healing) so between Mom, Dad, Great Grandma & Great Granddad we've been taking care of Ryan and working him.  The caretaker is suppose to be back tomorrow.  We'll see if that happens.  What we had hoped was a break through in crawling seems to be.  We're closer to the army crawling and Ryan has stopped fussing when we work on crawling.  We think he is getting it although he hasn't quite put it all together himself yet.  We'll keep working it.  We did get him fitted for leg braces and pick those up tomorrow.  We're hopeful that those will help him feel more secure in standing and we'll make more strides there.  We had our transition meeting with the Meridian School District and that went really well.  We expressed our concern about him being overwhelmed with too much at once and they said we could start him at 2 days a week for an hour at a time and work up to 4 days for 3 hours a day if we wanted.  We may be taking them up on that offer.  We have two more meetings with the school district and we should be done with those the end of May.  We found one other pre-school that we went and looked at last week that will take Ryan whenever we are ready as long as the caretaker goes with him.  They are an inclusive preschool that has 60% disabled kids but they all appear to be higher functioning than Ryan currently is.  We're looking at April/May time frame for one half day a week and think that will be a good starting ground for him.  We joined the YMCA last week and yesterday we took Ryan to the pool.  The therapy pool where he had had his swimming lessons was closed while we were there unfortunately so him and Dad went in the kiddy pool.  He was a little unsure at first but then was almost right back where we had been last fall.  We were going to take him again today to see if Sunday's were quieter but have other things to get done today so we'll shoot for next weekend.  Feeding has been a little bit of a struggle lately.  Not sure what is going on but he has not liked us trying to work in or near his mouth, thrown fits with getting his teeth brushed and thrown fits during feeding where we've had to stop.  It does not look like any new teeth are trying to come in but some of the other ones that still need to finish pushing through could be our problem.  It has not been fun. 

We already told most of you about this but St. Lukes does Karnations for Kids each year as a fundraiser for the Children's Hospital.  They sell carnations that can be delivered to hospital staff or to participating companies, like where Mom works, or they do e-cards.  Mom usually sends some of the hospital staff carnations from Ryan and while out placing her order noticed that this years e-card included 2 pictures of Ryan.  We knew they had taken pictures of Ryan when we were in the hospital that could be used for some of their campaigns but hadn't seen them be used.  The other picture was the one we supplied for the Christmas card he was on.  It was surprising and exciting!  We sent out many e-cards and let family & friends know in case they wanted to send any.  We thank any of you who ordered any! 

Mom is 28 weeks now and still going strong.  We're actually in the 3rd trimester now - unchartered territory for us!  The doctor was so pleased at the last appointment that Mom no longer has to have ultrasounds at every appointment.  We've also scheduled our c-section for May 7th at 7:30 a.m. if Mom does not go into labor before then.  We've got Grandma Connie lined up to come down on the 6th and will be staying with us for a couple weeks to help out after Megan's arrival.  Under 11 weeks to go!

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