Therapy Assessment and Laughing at Daddy

It has been another busy but wonderful week at home.

Last Saturday James and I had the opportunity to actually go out to have dinner and see a movie. Teryn's honorary third set of grandparents (Mimi and Poppy W) offered to give us the night off. Since Mimi is an RN and has certifications in infant emergency care it made it a little easier to agree. It was tough to leave the house. I hovered and procrastinated until they had to push us out the door. I knew she was in great hands. It was just tough to leave her since I have been with her 24 hours a day since we got home.

Teryn had a good time with Mimi and Poppy getting lots of hugs and kisses and Mommy and Daddy enjoyed our night out.

Earlier this week the therapy team came to do preliminary assessments. As I suspected, Teryn has delays to some degree in all areas. Some of them, however, are because of limitations while she was in the hospital. For example, she has a strong preference for the right side. I believe this is because she had to spend over a month laying on her side for the majority of the time because of complications with her gtube. She is also a little behind with her head control but again I believe this can be attributed to her mobility limitations in the hospital. She has already improved since being home. Focus and tracking have also been very difficult but she has really shown improvements this week. The therapist who came today said she was impressed with the difference she saw just since the beginning of the week. Over the past week she has also been making eye contact and smiling much more, things she did rarely before. Last night she was sitting with her Daddy and he was making silly noises. She was holding focus for a long time and even tried laughing!!!!! I was so excited when I saw her. I grabbed the camera and took several videos of it. I uploaded 2 of them below. This was such an amazing milestone for her. If you know me then you know that one of my coping mechanisms is to try to find the positive in situations. I was talking with my mom and I realized that if Teryn had reached some of her milestones on time then we may not have seen them. However, now she is home and we get to experience everything with her. I am so happy that she laughed at her silly Dad first and not one of the nurses. It may have been later than "normal" but at least we got to treasure that moment on our own terms.

Teryn is by far the most amazing little girl in the world. We are so proud of the progress she makes everyday which is much more now that she is at home. We cannot wait to see all of the odds she is going to defy. We give God all of the praise and all of the glory for his miracles in our family.

Here are videos of Teryn and her silly Daddy. In the second one you can also hear her secretions come up and then she swallows them!!!! Just another miracle from our girl.