The Honda wasn't the only member of our family having an MOT today. Willow and Stanley were also due for a bit of a check-up, at the Child Development Centre at Poole Hospital. As they are now almost six months old (corrected age), it was time to assess where they are in terms of development milestones. We weren't expecting any surprises, as we've been observing our babies very closely since they've been home.
Like the Honda, they almost passed the test with flying colours. The docs couldn't fault Willow in any way; she's doing everything they expect her to be doing right now and more, and isn't showing any signs of anything untoward. Which is a complete miracle, really, considering everything she had to deal with.
For Stanley, it wasn't quite as unanimous. We've been noticing the last few weeks that he displays some awkward movements, particularly on his left hand side. This means I've been doing some excessive Googling, and everything points to cerebral palsy. The docs obviously noticed these things too... but couldn't give an answer either way. It's still too early to tell, but there's definitely some cause for concern. It may be a form of cerebral palsy, or it might be nothing to worry about at all - just a bit of stiffness left over from being born far too soon. In every other aspect, Stanley, like Willow, is doing absolutely fine - and the docs think that if anything is wrong, it should be limited to a bit of a funny walk. It could have been so much worse than this after everything that they both went through - we're extremely lucky to be in the situation we're in right now, with two perfect little children.
Still on baby-health news, Willow is now living without additional oxygen for about half the time. This trend started about a month ago, when I accidentally forgot to turn on her oxygen one morning. When Leela noticed an hour and a half later, I was completely distraught. In the last seven months, she hadn't been without oxygen for more than 20 seconds. The fact that her monitor wasn't turned on didn't help matters, as we had no idea what her vital signs were. But as it turns out, she would've been completely fine.... the next day, we tried her again while monitoring, and her oxygen sats didn't drop below about 94%. I breathed a huge sigh of relief (as Willow had been demonstrating so nicely), and I inhaled some of her oxygen for good measure.
The last few days, she's been off the oxygen all through the day, and just back on for the night-time. She still needs it when sleeping, as that's the time when oxygen saturation is lowest. It's good to know that when she starts crawling, she won't have to drag a cylinder around with her.
Aside from hospital visits, we've all been very busy these last few weeks. Every weekend, we go out on a day trip somewhere. As we're up at six o'clock every morning, the days are nice and long so we can make the most of them. We usually go out to various different parts of the coastline and countryside, where we show the babies all the good stuff that nature has to offer. Along the way, we feel compelled to try out some of the nicer beer gardens too, to assess them for baby-friendliness. It's a hard job, especially as it means I sometimes have to endure a pint between feeding. We're feeling that they may be wanting a bit more excitement though, and they want to increase their 'countries visited' count to at least five before their first birthday. We'll have so see what our September holiday has in store....
Like the Honda, they almost passed the test with flying colours. The docs couldn't fault Willow in any way; she's doing everything they expect her to be doing right now and more, and isn't showing any signs of anything untoward. Which is a complete miracle, really, considering everything she had to deal with.
For Stanley, it wasn't quite as unanimous. We've been noticing the last few weeks that he displays some awkward movements, particularly on his left hand side. This means I've been doing some excessive Googling, and everything points to cerebral palsy. The docs obviously noticed these things too... but couldn't give an answer either way. It's still too early to tell, but there's definitely some cause for concern. It may be a form of cerebral palsy, or it might be nothing to worry about at all - just a bit of stiffness left over from being born far too soon. In every other aspect, Stanley, like Willow, is doing absolutely fine - and the docs think that if anything is wrong, it should be limited to a bit of a funny walk. It could have been so much worse than this after everything that they both went through - we're extremely lucky to be in the situation we're in right now, with two perfect little children.
Still on baby-health news, Willow is now living without additional oxygen for about half the time. This trend started about a month ago, when I accidentally forgot to turn on her oxygen one morning. When Leela noticed an hour and a half later, I was completely distraught. In the last seven months, she hadn't been without oxygen for more than 20 seconds. The fact that her monitor wasn't turned on didn't help matters, as we had no idea what her vital signs were. But as it turns out, she would've been completely fine.... the next day, we tried her again while monitoring, and her oxygen sats didn't drop below about 94%. I breathed a huge sigh of relief (as Willow had been demonstrating so nicely), and I inhaled some of her oxygen for good measure.
The last few days, she's been off the oxygen all through the day, and just back on for the night-time. She still needs it when sleeping, as that's the time when oxygen saturation is lowest. It's good to know that when she starts crawling, she won't have to drag a cylinder around with her.
Aside from hospital visits, we've all been very busy these last few weeks. Every weekend, we go out on a day trip somewhere. As we're up at six o'clock every morning, the days are nice and long so we can make the most of them. We usually go out to various different parts of the coastline and countryside, where we show the babies all the good stuff that nature has to offer. Along the way, we feel compelled to try out some of the nicer beer gardens too, to assess them for baby-friendliness. It's a hard job, especially as it means I sometimes have to endure a pint between feeding. We're feeling that they may be wanting a bit more excitement though, and they want to increase their 'countries visited' count to at least five before their first birthday. We'll have so see what our September holiday has in store....
