Month: October 2015

Kinley’s retina specialist thinks her eye is doing better. The blood vessels are growing a bit in the right direction again. If our appointment next week goes well, he expects to downgrade us to bi-weekly visits.

While her eyes have improved, Kinley’s stomach has gotten progressively worse over the past couple of weeks. It got to the point that she’d cry in the middle of her bottles, often refusing to eat even though she was obviously still hungry.

Mom was able to move up Kinley’s four month check up to today. Her pediatrician has changed her formula, vitamins, and reflux medicine.

Her stomach issues — and eating a little less lately as a result — hasn’t stopped her from growing. She’s now 4095 grams (9 lbs 0.4 oz) and 55cm (21.5 inches) — putting her right on the average weight for her corrected age and even a little on the taller side.

Today and every day the rest of this week, Kinley has an appointment. She kicked off early this morning with the running favorite: eye exam.

In the waiting area, mom and I took turns laying our heads on each other’s shoulders, struggling to stay awake. Meanwhile, Kinley, stared up at the RSV warning sign and elephant toy that dangled from her car seat, bounced her arms around, and cooed for attention.

Her retina specialists says she’s improving and, for the first time since we left the hospital, we don’t have an eye exam for two weeks.

For our second doctor visit of the week, Kinley saw her pulmonologist and received her second RSV vaccination. Aside from a screaming protest to the shot, she’s doing fine. She’s also put on about 100 grams (3.5 ounces) since Friday.

Kinley got to entertain the developmental specialists for her third appointment of the week.

They interviewed us about her various behaviors. How well does she have down the mechanics of eating? Is she grabbing her bottle? Is she trying to hold the bottle? Does she reach for things? Does she smile?

They then took her and conducted a battery of skills tests, observed how she behaved, and made notes. They took the notes and worked up an eleven page report for us with scores in five areas:

• Gross/Fine Motor Skills
• Self-Help/Adaptive Skills
• Social/Emotional
• Academic/Cognitive Skills
• Receptive and Expressive Communication

The gave her scores for both her chronological age of four months and her corrected age of one month. For a four month old, it was no surprise that she scored below the normal range in all areas. Taking her corrected age into consideration, she scored fair in three of the five areas.

She scored slightly behind in Academic/Cognitive skills and Gross/Fine Motor Skills. They were checking how well she did playing and exploring, holding up her head, and using her hands. The specialists also noted in their report:

Kinley was alert but fussy during this evaluation.

They acknowledged that her history with reflux might have impacted her scores and possibly development in the past few weeks.

Still, the Motor Skills is a particular concern that we’ll have to watch considering the results of her MRI. A physical therapist will be coming by our house once a week for a while to help Kinley along with her motor development.

 

To finish off her busy week, Kinley had a follow up with her pediatrician. We checked her weight again — 4.5 ounces gained in the past week — and discussed all the changes of the past week.

Overall, things seem better with the new formula, reflux medication, and vitamins. Although she still gets fussy in the late afternoon, early evening, she’s nowhere near as uncomfortable as she was a couple weeks ago. The new formula has fewer calories and she’s still eating a bit less, but she’s gaining weight okay and looking healthy.

Kinley’s first physical therapy session went well. She was on the verge of being hungry, so didn’t last long and got a little fussy. But, the therapist showed us some techniques that had Kinley rolling from front to back and back to front — with just a little help. Like her neonatologist and others in the NICU, the therapist was surprised that Kinley had a brain hemorrhage considering how well she was doing.

Kinley’s eyes are doing better. Her retina specialist commented that her left eye is still behind her right in vessel development. The blood continues to dissipate and there is no traction. He was comfortable not seeing her for another month, but due to a booked schedule, she’ll be back in three weeks.

We were never able to find an off the shelf mobile for Kinley’s crib that we liked. So, we fashioned together our own using plush versions of the characters from Inside Out. She’s noticed them recently and seems to have found her favorite: Sadness.

When the blue emotion swings by, Kinley will often smile and coo at her.

No, we are not reading anything into her preference.

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Update: Kinley’s grandfather thinks she recognizes Sadness and is trying to cheer her up.