EI & Goodbye Special Fin

First I want to apologize for the influx of journal entries.  I’ve been meaning to set this site up for a while and this happens to be a big week for all of us.  I promise that I won’t be writing in this every night, but most likely I’ll be writing tomorrow night as well to give everyone an update on our big day.

When we were in the hospital my pediatrician mentioned the state funded program, Early Intervention.  For some reason, from the name, I gathered that this was a program to make sure that parents could handle their special needs baby before things went wrong.  When they called about setting up a meeting and an evaluation I thought, “Oh God, they are going to see I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing and are going to take Aleck away”.  So I asked the woman on the phone, who specifically were they evaluating.  She explained to me that they’d be evaluating Aleck, his developmental progress during the next three years if I decided to go ahead with the program.  Whew.  I mean, one look at my track record for him peeing out of the side of his diaper and they’d hall him out of here pronto.  Anyway, we had a few other friends who worked at Early Intervention let us know that this was a program worth it’s weight.

My case worker came today and I signed all the paperwork to get the ball rolling.  Then they’ll schedule the evaluation, a team of therapists (physical, developmental, occupational & speech-no he doesn’t talk yet but he sure takes his sweet time on the boob so why not check it out), will be arriving in the next few weeks to study the many feats of a 6-8 week old baby.  Physical Therapy is going to be a huge part in Aleck’s treatment, and this program helps to cover the cost that my insurance may not cover.  This way we don’t have to worry about going over on our allotted sessions, or only getting a small percentage of the therapy covered, and can focus instead on making sure we are giving Aleck everything he needs to overcome his obstacles.  She also made some recommendations for other programs we can look into for financial help, and they can even provide a social worker who can look into these programs for us.  Now that would be amazing.  I’m so overwhelmed that I constantly feel behind on every aspect of my life, and I have a feeling its only going to get worse, so to have someone who can guide us through all that paperwork and red tape would be a lifesaver.  I’m really excited to start with EI, my doctor recommended an amazing team of therapists, and I think it’ll feel good to begin a proactive treatment schedule.

Tomorrow, as most of you know, Aleck gets his first cast on his foot.  I’ve been munching on that sweet little curved foot all day long.  I had Craig take pictures on Sunday b/c when he’s feeding he likes to rest the club foot against his other leg and you can see just how perfectly they fit together(I’ll try to post a pic soon).  Looking at this sweet little baby foot I know that as an adult foot this curve and unnatural bend wouldn’t be sweet all, and that his chances of walking will be much greater in a more capable position, but its still hard to say goodbye to a part of our baby.