Follow Up

Today we had a visit from our social worker from Children's Hospital Oakland. It is standard practice for every baby who spent time in the NICU to be offered free developmental assessments and follow up from the hospital for up to three years. Our social worker, Fran, was a doll. She explained all that the program offers. It is basically up to the parents to decide how much care and assistance they need in concert with various specialists from CHO. All of it is totally free (pretty amazing, right). She explained that they are particularly interested in following kids who have undergone brain cooling because their long-term results are so varied. She asked us a series of questions in order to get a general sense of how Jonah is doing.

Does she open her hands? (as opposed to leaving them clinched) Yes
Does she visually track objects? Yes
Does she startle at loud noises? Yes
Can she be consoled through feeding or rocking/bouncing? Yes
Does she make eye contact? Yes
Does she coo? Yes
Does she engage toys? Yes
Does she sleep well? Yes

In case there was any doubt, these were all good answers.

We'll have a developmental specialist come to our house in about a month to do an assessment of Jonah. As Fran explained it, she'll throw a blanket on the floor, bring out some toys, and play with Jonie for a while. Fran will also check in with us at that point to see if we have any developmental concerns or want to be seen by any other specialists. As it stands, we have a follow up with the neurologist who saw Jonah at the NICU and an audiologist in May (not sure what that is about since she passed her hearing test before leaving the hospital).

After meeting Jonah fresh from her nap, Fran more or less (unofficially) confirmed what we already know: we've got a healthy little girl here. She is currently in the throes of examining her hand and trying to figure out how to get it to do things. Once or twice this has resulted in a full fledged grab of her favorite toy: crinkle-gator (thanks Grandma Duke!).

All of these free visits and assessments and forms of advice are great. I guess. There is a part of me that just wants to grab my baby and tell the doctors to leave us well enough alone. In many ways I have tried to leave that time in the NICU in the past. On the other hand, if there is some reason that she needs extra attention, I want her to get it sooner than later.

For now, I am immensely enjoying our baby girl. And enjoying learning to parent with Anne, a new step in our relationship to each other and our lives in the world. All good things.
I mean, look at that belly. How could I complain?