Overdue Update

I haven't really posted about Abby's progress in a while. She had both her four-year checkup with her pediatrician and her revisit with her neurodevelopmental specialist (ND) in June. I am always a little torn about how much information to put in my blogs. I use them personally for an online journal for the kids, and I know some family and friends keep up on our lives by reading them. I also want to be an encouragement to anyone struggling with a special needs child, specifically with the issues Abby faces.

However, the last couple months have been very difficult and stressful, and no one wants to read about that and I don't want to remember the hard stuff. I like to look back over my blogs and read the highlights of our lives. It helps me remember that all is not dark and all is not stressful, and we DO have fun and enjoy each other. On the flip side, it can be encouraging to look back and see what trials the Lord has brought us through, how we've grown through the difficult times, and hopefully bring some encouragement to others along the way.

So the facts are that Abby is now the same height as Ryan (he is NOT pleased)! At her checkup she was 95 percentile in height and 85 percentile in weight (she weighs three pounds less than Ryan). There is nothing else remarkable to report from a physiological standpoint.

She made good progress at her revisit with the ND, who was very pleased with her gains. Her ND also was very impressed at her cognitive development. She sees no cognitive delay and says Abby is quite intelligent. Of course, we already knew that! She overhauled our program for Abby, paring it down by about two hours at my request. We are doing some new things, and Abby is enjoying it again. I am feeling better about it too since it is shorter and easier to get done every day.

Her pediatrician kind of got tunnel vision as soon as we began talking to him about some of her behavioral issues though. He thinks she may have Attention Deficit Disorder and brought up the possibility of medicating her. We are quite resistant to that idea (though there are days I've seriously considered it!), and after some more talking he decided to do some investigating. I have done quite a bit of reading and research on sensory integration dysfunction (SID), fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), autism, pervasive developmental delay (PDD), attention deficit disorder (ADD), etc. I know I'm not a physician, but I am convinced her "issues" stem from her alcohol exposure prenatally.

My gut instincts tell me that if we treat her for ADD or ADHD, we will only be treating the symptoms. I don't want to fix the symptoms (okay, some days I'd settle for that). I want to get to the cause of the symptoms and do my best to treat that. After quite a bit of talking, our pediatrician said he'd investigate some of the questions we raised, and he ended up giving us a referral to a behavioral pediatrician instead of going the medication route. He said he consulted with this doctor about Abigail and the specialist was "very excited" to see her and thought he could really help her, probably without medication, though he left that on the table for a possibility.

Our pediatrician told me that this doctor is very much in demand, so I wasn't too surprised when I called and was told she couldn't get in until October. In the meantime we will continue with what we're doing. It IS helping her, albeit, slower than I'd like. I have been doing quite a bit of research on FASD and may do a couple of posts on what I've found, Lord willing. In the meantime, we are grateful for your prayers!