Back to Work

Someone thinks her new dress is pretty funny!

I started back to work on Monday just 10-15 hours but it’s a start.  So far so good but having a little trouble fitting everything in.  Natalie is very close to sleeping all night but not quite there yet.  Some nights she goes 6 hours some nights she sleeps 8.  She’s 12 weeks today but only 8 weeks if you count from her due date.  Zach and Julia both slept 8 hours consistently at 9 weeks so I’m hoping she’ll be able to do it any day now.  Been having to finish work at night when I need to take a nap to catch up during the day.

Natalie had her first physical therapy session last Thursday.  Debbie will come once a week unless we decide every other week works out ok with Natalie being so young.  We talked about things Natalie is currently doing and Debbie left me with 4 tasks to work on this week.  We need to try getting her to lie on her side, look left as much as possible (she favors her right), practice touching her hands to her toes so she’s aware of her feet being there and tummy time.  Natalie did great with Debbie.  Not sure I have been putting enough ‘play’ time in with Natalie this week but we keep trying.  At least I’ve gotten consistent with massaging her every night before bed so she’s getting something of a routine there.

Today we saw an ENT to check on her left ear hearing loss.  The audiologist had told us it was conductive hearing loss but possibly sensory neural as well.  Dr. Silver explained to me today that conductive is in the ear canal up to the bones and sensory neural pertains to nerve damage that can not be repaired.  He said that Natalie’s hearing loss is very mild and still seems like it’s unclear as to how much.  If she had complete hearing loss in one ear, she would only have a 6% overall hearing loss.  Since the last hearing test showed that she was not hearing the higher ranges only, he said that she could be hearing about 95% out of that ear.  He checked her ears today and she does have some fluid in one of them.  He had more equipment to be able to see inside her ears so he said it was possible that during the test we did with the audiologist, she had fluid or that even the probe wasn’t’ able to get completely inside her ear to get an accurate test.  Since she is so young, the hearing loss is very mild, and her ears are very small (another attribute of Down’s syndrome), he suggested we just keep checking her instead of fitting her with a hearing aide now.  We will come back in 6 weeks to see him.

Just had to post this picture.  Julia consented to letting David take her picture- a major accomplishment!  Since we haven’t gotten a birthday portrait yet, I was thrilled that she seemed to enjoy her photo session.  She’s really becoming a Daddy’s girl since Natalie has arrived.

Time to feed the baby so signing off.

Amy