Another Connection

I've been wanting to get my girls into swim lessons. My dear friend, Jen, put me in touch with a local college girl who gives private swim lessons to kids over the summer. So I called her last night and signed all three of my girls up for three weeks of daily swim lessons for this summer.

That in itself is exciting. To add to the thrill, though, is this: this swim teacher? She's one of six kids in her family, and . . . (drumroll . . .) she has an adult brother who just happens to have Down syndrome. Jen had told me that when she gave me her contact info, so when I talked to the swim teacher last night, after we covered the business of swim lessons, I took a deep breath, and said, "Can I ask you about your brother?" I told her that I have a little boy who has Down syndrome. She was very open with me and told me all about her brother. She said that he's almost 25, and that when he was born, the nurses told her mom that she may as well leave him at the hospital and give him up for adoption, because he'd never walk or talk or do anything and would just be a burden. Man, oh man. She said thank goodness her mom thought differently, because here he is 25 years later, graduated from high school, with a part-time job doing landscaping, healthy and happy. I asked her what it was like for her growing up with a sibling like him (she is younger than he is). Know what she said? "I've never known any different. When I was little, I thought every family had a kid like him, and when I got older and realized that not every family does, I thought the families that don't have a kid like him were strange." She said that some day when she gets married, she would like to adopt a child with Ds.

It was just really, really neat to talk to her.

***

In other news, during the feeding portion of OT yesterday, Emily got Finn to eat TWO entire cheese puffs. She thought cheese puffs would be good because they dissolve fairly easily. Okay, it's junk food, but seriously, folks, I'm up for anything at this point. I'd be thrilled to see him eat candy and pizza. Anyway, it was a sloooooowwwwww process, feeding him those cheese puffs - it took a good 20 minutes for him to eat the two - but he took bites off of them, and he chewed (!!), and swallowed, with nary a gag or spitting out.

Progress, people. Progress.

Therapy

Things are looking up.

There's this gal who recently joined my book club. She lives in my neighborhood and has twin boys who attend the same school my kids attend. I've seen her around the neighborhood here and there for all the years we've lived here, but only started to get to know her when she joined the book club I'm in a couple months ago, and I liked her right off. We seem very like-minded in a lot of ways, and I felt like we hit it off nicely.

Well, guess what. She's an occupational therapist. I had heard this through the grapevine, although I wasn't sure just what kind of OT she is. But I took a small leap a few days ago and sent her an email telling her a little about Finn and asking if I could pick her brain about therapy, explaining to her all my conflicting feelings about it, what our experience with therapy has been, etc., etc. And I told her that we're kind of at a place right now where we're making some changes to Finn's therapy protocol, and that we have an upcoming IFSP meeting. I told her that I'd sure appreciate some guidance from someone in the know. She was so thrilled that I asked her (which was a relief because I really felt like I was imposing, but she went on and on about how she loves her job and really likes helping friends and acquaintances navigate the system).

She and I talked on the phone this weekend for a long time and her philosophy and approach seem to be in line with what I want for Finn. For instance, she explained to me how beneficial it is for him to crawl for a long period of time rather than being pushed to walk as soon as possible, because as a crawler (he's been crawling since 10 - 11 months but is nowhere near walking), he's developing and strengthening all kinds of muscle groups and fine motor skills that are very important for long-term development. With Eun, it really felt like she was just intent on getting him to the next big milestone, whatever that took. Granted, Eun was a PT, and Emily is an OT, and Emily told me that PTs and OTs do tend to have very different philosophies and approaches (which makes me wonder how a team of therapists with different philosophies and approaches can ever provide a cohesive therapy "package").

Anyway, she made me feel inspired and hopeful about the possibility of having a positive, beneficial therapy experience. And she offered to be Finn's new OT! She works with the Regional Center that provides Finn's services, and she said I can request her and that she has room in her caseload.

We still have to decide what we're going to do about PT and ST. I've been told now by our SC, by Eun previously, and now by Emily that speech therapists who do in-home therapy in our area are almost nil, so I'm concerned about that because I do think that Finn could benefit from ST at this point, and with Lilah still home with me and multiple school drop-offs and pick-ups for the other kids every day, plus naps for the two youngest, I'm just not sure how feasible it would be to take Finn somewhere for ST at this point. I also don't know what we're going to do about PT right now. I'm almost inclined to do without PT for the next few months, focus on OT, and maybe do clinic-based therapy in the fall when Lilah starts preschool.

Anyway, I'm feeling very positive about getting started with Emily!