WRITTEN MONDAY NIGHT NOV 6TH 2006

Okay, we’re back. My apologies for taking so long again, but this time I have a good excuse. Seriously! Kelly and I had the opportunity to head out to La Quinta with Abby to attend the wedding of some our close friends this past weekend Abby didn’t attend of course, but luckily for us La Quinta is also where Abby’s Great Grandma and Great Grandpa live who were more than happy to watch her for the evening. I’m happy to report that Abby did very well with them. To our newly married friends Rolf and Dana, congratulations you two. Thanks for giving us an excuse to get away for a bit. Even though we packed enough stuff to be gone for years, it was worth it. I’m sure as parents we’ll get better at the packing thing. Please say we will. This past weekend was ridiculous. You would have thought we were moving across the country. No joke.

Anywho, on to the update…

Abby had another eye appointment with her new Pediatric Optomologist last week. He concluded that her eyes looked good for now. He does want to see her again in 6 months though since she had such extensive laser surgery to stop the ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity) from spreading. Feel free to google ROP for more details.
Abby’s physical therapist has recommended that Abby has another day of therapy called occupational therapy each week, which involves the development of her fine motor skills such as reaching, holding onto objects etc. Her left arm is still pretty limp and doesn’t do much and this therapy will help with that. By the way, I don’t think I’ve mentioned just how much we LOVE Abby’s therapists. There are 3 total. Her feeding therapist and occupational therapist are twin sisters. We met them while still in the NICU and they’ve been part of the journey ever since. Abby’s physical therapist came highly recommended by those two while Abby was in the NICU as well. Of course Kelly and Abby fell in love with all of them instantly. Thank you ladies for all that you do for our little nugget, or better known with you guys as “ our burnin’ hunk of love.”
Abby is still having trouble taking a bottle. A full feed is now up to 90 cc’s. Today she took 70 cc’s which is great, but did horrible every other time. Oh well. Our goal right now is to simply give Abby the opportunity to try and when she gets frustrated or tired, we’re done. The last thing we want to do is force her to eat because she’ll get oral aversion, which means she won’t allow anything in her mouth. That is a much more difficult problem to tackle according to Abby’s feeding therapist, which is why we’re so careful not to push anything. So when Abby says she’s done, we listen. Already bossin’ us around! Nice huh? And like I mentioned in a previous entry, Abby is happy these days so this whole eating thing doesn’t bother us quite as much as it did, simply because it clearly isn’t bothering her. Keep Abby in your prayers for success in these therapy sessions with her feeding and her motor skills.
We haven’t done much in the way of pics this past week but I do think some pretty darn cute ones will be coming up shortly.

Have a fantastic week everyone.

Ryan and Kelly.