Emilia - Thirty-Nine Weeks Home

Today marks thirty-nine weeks home for Emilia.

Let’s start with the heart because a few days ago we had Emilia's big cardiology appointment.  The echo revealed that while her VSD is very small, it is impacting her aortic valve, causing a tiny leak.  At the moment, this is trivial and does not require any treatment, but she will eventually have to have a one-time surgery to correct the problem.  Until that time comes (when the leak gets to a mild/moderate stage), Emilia has no restrictions and needs no meds, but she has to be monitored every six months.

While Emilia was under anesthesia for the echo, we also had an ABR hearing test administered. Since she is not speaking, many doctors and service providers have been pressuring us for this test.  I knew her hearing was fine, but this was a great opportunity to be certain.  Sure enough, Emilia's ears work perfectly and her brain stem is receiving auditory signals in a clear and organized fashion, so she passed the ABR with flying colors.  The audiologist told us that she cannot discern with the ABR what happens to the auditory signals once they move past the brain stem.  Those kinds of things can only be tested when a child has attained some level of language.  The audiologist did make an interesting observation though. She asked us how long Emilia has been home and we told her nine months.  She then said, "Well, her orphanage background might mean that she had little to no input for speech development for the first two years of her life. So, right now, she is like a 9 months old when it comes to speech.  She's babbling, imitating some sounds, listening, responding to noises, blowing raspberries, etc.  That's all normal for a 9 mo old.  A one year old will say about 3-4 words, so I expect you will see that soon unless she has some kind of auditory processing disorder."  Fingers crossed she’s right on this one.

Emilia has enjoyed some one on one time with me while Rex has been at summer day camp (more on that soon).  She did miss Rex a lot on those first days home without him, but adjusted quickly.  That said, she gets very excited when her big brother gets back in the afternoons.  Since Emilia and I have had more time, we have been working on inset puzzles, shape sorters, reading books and verbalizations.  It’s slow going, but she is not quite as resistant to it all as she used to be.

In recent weeks Emilia has finally started finger-feeding.  For now, she seems to be limiting herself to a variety of crackers and shortbread for this undertaking.  Last night I offered her some pizza crust and while she clearly wanted to taste it, she did not want to touch it, so sensory issues are playing into her finger-feeding progress as well.

As always, our little girl is so happy and marching to the beat of her own drummer.  One of the meanings for the name Emilia is “industrious” and I recently told Craig that we chose well.  Emilia is like a tiny ant, always on the move, always after something, always looking, carrying, exploring, laboring over her own small endeavors.  She is, as her name and middle name attest, our industrious pearl.