Super Happy to Find You Guys!

Michelle - posted on 11/23/2010 ( 1 mom has responded )

I am happy I found you guys I have 5 living children. They are 18, 16 and 3 babies about to turn three in December. The three little ones are surviving quads. They were born 13 weeks early. We lost Martha the day after she was born. The other three survived. James is the largest of the survivors. He is developmentally advanced for his age. He can write his name (I have to reset his hand on the line but other than that he does it himself), can count to 30, knows all his colors and shapes (including hexagon, octagon, and pentagon), knows all the letters of the alphabet and their phonetic sounds. He has even begun to read on his own. He has sounded out and read the word pizza and comet. He keeps me challenged to keep him learning new things. I have started to teach him sign language just to have something fun to do with him.

Margaret has a bit of a developmental delay. She is about 18m developmentally. Margaret is a BIG talker. She loves to tell me things but what she has to say all revolves around things she has seen on TV or repeating phrases I have told her a lot. I am not sure what may be her problem but I have her scheduled to be evaluated for autism. Margaret did not start walking until she was 2 and she has a problem with walking on her tippie toes. Margaret for the LONGEST time would not look me in the face when I talk to her but she does a lot better about that now. I have been working with her on sign language. It has helped with her eye contact but she still will not talk to me or ask me for anything. Margaret does not sleep well. She has been up for the last hour after I put her to bed. She tries and wakes the boys up. Margaret LOVES to sign and she knows her alphabet. She can count to 15 without a problem. She knows most of her shapes and colors.

Joseph is my youngest munchkin. He was not suppose to survive to birth then I was told he would not make it in the NICU. Finally when he was released from the NICU he all most dies that night. He stopped breathing, turned blue, and I had to preform CPR while my husband called an ambulance. After Joseph setting off the apnea monitor that I was set home with several times the doctors finally ordered some test and found out he was "silently" refluxing and aspirating. I knew as soon as 2 months after Joseph came home that there was something wrong with him. I kept telling my husband and his doctors but they all just told me not to worry. That Joseph was a micropreemie and then had several medical complications (60+ days on a vent, Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), had laser eye surgery to try and save his sight due to ROP, blind in right eye due to retinal detachment, hypotonic, lack of balance, groin hernia surgery, fundoplication surgery, surgery for removal of subglottal cyst that blocked 80% of airway, failure to thrive, and undescended left testicle). So as you can see Joseph does have a lot of problems. He is a happy child though. He tried SUPER hard to do things. Joseph says 5 words. his first word was light. Just 4 months ago Joseph also said daddy, mommy, go and ball. Joseph does have pretty good control over his hands so I have been working with him on sign language. In the last month I have been able to teach him the signs for ball, together, and lion. He is learning the "I love you" sign. I am not sure if he understand was the signs mean but he has fun doing them. :D Joseph has not been formally diagnosed because the doctors who were seeing him would not make any kind of diagnosis until he was at least three. Since we moved we will have to start over again in some ways so I have a LOT of appointments set up for Joseph and hopefully I can get a better diagnosis on him beside globally developmentally delayed.

So this is my story and I am happy to be here. :D