Your Baby Will Never...

hear     She passed her hearing test just fine and has given us no reason to worry about late onset hearing loss.  She responds to her name and recognizes the voices of Caleb, Matt, and myself.

see     Abby's underdeveloped optic nerves are now within the "normal" range.  We will continue to see (the world renowned) pediatric opthomologist every six months, but he thinks she'll be fine.  She might need glasses, but that runs in our family anyway.

sit up on her own    Not only is Abby's spine perfectly straight now, but one of the best pediatric orthopaedic surgeons in the world told us that he didn't need to see Abby again for a follow-up.  Abby is now sitting on her own really well and is getting good at catching herself when she gets off-balance.

take a bottle   This is her latest new trick.  :)  She's certainly not going to be getting her nutrition from it for a while, but we are so proud of her progress.

walk   While this hasn't happened yet (and it is still very early!), Abby is doing all of the prep-work that a typical eight month old does.  She's putting weight on her legs, bouncing, and learning how to stand.  I am confident that she will be walking next winter!

be just slightly more than a vegetable   Abby is so much more than that!  It makes my blood boil that we would even be told that.  I guess it was their way of "preparing" us, but what it actually did was set out to prove them wrong.  I think Abby has certainly done that!  According to her physical therapist, Abby is falling within the 6 or 7 month range for all of her gross and fine motor skills--and she was 6 weeks early!  Her adjusted age is actually 7 months old, so she's really not very far behind at all.  She interacts with us, is learning how to mimic what we do, gets into things she's not supposed to, adores her brother, "yells" at us when we do something she doesn't like, plays hard with her toys, and is more like a typical eight month old (with a few extra attachments) than you might actually think.  I had to fight hard to get the therapy in the beginning because her doctor just didn't have much hope.  She had a "let's wait and see" attitude that frustrated me to no end.  I think she finally agreed to order the therapy just to shut me up.  It worked.  :)

breathe on her own   We're up to 15 minutes 4x a day, and I'm confident that we will be able to keep increasing that little by little.  She's doing really well!!

We love this girl of ours so much and will take her the way God made her, but I refuse to just "accept" some things without trying.  If she never walks and we have done all of the therapy that could be done, then so be it.  If late on-set hearing loss shows up, we'll learn sign language more agressively!  But I just won't sit back and accept what these doctors say she will and will not do. 

Because they don't know the miracles that have already been done in Abby's life.

And they don't know my Abby!  She's stubborn enough to prove them all wrong.

I think she gets that from me.  :)