Hannah was a seriously busy kid last week. Her cardiology appointment ended up being cancelled and rescheduled for June thanks to a coxsackie attack but she still had a visit to the pediatrician, audiology, ENT, plus an Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy consult.

The pediatrician appointment went really well. Hannah finally hit the 20 lb mark! The doctor was extremely impressed with how much progress Hannah made in three months (back when she was still hating tummy time and gagging on thicker food). Our immediate action item was to drop Hannah down from four 7 ounce bottles a day to three 7 ounce bottles, then slowly decrease them to six ounces. She said we’re filling Hannah up with milk/formula and not giving her an opportunity to eat more and transition to a schedule of meals and snacks. Surprisingly dropping a bottle during the day has gone smoothly so far. The remainder of the appointment was discussing what Hannah’s doing with Birth to Three, which the doctor said seems to be a great relationship. One shot later and we were home and Hannah was in bed before The Bachelorette.

The next day Hannah had a double header with audiology and ENT. Hannah did a near-perfect job responding to the audiologist’s voice but tended to only look to the left when sounds were played. It’s hard to say if Hannah couldn’t hear them or was ignoring them because sometimes she made faces when the sounds played. Even though Hannah didn’t “pass” the hearing test it’s not a concern of ours right now. She turns when she hears a cabinet door close, when Gamy walks by, and selectively listens to me and Pete.

We knew this was the ENT visit where we’d find out if Hannah would need ear tubes and I already accepted the fact that she would. The fluid is still in both ears and has shown no signs of clearing up. Even though it’s not causing ear infections it makes the world sound muffled to Hannah and could cause speech issues. The surgery won’t be for at least another month so that the anesthesiologist will have the most current cardiology report.

Hannah also had OT and ST consults with Birth to Three. Speech was a suggestion by Maureen because Hannah has been hitting all the pre-communication benchmarks and she’s wanted to see what a specialist recommended. Thankfully for Hannah’s schedule the ST didn’t think Hannah needs any one-on-one time yet. Right now we just need to keep working on sign language and make sure we’re giving Hannah about 30 seconds to process our words before we help her sign back. The OT appointment was to work on Hannah’s oral motor skills. Even though eating has become significantly easier and Hannah actually wants our food, she seems to be misunderstanding the chew + swallow process of eating. The OT will be visiting once a month for now and the pediatrician also recommended two local facilities that could help if needed.

I’ll leave you with these adorable pictures of Hannah that we took while waiting for the appointments to start…