About a month ago I mentioned that we planned to have Ella’s speech evaluated by a pediatric speech therapist. This past Wednesday (June 23, 2010) two therapists from Birth to 3 (an early intervention program for infants and toddlers with developmental delays) came to our house to spend some time with Ella. One of the women focused on all developmental aspects and the other solely focused on her speech.

I knew going in that Ella had to have at least a 25% delay in order to be qualified for the program and to receive an individual service plan. To be honest, I felt like the meeting was going to be a waste of time. I mean – Ella talks! What other kid can say Narley at 18 months? That’s talent.

The women were very nice and welcoming, they even brought two entire bags filled with toys for Ella. Despite the bribery, I have never seen Ella so quiet. She wasn’t scared, just quiet. She warmed up to them in a few minutes and played with both, but for the most part – didn’t say much or make any noise really.

While she played they both asked me a million questions. Does Ella chatter often to herself? How many words are within her vocabulary? How does Ella interact with other children? etc. etc. For the most part I was able to answer the questions, but it would have been really helpful to know some of the questions ahead of time so that I could be better prepared. Example:
Q: How does Ella interact with other children?
A: Well, since Ella goes to daycare because I have to work to feed her, I don’t see her interact with other kids often.
In the above case it would have been helpful to speak to her daycare teachers ahead of time so that I could answer their questions more accurately.

Nonetheless, at the end of the appointment the woman who was evaluating Ella as a whole felt she was more advanced than other children her age when it came to social, emotional and motor skills. She was able to complete tasks that were meant for children much older than her. The speech therapist felt it was very evident that Ella understands language, however actually forming words is a challenge.

So – she was qualified for the program and we are currently waiting to receive our individualized plan. I am really happy that I took the initiative to have her evaluated and grateful that she is going to receive help, but at the same time – that day was a bit sad for me too, hence the double edged sword theory.

Everyone wants their children to lead normal, happy and healthy lives. I realize that sometimes I am overprotective of Ella, but she has already been through so much in her short life that I want to protect her from as many things as I possibly can. I guess I can think of speech therapy as a way to protect her. If all goes well, she will be able to speak normally by the time she goes to school and she can avoid other little kids making fun of her. Cross your fingers!

This past weekend I was mentioning how far behind I am on Ella’s Life scrapbooking endeavor – which made me pull hers out and take a peek back at some of the pages I have done. While looking through I came across the definition of her name that I included on one of her pages.

When we were selecting a name for our little girl, we kept coming back to Ella. Then when we were researching her cleft lip and palate, we came across a little girl whose name was also Ella. Her story was so inspiring it seemed as if it was meant to be and thus Ella Marie Leschisin was “born” – or so to speak.

Take a look at the definition for yourself, it’s pretty dead on. I know I may be biased but in Ella’s short life, she has this amazing ability to attract people all around her – it’s almost magnetic.

I promise to get back on the blogging bandwagon in the coming week, but I wanted to quickly wish Joe a Happy Father’s Day! You are a great daddy and Ella and I are both so lucky to have you, our lives wouldn’t be the same without you.

On November 26, 2008 @ 5:29 p.m. our little Thanksgiving turkey, Ella Marie Leschisin was born, weighing 6 lbs. 11 oz. I was able to hold her and she was whisked away to the NICU to make sure everything was okay. We were told she would not have to go to the NICU but I would rather be safe than sorry and let her go.

The next few days were stressful to say the least. Feeding was a challenge. Initially she was tube fed to make sure she was getting all the nutrients she needed. I wanted to be able to breastfeed however the lactation consultant wasn’t much help and deemed it impossible – so I pumped. In order to take her home she couldn’t lose any weight and she had to be fed through a bottle for 48 consistent hours. Seems like a simple task however, if one of the nurses didn’t have enough patience, they would go back to tube feeding – which eliminated all progress made. The only way we were going to take her home was if I personally fed her every three hours, no matter what. When it came time for us to go home, she was not able to go with. She was a bit jaundice so we had to get those numbers down and ensure she was eating before she could leave. I mentioned earlier the worst day of my life was seeing our little girls cleft for the first time. I was wrong. Going home without your baby is the WORST feeling in the entire world, or at least it seemed like it at the time. Ella was born on a Wednesday and we were forced to leave on Friday.  I insisted we go back every 3 hours so we could make sure her feeding success stayed on schedule. There was a lot of stress and very little sleep. Finally, on Sunday November 30^th, we were able to bring our little girl home. She was such a tiny little peanut in her car seat. As you can see, her newborn clothes barely fit her.

Ella came out of surgery at 10:30 a.m. and we were called down to see her. That was a very emotional time. I had grown to love that big bright smile and couldn’t even imagine what she would look like after surgery. When we got into the post- surgery area I barely recognized her. She was crying so hard due to the anesthetics that it didn’t sound like her and when they turned her over I couldn’t tell if she was mine. Her face was so swollen, but I didn’t know if it was normal and going to stay that way or if it was truly swollen. Her face still had blood on it from not being fully cleaned up, which was also scary. I held her and tried my best to console her. You could tell as soon as I grabbed her she felt more at ease. I wanted to hold her tight and make all of her pain go away.