on having a preemie

Something that may not have occurred to you on having a preemie.... there is SO MUCH extra newborn time. Thomas' first six weeks basically "didn't count" at all. His weight, his developmental milestones, all are calculated against his adjusted age which is his age from his due date. So instead of smiling at 6-8 weeks he was smiling at more like 3 months. This has been a little bit hard because that insane eating/sleeping/pooping/schedule-less newborn time was so long and exhausting, only now are we getting a rhythm to our days. But even harder has been the simple wait for him to DO things.

Even with all the interventions at NICU, his oxygen sats were none so great the first few days of his life, and his doctors were somewhat concerned that this might have had a negative effect on brain development. Thus we are enrolled in the 0-3 program and have a public health nurse visit every few weeks to check up on him, so that interventions could be started up right away if he showed problems with motor skills or speech skills. And for weeks and weeks he really wasn't doing anything, the nurse kept reassuring us that it was okay, "he's really only 4 weeks old not 10 weeks" etc. but it just felt wrong. Because he was so old, and also so completely enormous (far bigger than my other two kids as infants!), it just looked like more should be happening. I was getting nervous.

But then things started happening, and within the last couple of weeks LOTS of things have been happening! Thomas not only smiles but chuckles, he coos and loves having "conversations." He can grab for toys and maneuver them into his mouth. When he's on his back he kicks his legs and gets on to his side- he'd be rolling over if he could work out what to do with the arm that's in the way. We're far from being in the clear in terms of development but we're so happy to see him interacting and happy.