Today was the big day – Anna’s 12 month check-up. We’ve been anxiously awaiting it because of our concerns about her gross motor development. Anna’s legs tend to be very stiff and she points her toes most of the time. She did start crawling about three weeks ago on November 7th, but she still doesn’t really get around. She’ll go a few feet and then just stop and lay on her stomach.
For the longest time, I just convinced myself that she was taking her own sweet time. Plus, she was 4 weeks early, so I factored that into things. Then last week we had our Parents As Teachers session and our parent educator snapped me back into reality. Anna completely failed the gross motor section of her assessment and Melanie seemed concerned about the rigidity in legs.
Of course, I immediately got online and started doing my own research. It wasn’t comforting when the words cerebral palsy kept coming up in my search results. In any event, I finally was realizing that Anna needs some specialized help to assist her in developing as she should. The doctor agreed.
Our pediatrician recommended that I contact our local “First Steps” program to see if Anna would qualify for physical therapy through them. I did and she doesn’t. This is both good and bad news. The good news is that children have to be 50% behind in order to qualify and Anna’s wonderful verbal and fine motor skills don’t place her in the category. The bad news is that “First Steps” is free. So, now I’ll get her scheduled for an assessment by a private physical therapist.
The doctor didn’t seem too worried, but did agree that Anna needs some professional help to get her over this hump. She said that certain leg muscles seemed a bit underdeveloped and we need to keep shoes on her at all times to keep her toes from pointing. The docs recommendation was to try physical therapy and if that does not help, then we’ll dig further into the possibility of it being a mild case of cerebral palsy.
So, all in all, I’m feeling much better. One of a parent’s biggest fears is that their child would be at any disadvantage whether physical, emotional, intellectual or otherwise. What I do know is that we’ll do whatever it takes to give her what she needs. As always, her cheery smile and happy attitude keeps us going even on the rough days. Thank you for your prayers!
