So you get pregnant and you immediately begin to worry about all the hundreds of things that could go wrong. You hope and pray for a smooth delivery so that you can finally see your screaming, crying, but healthy baby with ten fingers, ten toes, and everything functioning properly. You hope you’ll be a good parent and that your child will grow up to live a fruitful life. You never really think about things like, will my child enjoy tummy time, will he learn to roll over, crawl, pull up on furniture, walk, talk, count, feed himself, the list goes on and on and ON! If you’re like me either a.) you didn’t even think about some of these things or b.) you just assumed your kid would do them. And if you’re still thinking you’re like me, when you’re pregnant and your husband asks “what will our kid be doing when he’s 6 months, 1 year, 2 years?” you responded with “crawling at 6 months, walking at 1 year, and throwing tantrums at 2 years.” So imagine my surprise when the 6 month bench mark came and went and Lincoln was nowhere NEAR crawling!
I’ve been pretty private about our struggles, but I feel now is a good time to open up. Why the hell not? Nothing’s sacred now that we run a blog, right?!
When Lincoln was first born I would do weekly updates on his size, progress, and new things he was doing. As he got older I started doing only monthly updates so not to flood my wall with nothing but Lincoln. Some of my Facebook friends may wonder why I stopped updating all together. Well, I got sick and tired of having NO updates! My updates would have consisted of a new photo of Lincoln with the caption “And He’s STILL Not Crawling!!!!!!!!!!” So I decided posting nothing was better than being negative. I can’t tell you how many people I know that had babies around the same time as me who I would constantly compare my child to… ladies, you know who you are 🙂 I had to remember that every baby is different, but that truly is a difficult to thing to remember when you’re on the delayed side of development.
At our 6 month check up with our pediatrician, our doctor recommended having Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) come to our home to do an evaluation. I had never heard of ECI, I had never thought I would need anything like ECI, but here we were having another hurdle (Doc Band being hurdle 1). By the time we had taken care of all the formalities, paperwork and such, Lincoln was close to 8 months old before ECI came out to do their assessment. In order to qualify for the state funded program Lincoln would have to show at least a 3 month delay in 1 or more categories. The categories ranged from motor skills to communication and everything in between. After watching Lincoln in all categories ECI determined Lincoln was showing a 3 month or longer delay in his gross motor skills, but was just where he needed to be in all the other categories. It was great news that he was only delayed in the category we assumed he would be and no others. They attributed his delay to lack of muscle tone. Great, what the hell does that mean??? Well, I later learned that some children are born with lower muscle tone and given his good ole Mom’s tiny body, I may be the reason he ended up this way… damn genetics! Good news is that as he gets older and becomes more active and has the ability to work out and develop his muscles, nobody will ever know that he got his mother’s genes.
We’ve now been having ECI come to our home once a week since Lincoln was 9 months old. The program is partially covered by insurance and the remaining portion is funded by the state so we pay nothing out of pocket to have a “personal trainer” as I like to call it come to our home, in our environment, and work with Lincoln one on one with his development. In the beginning we worked on the small things like transition positions. The biggest factor in Lincoln’s delayed crawling was that he just didn’t know how to get in and out of certain positions. Our trainer showed him these moves and within a week or so he’d be doing them all on his own. The most difficult thing about going through this process was that I have so many friends who had their kiddos 4-6 months after me and to hear about how they were doing things that Lincoln couldn’t do just broke my heart. That and the fact that my husband still asks me DAILY what I did during the day that was beneficial for Lincoln’s development… “Did y’all walk today?” “Make sure he’s on his feet all day!” “Are you just on the computer all day or are you working with our son?” UGH!
Every time I go into the pediatrician for an appointment and every time ECI is at our house I’m constantly saying “well my best friend’s daughter is doing this and doing that”. I know they think I’m crazy! Again, I have to remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with Lincoln physically and he WILL do all of the things that every other child will, but in his own time. I guess as long as I’m not carrying him into Kindergarten we will be okay, right?
Even with ECI in our home weekly, Lincoln still didn’t crawl until just after his first birthday, but nonetheless, HE CRAWLS!!! ECI also brings a hand full of pamphlets letting me know where Lincoln should be in certain areas of development. While the ECI specialists are not medical doctors, it does sort of feel like I have my own personal child encyclopedia with me on a weekly basis to tell me what I’m doing right and what I can do better. I was shocked to learn that the average age for a child to walk is anywhere from 10-18 months! I always assumed it was at the 1 year mark. We feel pretty proud that Lincoln is coming up on 18 months at the end of January and is finally taking his first steps. He’s been taking anywhere from 3-5 steps at a time and we have no doubt that in a few months he’ll be dominating our back yard!
Everyone tells me how lucky I am that he’s slow in the gross motor development area, but unless you’re a mom who has had a child that is delayed you just don’t understand. To all those moms that either has found them self or will find them self in the same category as me, do your best to remember what I’ve said: Every child develops differently, the averages for milestones are so vast, it’s normal for your husband to ask daily what you did to help with the progress of your child, lie when random people you don’t know at the grocery store ask how old your baby is and if he/she is doing this or doing that yet… it’s just easier, and don’t get frustrated! You’re not alone.
Lincoln at 4 1/2 months struggling to enjoy tummy time
Lincoln on his 1st birthday as a “Sitter”, not a Crawler
Caroline & Lincoln during a play date, but you can see how skinny his little arms are aka “Low Muscle Tone”
Last night: Lincoln standing unassisted
Have you ever tried taking a picture of your child walking towards you?
Well, this is what you end up with…. a blurry looking photo and a child IN YOUR FACE! BUT………he’s so close to officially walking!!!
Great story. Kara’s daughter,Grace, is now in regular kindergarten after struggling with development issues. God has his own plan and timing 🙂
hey allison, i want to apologize ahead of time for how long my reply will probably be lol but i just love reading your blog enteries and how open you are about your mommyhood experiences! they are such a joy to read.
i struggled with a similiar situation, when Landon was in my tummy you can say my pregnancy was anything but joyful and exciting.. early in the pregnancy the drs told me that the baby inside me was not developing right. it was at our gender visit 20 wks that they informed us that he has a condition called Mild Ventricularmelagy what the heck does that mean?? yeah my first question too and after talking with them they pretty much told me that the baby had way to much fluid in his brain ventricles and if it kept increasing he would have whats called hydrocephlus- which is the babies with large heads who have to actually wear the helmets for life and have very little brain function and are wheelchair bound.. also on top of this they saw a spot on his heart that led them to believe there was a large possibility of down syndrome!! talk about an ear full and triple whammy, especially when we were hours away from our gender reveal party that we planned for all our family to attend. in that moment i looked at the little baby on the monitor and said, hes gonna be just fine u watch! i was a little bit more vocally confident than i was emotionally hopeful! we went to the gender party and told no one of our findings and just went on until the next morning my obgyn whom ive known for 13 years told me after reading the ultrasound results its probably not a bad idea if i consider aborting the baby due to the horrible diagnosis he was given. she went on to tell me that he would be born and have such life long problems that it wasnt worth the suffering and that he would have little to no brain activity due to the high amounts of fluid… i ended my conversation with her by saying, dr where medicine ends and dr.’s give up is where i believe God takes over so dont u ever tell me to abort my baby again.
we spent the next few weeks in mourning i guess you could say i even deactivated my fb account because i just wanted to be shut off from the outside world. i knew that God was in control of our situation and if thats the baby he wanted for me and jerry to have then so be it, i guess he figured i was the best fit person to raise a child with special needs and i sure as heck would not have been the first.. we just gave complete control of our baby to the Lord and put our hope and trust into him. well life went on and the dr visits and ultrasounds showed the same thing, we had about 10 ultrasounds my pregnancy, which most moms woulda loved but for me they were all just unbearable. the dr.’s wanted me to do the thingy were they withdralw fluid to check his diagnosis better and i opted out due to chance of miscarriage, once again another thing that the dr.;s were confused about as to why i wouldnt do, 1. was go thru with the fetal removal and 2 .was the fluid test.
delivery time crept around sooner than i expected and my water broke 2 weeks before my due date and when my dr came into the room we all sensed the tenseness of what we knew was gonna happen when i delivered the baby, we were ready for a child with special needs and as soon as i pushed him out i saw the weirdest look on her face as she looked at me and said, hmm hes 100% normal, no down syndrome no ventricularmelagy absoutly nothing. i couldnt help but smile and say see thats what happens when u have faith- im pretty sure that was the drugs talking cuz i was kinda outa it but non the less super happy and humble. now that doesnt mean that ppl with babies with special needs dont have faith i just always felt that God used my situation to reveal to her and the other dr.’s what prayer can do. i was told that even the radiology team had said they had never seen a case where all symptoms cleared up 100% on their own . so long story short lol Landon is a completly normal healthy little 11 month old. but to say that im not a hyprchondriac when it comes to him is a plainout lie! if he sneezes funny or falls while standing i completly freak out and think omg could something be wrong with him now? he didnt start crawling till 9-10 months old while i had friends w/ babies who crawled at 6 months so of course i was thinking omg somethings wrong, and became bff with his peditritian and their staff because of all my frequent visits, but everytime i was assured the same thing, relax nicole hes fine all babies develop at their own pace and he was such a laid back baby the dr said thats why he took so long to crawl was he was lazy.. so just know that lincoln is right where hes meant to be and God puts “obstacles” in our lifes for a reason and who knows yours could be to help give another mom peace about her situation by being able to relate to your story and have hope that all will be ok. -xoxo
ps sorry for all they typos i had to type fast landons right next to me throwing his toys across the room and trying to eat the dogs tails lol 😉
OMG! I’m obsessed with your post!!! First and foremost, I had no idea (I’m sure like others) that you went through something so horrible during your pregnancy. Sadly, I don’t know if I would have been as strong as you were/are. I remember looking at your gender reveal party pics and thinking 1.) I’m jealous I didn’t come up with an idea equally as cute and 2.) how genuinely happy you and your husband looked!!!
I’m so happy you decided to share your story with all of us, because this is EXACTLY why Vanessa and I decided to start the blog… we knew we couldn’t be alone with our 9,000,000 questions and mommy experiences.
It’s funny you say the reason Landon didn’t crawl until 9-10 months was due to laziness, because that’s exactly what my sister has said since day 1 as well as our pediatrician. He’s so content that he’s like “whatever, why move when I’m entertained by this piece of carpet, blade of grass, or whatever else” is in front of him.
I feel fortunate that our obstacles have been minor in the grand scheme of things, but they’ve taught me life lessons regardless.
Thanks again and you are hysterical about Landon throwing things and eating the dog’s tail. The things we deal with as moms!
Aidan started with ECI around 12 months or so. at that point, Aidan was delayed in just about every category. I think the combination of his early arrival, hospital stay, and Noonan’s diagnosis was a triple wammy! He has also been labeled with poor muscle tone which actually delayed his from ever crawling. Aidan went from being a little lump on the floor to walking at 20 months. However, because he never crawled he didn’t know how to transition from floor to walking and vice versa, so when he would lose his balance, he would put his hands behind his head and fall back, straight as a Board! It was so funny but also a very exhausting time because if he fell, he could truly get hurt. I had to watch him like a Hawk!
I completely understand about comparing your children to others. I got to where I would dread park visits because inevitably I would hear, “he’s so small!” Ugh! I wanted to say something equally as offensive but I would usually just smile and agree. I was so torn. When its just us at home, i’m amazed at all of his accomplishments yet when we are out, I feel like I have to defend his progress and reasons for his delays. Its hard but I have gotten much better! Aidan is Amazing! I know he’ll talk, get potty trained, etc; its just gonna take longer than most. Oh Well! Their are much worse things out there and I just get to enjoy that sweet little innocent toddler a little Longer than Normal!
Lincoln Cody Mack is walking!!! And he is the best looking baby in the world”
As a child development specialist and former play therapist with the ECI program, it was good to read how the ECI physical therapy and parent education had been such a benefit.
However, It’s important for parents to know that ECI is a therapeutic program that works with infants to three year olds, developmentally delayed, visually impaired, auditoraly impaired and medically fragile (Cerebral palsy, Autistic, Spina Bifida).It’s more than a “trainer” coming to your home.
Leslie, we miss you!!!! So glad you chimed in as the expert! You’re right, ECI is much MUCH more than trainers and we are lucky to have had you teach Lincoln so much! He’s starting to munch on cheese and takes a few unassisted “falling into us” steps!
Great job Allison! So good of you to be open and potentially help other moms who may be dealing with the same circumstance. Also, from an aspiring soon to be published author to a blogger- I can tell your writing is maturing 🙂 Good job!