Cautiously Optimistic

Our little Will is six months old today! And he’s not little anymore—at his doctor’s appointment yesterday, he weighed 15 lbs! Dr. Langkamp said we needed to cut back on fortifying his bottles because she didn’t want him to get fat--that’s not a conversation I ever expected to have about my little preemie!

He’s thriving: his weight is in the 90^th percentile for his adjusted age (three and a half months) and his head is in the 97^th percentile. He’s in the 60^th percentile for his height. We’re so thankful for these stats!

The big appointment this week was with Dr. Langkamp at the Neuro Developmental Center at Children’s. She will follow Will until he is two. She loved his ability to communicate and said he was very social. He smiled and cooed at her while she was talking! Although he’s thriving, he’s still struggling with head lag. The doctor is concerned about this and few other things she noticed during his exam. We will go back in three months to see what he’s done developmentally. At that point, she’d like to do an MRI to see exactly where the brain injury occurred mostly because he’s not presenting in the way the ultrasound would suggest. This is not the news we wanted to hear at the appointment although it’s not anything we weren’t expecting as we have listened to his therapists and watched his development.

Although it has been a very difficult week, his therapists have been so encouraging as I’ve shared this news with them. As I told each one of them, Will would try to get my attention and would give me the biggest smile or laugh. He’s never done that before and I kept saying to him, ‘You’re not letting Mommy be sad about this.” It was as if he wanted to remind me of who he was: my sweet, smiley boy.

When I told Cathy, his PT, that I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the MRI because I was scared of what it might say, she said, “Will you love him any less?” The answer, of course, is no but the question was important to pose. I am afraid of what we might find out but ultimately is doesn’t matter because he’s our child—we love him always and no matter what. She said, “I’ve noticed in the 20 years I’ve been doing this that, for some reason, children from families who rely on their faith and believe in the power of prayer do better. It’s not that those children never have any problems, but they live better lives.”

We’ve seen the Lord work in Will’s life for six months and despite our discouragement, we know He is faithful, that He loves Will more than we ever could, and that He has a plan for our son’s life.

In the next three months, we will be praying specifically for these things: that his indwelling thumbs would “out dwell”; that he would maintain “midline” with his head and hands; that he would gain head and trunk control; that he would roll from his back to his tummy; that he would show emerging signs of sitting on his own; that he would show emerging sings of crawling.

Dr. Langkamp said that she remains “cautiously optimistic” about Will's abilities. No one can know what the future holds for him and we choose to remain hopeful for his progress. We are so thankful for the progress he's made so far!

Please pray for us: for wisdom as his parents, for trust in God’s plan for our family’s journey and for strength as we continue on in this new territory.

Cathy, who is continually an encouragement to me, said, “Lori, you’ll be so proud of the person you’ll become because of what you’re going through.” I’ve thought about that a lot over that last couple of days and hope that that is always true. No matter what I go through, I want to be pleased with the person I am becoming by God’s grace and His tender mercy in my life. I am not there yet—at all—but I am cautiously optimistic about myself.