Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Here she Grows..

10 months



11 months





First birthday, September 12,2007







Baptism, September 30th,2007




Bumps in the road

We have been home with Ali now for about 3 months. We just got back from the doctors yesterday. Ali is healthy and doing well. She is growing and developing at a good rate. She is above average in both height and weight for her age. She crawls and moves around very well. She stands unassisted and moves around the furniture well but so far doesn’t seem too interested in walking just yet. With Ali however, it seems that once she decides she wants to take off it won’t be long. She is always very umm “determined” when she sets her mind to something. She turned 1 on the 12th of September and last week-end we had her baptized. She is still very, very active and hardly sits still for a moment. She really hates to sleep and fights it but now manages to have a nap every day (sometimes even 2) and will go to sleep at a reasonable hour most nights and only gets up if she is hungry. She has 6 teeth and bites and chews on everything. She is good at giving hugs and kisses when we ask and can indicate how big and how cute she is with hand gestures. She seems very smart and learns many new things every day. She gets into everything and our house is constantly changing. She hardly seems at all like the little girl we got just 3 short months ago.
We have incurred a few bumps in the road thus far. A few weeks after we got home Ali began having seizures. They were very mild at first and then began getting a little more severe. She started having them every day and then multiple times a day. We began investigating with many doctors and specialists. Since we had no family medical background we had to have Ali checked for everything to try to find a cause. The good news is that Ali is perfectly healthy and has no medical, diet, or developmental problems. We spent the bulk of the last few months with doctors and specialists at offices and hospitals both here and in London trying to find a cause. We have learned many things about seizures. We have now learned that there are many, many causes with children and many times you never find out the answer why. This is where we are at with Ali. She has undergone every possible test and everything is normal so far. She is now on meds to help control them and she is much better. The only thing that seems to stick out is sleep. Now, if Ali has a seizure it is usually after a rough night or a big day and she is really tired. She is so over-active that it is like her little body/brain is telling her , O.K. little girl you have to rest now, we are out of gas. She has a seizure and then a good restful sleep for a few hours and she is right back to normal. With a little luck she will just outgrow this. We now just have to keep an eye on her and keep our specialist updated. The only thing we have left to do is to get her on the rights meds for her to keep them under control and get her through this big adjustment in her life. We are starting to settle in much better now and getting some things done around here. It’s been a big adjustment for us all but she is a joy to have around.