Claire wore a cute hand smocked dress that Grandma Neat Neat bought from the Farmer's Market. It had little lambs on it! We ended up having to tuck the dress in Claire's bloomers so she could crawl around. We had lots of good food - especially the home made birthday cake and cupcakes from Nurse Tammy. It was beautiful AND delicious! Lots of people thought the cake was not even real it was so perfect.
Out front, we had ordered a "yard card" for Claire. I had seen them around town and knew she had to have one! It was pretty neat! If you live in the New Bern area and are interested, let me know and I can give you the contact info for Yard Cards by Caroline.
Erin McCoy came all the way from Florida to document Claire's special day. She captured some awesome shots and special moments. If you want to view the unedited pictures that she took, go to the link: http://emccoy.com/Erin_McCoy_Photography/Clients/Pages/Claire.html It will be hard to pick out which ones we want!
Claire was not interested in her cupcake or ice cream and I was not surprised. She hasn't really acted like she liked cake since we started trying to give her any. So she just dumped her entire plate onto the floor and decided she would rather chew her plate instead. There's a really cute picture of that in Erin's photos! I even tried to give her some on a spoon and she poked her bottom lip out and pouted. :)
It was a great day and we are so thankful to everyone who helped us celebrate!!!! Also if you took any pictures, please send them our way! We want to have every picture we can to document this special occasion!
We all went to Homecoming on Sunday at Pollocksville Presbyterian Church. Trent and I decided we would see how Claire did in the church service and when she got too loud, we would take her to the nursery. She did great, had fun playing with the people sitting behind us, and making noises. I even got to take her to the front for children's time! Then she went on to the nursery with Grandma Neat Neat.
Tuesday was our long visit at Duke. Claire had a hearing test in the morning and passed with flying colors! They said she shouldn't need any more hearing tests as long as she seems to be hearing ok and not experiencing lots of ear infections. Yay!!!
We then went over to the ICN to see if we could see Nurse Susannah, but she had just been called to a twin delivery, so we missed seeing her. :( We did get to see the front office staff, some of the social workers, and Nurse Jess (I believe that was her name). Then we headed to the cafeteria to eat some "yummy" food! Claire enjoyed watching all of the people in the cafeteria and even ate some cottage cheese for the first time and loved it. After a quick nap, we headed over to visit Dr. Rachel for a few minutes. We miss Dr. Rachel - she is so sweet! She is working hard and applying for her fellowship as a pediatric cardiologist at Duke. We can't wait until she is Claire's doctor again!
Next we headed back for the dreaded SICC appointment. Everyone had warned us at the previous appointments that this one would be lots of developmental testing, so I was nervous. I knew Claire was fine, but what if she didn't perform well since she was exhausted?!?!?!
The neonatologists checked her out and said she looked "amazing"! They were surprised at how well she was doing. We then saw the psychologist (I think) for the testing. I had no idea what to expect. But we sat across a table from her and she put different toys on the table to see what Claire would do with them. They score them on a standardized test called the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. She watched how Claire played, mimicked, and interacted. She then put her on the floor to see how she did crawling, talking, and pulling up.
Overall, they were "amazed" again at Claire. They couldn't believe that a preemie who has had her sternum cut slam open with open heart surgery and her abdomen and all the muscles cut wide open for liver surgery could do all that she could do. They said if you didn't know it, you would never guess that she had been through all of that. They even said that her determination had brought her a long way. I know! Her strength in her body along with her cognitive skills were excellent! They base Claire on a 9 1/2 month old child as that's really how old she should be if born on her due date. On everything but the speech category, Claire was scoring at about an 11 month old! So that is AWESOME!!!! Of course by the end of the day, Claire didn't feel like talking/babbling much so they didn't get to hear all of her sounds. So that's why she scored below average on that part. But I don't care. Who can judge by a standardize test anyway! All we heard all day is just how amazing she was to be where she is now after all that she has been through. That is good enough for me! We don't have to go back to SICC until June! :)
It was a 12 hour day and we were all exhausted. But we are so proud of Claire. She couldn't be any more perfect in our eyes.
Below are some pictures from the past few days. I don't have any good birthday party pictures, so to see those, go to Erin's link. I didn't pick up the camera. We just had fun!
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| getting dressed for the party |
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| the decorations and party favors we made |
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| kids could decorate pumpkins at the party from Claire's uncle James' pumpkin patch |
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| blessing cards to Claire |
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| Yard Card |
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| At the hearing test - she didn't like the headphones |
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| visiting nurses at the ICN |
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| Claire and Dr. Rachel |
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| having fun after the testing |
The Scott Family
Greyson has to go have a Bailey Test done in December to test for all of that stuff. I know he is right on where he should be but it makes me nervous that he won't perform for them. He doesn't really have much trouble with strangers but he pry will that day lol. Glad Clair had a good birthday and good check ups. Guess I need to get Greyson's birthday post up now ;)
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