20 weeks! and a good IEP meeting!

Well, I made it to a huge goal, which was 20 weeks! This has been a rough week emotionally as you saw in the last post. Ethan ended preschool today and this is also the last week of school for my students. I have never missed the end of the year, so it was difficult for me this week, but it is getting better as the week goes on.

20 weeks was a huge goal for me, because it is the halfway point of the pregnancy. Although it marks a very difficult part of the pregnancy, it gives me hope that I am on the downslope. I am now only 5 weeks from the week Ethan was born and then it will only be another 5 weeks until 30 weeks, which is where the doctor would like me to at least get to and hopefully further. I figure, I have been down for 6 weeks already, so I can make the next couple of chunks. I've already been down twice as long as I was for Ethan and that seemed like forever because I was in the hospital. This time, being home has made a huge difference in how fast the weeks go.

I have now been on progesterone for 30 days and had to pick up my refill today. That is another good thing, because that will help to keep my uterus calm in the next several weeks as the risks get higher. Every week I make is better for the baby, but it is also a higher risk of early labor. So, I am now in the point that I am counting every week and sometimes every day. Every week I get through, the happier I am and it combats the feeling of being scared.

One of the things that helps me through this is Ethan. Seeing him, gives me all the hope I need, especially when I have a meeting with his teachers like we did today. Matt and I went with Ethan to his IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) meeting (I can usually sit for about an hour and that is about how long it lasted). Ethan was so good during the meeting, he just went and played with some toys so that we could meet. We were told that Ethan had reached most of his IEP goals for this year. We were so happy to hear that.

We also found that we are seeing a different kid at home then they are seeing at school. He still has difficulties with his social skills and knowing how to play with other kids. He does well with his cousins, but given a situation where there are 12 kids in the room, he freezes up and needs a lot of adult intervention. He also has slow motor planning, which basically means that he has difficulties with taking messages in, processing it through his brain and then telling his body what to do. It could be talking, running, using his hands, basically anything his brain has to tell him to do. He has always had this problem, but it has improved greatly over the years and even they said that they have seen great improvements in this past year.

We came up with some pretty good goals for him for the next year and I believe he will make them or at least come really close to making them. He is an amazing kid and he loves to learn new things, so I know it will happen for him. We have him enrolled in a summer nature program, where he will have speech, occupational and physical therapist working with him once a week. He will also get more practice with social situations with a brand new set of kids. He will also go to our church VBS program in July. We are trying to expose him to several situations with new kids to help him with his social skills along with the situations to help with motor planning.

We will continue to work with him over the summer on some of the things we discussed at the meeting today, so that he will have a good transition back into school in September. We don't want to lose the momentum we have gained.

Like I said above, he gives me the hope I need everyday to keep this pregnancy safe :) This has already been an emotional but extremely good week! I look forward to my little goals that help me get through each week. My next goal is to get to the ultrasound next week to know that the baby is ok and hopefully, find out what we are having.