BGC Updates

So, yesterday, I spent nine hours at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Fortunately, I was still able to get six hours of work done. But between the time of waiting and working, I was accompanying BGC as she had her cochlear implant surgery.

We're old pros on the surgery floor now (there's more protocol than you think--this time I actually obeyed the rules and didn't take a to-go cup of coffee into the waiting room, where food and drink are not allowed, out of respect for all the kids awaiting surgery, who haven't been allowed to eat or drink in many hours!)

Our last two visits were for her hip surgery. She was in that spica cast from August 11 to November 4. That's a long time. I posted my tips for caring for a baby in a spica cast on Vanderbilt's Wishing Well blog, if you want to learn more about it!

You may be surprised she's still with us. It's been almost 18 months. I can't remember the last update I gave, but she's had two different families presented as potential pre-adoptive families, and both have backed out. She even had a couple overnight visits with the second one, who we thought was perfect but ended up having some sudden personal issues to deal with.

There's a third I've talked to, but in an unexpected twist, BGC's day care teacher and her husband actually have felt called to adopt her! They're not foster parents or in any adoptive agency process, but because of the established relationship, DCS plans to expedite their approval so BGC can go live with them!! They'll have to take all the foster care training classes and wait six months and endure the Termination of Parental Rights proceedings for BGC's birth parents, but they can start making a forever family together, and that is really exciting. She's 28 months old already, so it would be nice to have some permanency for her by her third birthday!

Developmentally, BGC is getting close to standing up and then cruising. After getting the spica off, she bounced right back to crawling very quickly. Her fine motor and communication skills had improved so much in the time we were unable to work on gross motor skills. Her communication is limited to less than ten signs, but her overall interpersonal skills have grown. Now with the cochlear implant on her weaker side, and keeping the hearing aid on her somewhat stronger side, she should grow by leaps and bounds in the coming months. But that will be for her new family to enjoy :0)