Worry

The past couple of weeks, I've been a bit stressed and worried - mainly about the whole surgery situation. Usually, I'm not the kind of person who really gets too worried by things, but this has been really getting under my skin. I AM the kind of person who a) hates waiting, and b) hates not knowing - so those are probably contributing factors, but I think the main thing is that I really want for Maddy to be able to talk. 

Maddy is now 18 months old (hasn't the time flown?) and she really doesn't talk at all. Her babbling is still mostly grunting and squealing. Most of that, I believe, is due to hearing issues. Issues that cannot be resolved until after the surgery. I don't even know how much she understands of what we say - many things I think she mainly understands by the gestures or by what we are doing at the time. 

I know that you can't compare kids, each child is an individual, but Lana at the same age had a massive vocabulary. Probably over 300 words. She knew all her body parts, including random parts like "elbow" and "ankle". She was already saying short sentences like "More water please". That is very advanced for 18 months so I don't expect for Maddy to do the same, but to go from that experience with our first child, to still non-verbal with our second is hard. 

After Maddy's surgery, her hearing issues can properly be addressed. She may still need hearing aids, but we can't test her hearing properly until after she has ear tubes put in to fix the fluid issues. I'm hoping that we will see improvement in her speech right away - and many families do. But I also know that it may not be a magic solution and it may take much time and effort for her to speak at her age level. 

Hopefully next week, we will have a few more answers about things. On Monday, we have a development check up and I am going to be asking a million questions about speech development there. Until now, I haven't talked to any professional about it and I really want/need to. On Friday, we have our next cleft appointment and hopefully we will find out what we will do next, now that Maddy's cervical spine has been cleared for surgery. I'm not going to be holding my breath for it, but hopefully we can proceed soon.

The other day I was worried about all these issues, and Lana and Maddy were playing together and just laughing and laughing. I couldn't help but think to myself - Maddy is a happy kid. She loves her sister, lights up when her daddy gets home from work, and follows me around the house wanting cuddles. That's more important than the issues that we're facing at the moment. In ten years, will any of this matter? Probably not. Will a few months' delay in the surgery make a huge difference in her speech in the future? Maybe we'll have to work a little harder in the short term, but probably the end result will be the same. I'm trying to remind myself of these things when I get myself worked up about it all... There's no sense in worrying about things I can't change anyway.