First words...first swim

Sebastian and Rachel are now both saying Mama and Dada.

It is awesome!!!

Sebastian is also clapping with open hands. This was his last goal for occupational and speech therapy. I hope this means that we will be ending our sessions with them in the near future.

Sebastian is still learning to walk and so long as he learns to lift his legs and not drag his left foot when he walks we will be able to finish Physical therapy soon.

It's been a great couple of days.

I can't believe that Sebastian and Rachel are learning to talk. Learning to walk and over all just plain growing up.

So yea!!! to Sebastian and Rachel. They are now starting to learn to talk.

Sebastian Pictures

Here are some pictures of Sebastian, starting from the time we came home from the hospital to just a few days ago.

Another Step Forward

It's been hard for everyone the past week.

Physically the kids are good. Sebastian is making big improvements everyday. He's doing so well that his Physical Therapist has dropped his sessions down to once a week. That means that we only have 3 Therapy sessions a week. We only have to spend 1 hour a week at the hospital. This is huge! You have to understand that when I say "we", I mean everyone. We all have to go to therapy sessions, doctor's visits and every single one of Sebastian's appointments. It's been hard on everyone to have to load up 3 kids and 3 adults, trek down to Children's Hospital or where ever it is we are going and then try and entertain Austin and Rachel while Sebastian is in with doctors, therapists, etc.

Little kids should not be forced to do this, but all in all the kids are taking it in stride. We try to make a game out of the "excursions". It's not always easy but we do the best we can. With 1 adult to every child it is a bit easier.

We are still waiting for CPS to let us sleep in our own house. That can't come soon enough. We are all tired of this nomad lifestyle at night. The kids hate it and if it goes on much longer it's going to cause some serious trust and attachment issues with the kids. They are beginning to realize that Weldon and I aren't there at night.

On the positive side, our new CPS caseworker has made her first official visit. She informed us that the only thing they are requiring of us at this time other than the Psych. Eval. we already completed is a Protective Parenting class. I have no idea what this class is about. All I know is that it's 2 hours once a week for 12 weeks. Once we complete the class, they claim they are going to try and close out our case. We'll see. The way things go with the State, I'll believe it when I see it.

I should say that so long as our Psych Evaluations don't turn up any mental illnesses that we need to take care of first, all CPS is going to require of us is the Protective Parenting class. If it turns out that CPS and the doctors at the hospital have made us crazy then who knows when we will be able to get out from under the CPS microscope. As it is we are going to have monthly visits from the caseworker.

Now it's not all bad, the caseworker did say that if our Psych. Evaluations come back normal we will most likely be able to start staying in the house. We'll see. They put a rush on the results and Weldon and I are just sitting and waiting to hear what other "Services" we will need to take advantage of before we can start sleeping in our own house and before this nightmare is over.

All in all we have an advocate in our new CPS caseworker. I think that she would like to close out our case as soon as possible. I don't think she believes that we are guilty of the offense we've been accused of by the doctors. At least I hope that is the case because right now we could use someone on our side. It's the only way this nightmare is going to end.

So here's the summary of what's been going on:

1. Sebastian continues to improve. He is down to 3 therapy sessions a week. He looks and acts like a normal 1 year old. (Technically he's not 1 until the 8th of September but is feels weird to call him 11 months when he's closer to 1 year.)

2. All of the kids are doing good.

3. Weldon and I have taken our Psych. Evaluations and are awaiting the results so that we can start spending our nights at home.

4. CPS seems to feel that we are not a threat to our kids in the future and are only requiring the Protective Parenting class which lasts 12 weeks. ( I think this is a legal state mandate but who knows.)

5. If Weldon and I can get our Parenting classes scheduled for September, we will hopefully be done with all of this before Christmas. I'm not counting on it but it sure would be nice.

.....2 Steps back

It seems like we're living like this. 1 step forward and then 2 steps back.

Weldon and I spent 3 1/2 hours at the Psychologists office this past week. We had our Psych Evaluation as mandated by CPS.

I h0pe none of you ever have to go through this process. It's 3 1/2 hours of psychological tests designed to ferret out any mental illness or psychotic impulses you may have. You spend the entire time taking multiple choice exams which ask you everything from would you like to work at a florist to do you believe that life would be better without law enforcement. They ask questions about everything in your life and how you feel about these things. Then of course you have to speak to the psychologists and anything you say to them is NOT confidential. I repeat anything and everything you say or do is not confidential. They will be giving all of this information over to CPS and the state and anyone associated with the charges brought against you who asks. So your whole life basically is broadcast for the entire State of Texas, if they ask.

It's humiliating and depressing. We weren't depressed before we got there. We certainly were depressed after we were finished. We were able to guess that they might be trying to build a case against Weldon since fathers are statistically the ones who injure their children. They really are trying to break us and get one of us to say that the other person did it. It makes me sick to think that these people are going to try and use me and my interviews against my family. That they are going to twist our answers to fit their needs.

I'm probably just being paranoid but I doubt it. Nothing these people have done has shown us that they care about us, our kids or the situation. We're just a nuissance to them. They certainly haven't come out to check on the kids.

It's been 2 weeks since we've had any contact from CPS. They don't return our calls. We saw the investigating CPS counselor at the hospital. The only time he came to the house was to take our kids and to tell us that they had closed the case and determined that we caused Sebastian's injuries by shaking him. They haven't checked on the kids. They really don't seem to terribly concerned with the stress that it's putting all of them under. They haven't made any visits to see how we live. Nothing. They only contact us when they want something.

Yes, I'm angry and annoyed and bitter. I'm tired of jumping through hoops for these people only to be ignored. This nightmare can't end soon enough for us but somehow I don't think they are done knocking us around. Once the system gets a hold of you, they want to drag you around and beat you up as much as possible before they are forced to leave you alone. I doubt that we will ever be left alone by these people.

One Step forward....

The last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of activity.

Sebastian continues to improve. He is climbing anything and everything. It doesn't even have to be nailed down. So long as he can get on top of it and it supports his weight, it's fair game. He still gets really frustrated and screeches at the top of his lungs. This may be more from a lack of speaking ability than anything else but it's something that worries us just a bit. Then again he's almost 1 and very independent and still doesn't have the words he needs to tell us exactly how he wants things done.

Is this a glimpse into his later years? Do I have a budding young scientist in my midst?

Right now, Sebastian is working on walking and keeping his right hand open at all times. He tends to drag his left foot, which is more of not actually moving his hip to walk.
The therapist believes that this is just laziness on Sebastian's part. He's able to crawl and climb and he's thinking ,"why do I need to stand or walk. I'm doing just fine like this."
This is our theory anyway.

The good news is that Sebastian continues to improve at record speed. His recovery has been so speedy that his Physical therapist has bumped him down to 1 day a week . If he continues to progress at his current speed with the once a week therapy we will be able to keep the easier schedule and it also means that he will most likely be done with therapy sooner rather than later. So here's hoping that Sebastian continues to improve and make progress.

Speech therapy is going well. Our original therapist is going back to school to teach, so we lose her this week. Her replacement takes over next week. I'm not sure how this will affect us. Will we have more or fewer sessions? That remains to be seen but the current prognosis is that he doesn't really need the speech therapy anymore. It's more proactive and geared towards pushing him ahead.

Occupational Therapy is going the same as physical therapy. He's hit almost all of his goals. If he would just clap with both hands we would probably be able to stop the occupational therapy in the next couple of weeks. Again they are working on getting him ahead of the curve. Right now he is right about where he should be for his age.

Sebastian had his follow-up MRI last week. This was an MRI of his brain to see how he is healing and to help determine what kind of brain damage he may have. We know that he has some damage but it is unclear if this damage will negatively affect him and leave him with some kind of deficit. It's possible that he will have some kind of learning disability or behavioral disability but we won't know for sure until Sebastian starts school and even then we won't know if this is a residual effect from the injury or if he was already set up to have this challenge. There's just no way of knowing. About the only thing we can do is begin to prepare for this issue if we do have to deal with it. It's basically giving up some warm-up/ramp-up time. Time most parents don't get when they begin dealing with these issues in their children.

I'm sure we will know more after we speak with Sebastian's neurologist this coming week. I'm hoping to get some answers and find out when we will be able to take Sebastian off his anti-seizure medication.

Thanks to a very close friend, I now have some other possible theories as to what happened to our little boy. Since no one else seems interested in finding out what happened. The doctors are just happy to call us child abusers and say that we shook Sebastian. Case Closed. God forbid that they might actually be dealing with something that goes against the statistics and delves into the realm of the unknown. So anyway, we have some questions and actions to take to help us find out what may have happened to Sebastian.

It's kind of hard to keep telling friends, family and anyone who asks that we don't know what happened. People look at you like you're hiding something. They think we're lying because we are ashamed of what they think we did. We didn't do this thing we are accused of. We did not shake, hit or injure our baby boy. We didn't see what happened and there's nothing more we can say. We just don't know what happened and no one in the hospital cares to find out what really happened. They are happy claiming we abused our kids.

It's hard but we're just going to take it one day at a time. One day at a time. Sebastian is healing. The therapy is nearing an end. We can see the finish line for Sebastian out in the distance. We aren't close yet but we're getting closer. It's the little things that keep us going and make it possible to keep going....just one day at a time.

Some Encouraging News

This week has been a great week for Sebastian. He is showing marked improvement in all of his therapy sessions. He has almost achieved all of the goals set forth by the Speech and Occupational Therapist. The Physical therapist is very pleased with his progress. She has even mentioned that we will most likely be able to reduce his physical therapy to once a week by the beginning of next month.

Sebastian is feeding himself with his right and left hands. He is beginning to gesture with both hands. He has begun to say Dada and Mama. The sensitivity loss to his right side appears to be dissipating. He is crawling more and more on his hands and knees. There is less Commando Crawling.
Sebastian is able to climb into Austin's "Naughty Chair" and sit down. He has been feeding himself finger foods and isn't really too into the puree foods. This I've been told is to be expected.

The Occupational Therapist and Speech Therapist believe that we will be done with their sessions in the near future. We don't know exact dates yet but we're probably won't be doing the full 40 sessions originally planned.

All in all Sebastian's recovery appears to be almost complete.

Our next steps will be to continue helping him catch up with his sister. He's almost there. Maybe a week or two behind her. And we will need to watch Sebastian for any behavioral or possible learning disabilities. Most of this won't become apparent until he reaches school and by then we will be able to take advantage of any special programs offered through the Schools and various Government offices. I am hopeful that Sebastian is almost done recovering and will soon be done healing his physical wounds. We have been blessed with such a sweet and funny little boy. Not to mention his equally comedic and adorable brother and sister. Life is beginning to resemble our old normal routine, except that we still have the CPS case to contend with and restrictions holding us back.

I'm not going to dwell on that now. Weldon and I have our kids and they all appear to be healthy and happy. And that's what we are going to focus on right now. Happy, healthy babies who love to laugh and to make us laugh.

Nomad Life Continues

We had our first visit with the potential New CPS counselor for our case. The initial review/investigation of our situation has been completed. They have determined that some kind of Non-Accidental Trauma was inflicted on Sebastian. This is based on the doctor's report. They have closed out this part of the investigation and are now hopefully going to recommend that our case be handed over to the Home Safety Department. At least that's what the CPS counselors were discussing. They are going to try and get the case passed over to this new counselor by Tuesday of next week. I say try to get the case turned over because the initial counselor will be going on vacation and he will need to have his supervisor attend the staff meeting and turn over the case.

I am skeptical that this will happen as smoothly as it needs to happen because this is the same supervisor that banned us from our son's hospital room and bedside. I'm still not over that. I still shake with anger and frustration whenever I think about the precious time we lost with Sebastian because these people who don't know us. Don't care to know us or care to know what kind of precautions were in place in the ICU deemed that it was in my injured son's best interest that he be left alone in an unknown place with people poking and prodding him all night long and no mom or dad there to comfort him.

If this case does get turned over as it is supposed to then we will meet again with the assigned counselor. They will then decide what kind of "services" they will make us take. They will decide if we get to come home. They will decide when we get to have our lives and our kids back.

When they asked what we wanted from CPS, we told them that we wanted to come home. We want to be with our kids. We want to be there for our kids. The counselor told us that we would need to do some things for CPS before we would be allowed back with the kids. They have asked that Weldon and I undergo psych. evaluations and then based on the results of these evaluations they will determine how long the process will take and what kinds of "services" we will need to take. I'm hoping that after the psych. evaluations they will realize that we didn't do this to Sebastian and that we aren't a threat to our kids and we'll get to come home.

It doesn't seem to matter to them that I'm still breastfeeding the twins. Or that Austin still wakes up in the middle of the night looking for his Mama and Daddy. They don't seem to be concerned that the twins aren't sleeping through the night because they are looking for some comfort from Mama. The nights are hardest on all of us. The grandparents are doing a great job but they aren't a substitute for Mama and Daddy. And of course the grandparents aren't getting a lot of sleep because they have to handle all 3 kids by themselves at night. No one at CPS seems to care about them either.

So for now we are still not allowed to be with the kids. We still can't sleep in our own house. For now we will continue to rely on the kindness of our friends and neighbors. For now we will continue to sneak out of the house at night after the kids go to bed and sneak back in before the kids wake up in the morning.

Therapy Updates

Sebastian is doing great with his 3 therapies. The therapists are working on increasing his sensory perceptions with both arms. It looks like he might have some diminished feeling in his right arm OR it could be that he just doesn't mind the stimulation the therapists are using. Whatever the reason we are erring on the safe side and working on stimulating the feelings and sensations on both his arms and hands.

Sebastian still has moments where he will keep his hand fisted but those are becoming fewer and fewer. The more we work with him and encourage him to use his right hand the less of this behavior we see. The Speech Therapist is very encouraged by his progress and doesn't believe that we will be in therapy for much longer. She wants him to continue his therapy for the time being just in case there is a problem as he is getting ready to talk.

The Physical Therapist is working on teaching Sebastian to walk. We have him crawling on all fours for the most part. He is still commando crawling but that seems to be more of a preference because his shorts are too long. Damn! The Fashionistas and their long shorts. :-) They don't allow for proper knee traction.

The Occupational Therapist is also really pleased with Sebastian's progress. He still isn't eating with his right hand but he is using it to help and that is huge. We will continue to work with her so that Sebastian will eventually use his right hand as well as his left hand to feed himself. It's slow going but we are making progress.

So this week we have been told that Sebastian is doing great. He is recovering at an amazing rate. We just need to be prepared for the eventual slow down in Sebastian's progress. The other concerns we need to begin to looking for are behavioral. We don't know if there will be any behavioral problems but there are things we will need to be looking for in the future.

Now if we can only get the CPS stuff finished and behind us, things will be so much better. We'll see what happens on Friday morning.