“There are a lot of reasons to wear a mask, even if you hate it.” Eighteen months in, and still having these hard discussions with people. I think the frustration I feel is due to the inconsistency in messaging. When I take a step back and reevaluate, I feel frustrated by my own lack of control, and lately, the feeling that my safety net has betrayed our highest calling in the interest of a divisive political issue.

Well hey there, you’re back! Which tells me you’re not sick of this series I’ve been doing on my youngest. (No idea what’s going on? That’s ok! Check out parts 1, 2, and 3 here to get caught up.) For now, I think I’ve mostly given a high level update from birth through about ten months old. In this post, I’ll continue to share our toddler’s journey with hypotonia and the process to diagnosing or ruling out any causes of the delays in her gross motor development.

Between her birth story and the first in a series about hypotonia, it seems my girl is stealing the show around here! Part of my mission in motherhood is sharing the details along the way, so I think it’s important not only to share the struggles but also the progress and the wins as well. The only way I’m surviving three kids, special needs, and a pandemic anyway is all the solidarity. So, might as well pay it forward, right?!

About two months after she was first referred to PT, Olivia saw the pediatrician again to check her tone, progress, and joints. We were hearing a lot of popping and cracking, which seemed to be getting worse but she was not in pain or seeming bothered by it so we were told it’s just the tendon sliding over joints; it’s apparently common for kids with low tone to have hyper mobility in their joints.

I recently wrote about Olivia’s birth story, our third girl born at the beginning of the pandemic. Since then, I’ve written a lot but never published the story of discovering her developmental delays and the adventure of her therapies (well, actually, I’ve posted about it on Instagram, but I’ve never blogged about it).

In December 2020 I took her for her 9 month well check. Using the ASQ-3 9-month form sent by her pediatrician, I confirmed several hunches that I’d had up to that point that she was not meeting milestones she should have been. She was referred for physical therapy to help her roll, get to sitting, and so on. At her visit, the pediatrician agreed that her growth and cognition were good, but that developmentally she seemed like she was at about 6 months.