occupational therapy

Well, another week (ha, ha). What can I say? Hailey had a good week overall and seems to be over her ear infection. We decided to slowly start adding whole milk to Hailey's diet on Sunday. By Monday her body was covered in hives. The ped said to try Lactaid milk instead, after that she developed welts. Finally, we started soy - she hates plain soy - so tried vanilla soy tonight. She drank it tonight before bed so we will see what happens. Needless to say I have every kind of milk imaginable in my fridge. What is strange is that she eats cheese, drinks milk-based formula, she has eaten mac 'n cheese, ice cream and other milk products with no problems. I guess whole milk is just more potent?! I just hope the rash goes away soon and the soy does the job.
As far as therapy is concerned, she has her physical therapy today and the therapist has some concerns so she is referring us to occupational therapy as well. She did up a report and said its nothing serious, but how do you tell a mother not to worry? I looked up online about sensory issues and came upon "sensory processing disorder". When reading up on that it would explain alot of Hailey's behaviors. I found this explanation on a website ... "in the womb, a baby spends her time curled up, cozy and warm in the dark, listening to her mother’s heartbeat and muted sounds from the outside world. Meanwhile, her nervous system is developing at astonishing speed, forming thousands upon thousands of essential nerve cell connections. When a baby is born prematurely, her immature, disorganized nervous system isn’t ready to handle all of the sensory messages bombarding her". The good news ... "with appropriate interventions and time, most children develop needed central nervous system connections and sensory input starts getting more familiar and more comfortable. Not always, but most of the time, children can overcome their sensory problems, especially with parents who develop their own "sensory smarts."
So, needless to say, as a mother I am worried, but the outlook is good and we caught it at such an early age that she can easily be worked with and we can all develop those "sensory smarts". I just don't know how I am going to keep up with all these appointments!
Just for reference in the report Jen put that Hailey has made tremendous progress in the past 2 months and what she is concerned about is gravitational insecurities, apprehension with movement, not being able to remain in one spot for an activity etc ... So we will see where we go from here. Today I felt guilty because if she wasn't born prematurely she wouldn't have so many hurdles to overcome. Really, overall she has done amazingly and I guess I have to focus on that.
On a better note ... Hailey is so darn cute and here are some pictures to prove it :-)

My dad had a photo shoot with her on Saturday ...