Early On

Now, don't get me wrong, now that Bella is finally in the Early On program I am very happy, but getting here was crazy.  Dr Leber gave us the telephone number and said to call so Bella could start getting physical therapy in the home.  So, we gave them a call the same day as the appointment.

The phone number was to the GISD.  The Early On program is ran in one of their buildings.  I spoke with someone there who took our information and said she would send paperwork in the mail and set up an initial evaluation.  I needed to have all the paperwork filled out prior to the evaluation since this was to be given to the evaluator.  So, a couple weeks went by until the first evaluation occurred.  On the day of the eval, Melissa came to our house.  I was very surprised at how well Bella handled it.  Melissa got right down on the floor with her and made her feel very comfortable.  She not only looked at Bella's gross motor skills, but also fine motor, communication and emotional.  She followed a checklist to see how far ahead or behind she was developmentally in all the catagories.  This evaluation happened on a Friday afternoon.  She said she needed to come back in a week and go over her findings and would let us know if Bella qualified for the Early On Program or not.

So, on Friday, one week later, Melissa came back out to the house.  She went over everything that she had done the week before.  Like we already knew, Bella was developmentally behind in her gross motor skills.  Everything else she was either age appropriate or ahead.  We were told that because of how far behind she was in her gross motor, she qualified for the program.  The next step was to wait for Clio Area Schools Special Education department to contact us regarding what information they needed for Bella's file.  I was contacted and told that I had to bring Bella's birth certificate, immunization record and two pieces of mail showing that we lived in the Clio School District.  I was told to come in teh following week with the information and she would copy it.  So, I took in the information and was told I had to wait again for the GISD to call me.  Now that she qualified for the program, another evaluation would have to be done with therapists and teachers.

By now I was just getting frustrated because I felt that the process could be so much simpler.  But, I really thought Bella needed this, so I jumped through their hoops.  So, I waited for their call.  It happened to come while I was in the hospital having a c-section for Hayden.  I didn't get a chance to call the lady back until the following Monday.  Ironically, the lady I was now talking to in order to set up Bella's second evaluation was the exact same person I first talked to.  I mean really?  I just couldn't believe it.  But anyways, this call happened on November 28.  She didn't set up an evaluation for Bella until January 2.  So, from the end of October to January 2 we had to wait to see if she would even get physical therapy. 

Finally, January 2 came along.  Tony, Bella, Hayden, and I went to the GISD and met Carly and Stacey.  Carly was the Special Education Teacher and Stacey was the physical therapist.  They both did their own evaluations of her.  At the end, we were told we had to come back to following Wednesday to go over their findings.  On Wednesday, we all went back to the GISD and had an IEP, Individual Education Plan.  During the meeting we were told that yes, Bella qualified for physical therapy.  Stacey would now be coming to our house once a week for an hour.  Finally, some progress.  We were also told that along with the therapy, Bella was now to go to class once a week.  The class was taught by Carly and it had 4 other students in it, all of which were in the Early On Program.

After the IEP, we were relieved that this was finally going somewhere.  I felt as if Bella was going to start getting the help she needed.  Not only would she be getting the therapy, but also socialization and cognitive skills.  The day after the IEP would be Bella's first class.  The following week the program had a field trip planned, so class and therapy were cancelled.  Bella's first therapy session actually happened at the field trip at Skateland and the first home therapy session happened the following week.