Addi Grace turned two on March 31st~ I can’t believe it has been two years since this sweet, sassy little girl burst into our world.  She is a silly, funny, crazy addition to our little family and I love her so very much.  It is because of this that I take every negative thing to heart and as a personal affront to our happiness.

If you’ve been following my blog you know that we have been fighting our insurance company regarding the number of therapy sessions Addi received per calendar year.  We received our second and final denial letter from the insurance company, and our only other option (according to them) is arbitration.  I have been in contact with a very nice woman in the Dallas office of the US Department of Labor, and even she finally threw up her hands and declared that arbitration or court are our only options.

We receive monthly invoices from the home health company that provided Addi’s therapies, and it appears that the insurance company is beginning to pay for previously-denied claims, but there is still an almost $3,000 outstanding balance (from therapies that Addi received from March to July 2016).  Which leads me to this question: why can insurance companies take a year (or years in some cases) to pay medical claims without penalty, but if you or I miss a few monthly medical payments we are sent to collections and our credit is destroyed? Hardly seems fair to me.

It is because of this fight over therapy with our previous insurance company that we have decided to forego all therapies except feeding therapy for Addi this year.  Instead, we enrolled her at The Little Gym.  I’m not going to say she loves it, because at most she tolerates the noise and the other kids there, but I believe that she is learning skills that will help her learn to walk and climb and play.  She turned her first somersault with the help of the instructor and cried the entire time.  But we’ve been going two to three days a week for almost four weeks now, and she finally interacted with other kids on our last visit.  THIS IS HUGE FOR HER!!!!

I really like the feeding therapist I found, and though she has only worked with Addi a handful of times I feel like she has made huge strides in what Addi eats.  I have real hope that Addi will be off the feeding tube and eating totally on her own, and I am very hopeful that this happens by next Christmas as I would like to take her to meet her Michigan family for the holiday.  Baby steps, I know, but there is hope and expectation in this mama’s heart.

Addi took her first bath in the Big Girl Bathtub this weekend, and she loved it! She learned many things, one being that she cannot breathe underwater.  She enjoys splashing and kicking her legs, and moving her hands through the water.  It is fun to rediscover the joy of water through the eyes and actions of my baby girl~and because of this, I have ordered her some really cool bath toys on Amazon.  Hopefully her father will forgive me for buying without consulting him first!

As always, if you have any tips or ideas for exercises or activities I could do with Addi, to help with fine and gross motor skills, walking, pulling up, etc,, please feel free to leave them in the comments.  I appreciate any and all advice: when you have a child with special needs, you rely a lot on what others have already tried and done.  So thank you in advance, and I’ll let you know how it works out next month!