The call

The woman from the ECI program called today. I was very surprised because the Doctor's office said that it might take up to three weeks for them to contact us. Dave took the call and told her we wanted to wait two weeks to see if Den had mastered walking. I was out at the time trying out a new jogging stroller we bought last night at Babies R Us. I needed a little retail therapy after our stressful day at the pediatrician. The maiden stroller voyage was a bit rocky. It wasn't at all like what I witnessed the previous weekend. My friend Molly had a jogging stroller for her son and handled it which such ease and grace. I attempted to push the stroller using my non-joystick hand. This post will be short because my arm and hand are killing me. I am hoping to be able to attach the stroller to my wheelchair to use it more efficiently. More to come on that.

I decided that it would be best to confront my fear head on and call the ECI lady back and find out how the process worked. Much to my surprise, Carol was very nice. She explained how the referral, intake and assessment worked. She was quick to point out that they never worry about babies Denver's age, that aren't walking yet especially when they don't have other obvious developmental problems. I got some advice from my friend Tanya who used to work for ECI, to ask what assessment they would be using. We talked about that for some time. She gave several pointers on how to urge Den along, to walking. She meant well, but these were mostly geared for able bodied parents. Then I decided I should be upfront about our wheelchairs. I was really nervous about this. She paused for several seconds and actually came up with some decent suggestions that might work for us to try from out chairs. She agreed to send us a copy of the blank assessment to be used and wait for two weeks to hear from us before proceeding. I was pleasantly surprised and very relieved.

One of the concerns I had about having us and Denver involved with ECI in the first place was that I have known parents who had significant disabilities whose children were referred to ECI were perfectly capable of parenting who had Child Protective Services called on them by the ECI staff, simply because someone thought 'cripples' shouldn't be parents. The CPS worker then further assuming that because the person had a disability they couldn't parent adequately. We also spent almost two years before Denver was adopted educating people about how we planned to handle all the aspects of parenting with some support from our friends, neighbors, faith community and families. There were more Nay Sayers than there were supporters at first. Many were converted after he came home and they saw how well we did all on our own. I might add, we have done a pretty decent job so far--even has he's gained more strength and mobility. Sure, we've had a wheelchair breakdown or other bump in the road we didn't expect, but what's parent's car doesn't break down from time to time or the flu bug came around. We've worked through those unforeseen things and asked for help when we needed it. The Den Man has taken all those things in stride. He's such an easygoing kid!