Our big IEP Meeting

Friday morning Greg and I brought Meredith to ECDC where we had our big IEP meeting. We were nervous because we were about to find out whether or not the Franklin special needs preschool felt they could accommodate Meredith. Also Meredith had 3 seizures early in the morning and needed Diastat. She has molars coming in and has been quite sleep deprived, so maybe that triggered them. Since Meredith had had Diastat, she slept soundly through our whole meeting. There were 13 people there including Greg and I. We sat around a big round table and discussed the results of Meredith's assessment. Then we put together some goals for her for the coming year - things like assisted feeding with a spoon and using technology to help Meredith communicate and make choices. After we were all in agreement on what areas should be worked on while Meredith is in school, we had the talk. They felt Meredith's needs would be best met at a bi-county collaborative program, not at ECDC. After talking through the reasons why, it became very clear that this would be a better fit for her. Franklin is part of 2 collaborative programs so we'll have our choice of 2 classes. One is in Foxboro and has 5 kids and the other is in Medfield and has 2 kids. One of the programs is actually moving to another town, but we don't know where yet. They have things like standers, seating devices, and most importantly - other children like Meredith! We are very excited to meet some other kids with similar needs and their parents. Now we wait for a call from the out-of-district coordinator who will arrange for us to tour both schools and then we'll make our choice. Meredith was approved for a full day program, 5 days a week, which is great. The town will provide transportation to and from the school and she'll have an aide on the bus with her in case she has a seizure. We are very excited and feel great about the bi-co programs. We are also relieved to have the meeting behind us and to have an idea what will be happening in the coming months. So Friday was a really good day overall even though we were battling seizures. They continued into Friday night and Saturday and Meredith needed Diastat 3 times. The last seizure she had was Saturday at 3am and she's been clear since then. Which was great because we wanted to go to cousin Ellie's 3rd birthday party yesterday and since Mer was in good shape by then, we could!!! We had a lot of fun celebrating Ellie's big day and seeing everybody. I got to put a tony-pail in Ellie's hair and play golf and football with Daniel. We are enjoying the warm weather so much and spending as much time outside as we can. Sunshine feels so good. I'm still savoring every second after that loooong winter : )