ok, here's a bit about dd2 - warts and all.
When dd2 was a newborn she was really unwell and went into heart failure v. early. Initially her cardiologist had hoped to delay surgery until she was 6 months old but she wasn't doing well and not even regaining her birthweight, so the repair was done at 7 weeks.
The complications she suffered were mainly due to her being so little still - it was all internal damage that affected her lungs in different ways. She had to be ventilated for 2 weeks (normally it's only 2 days) and eventually came home on oxygen, which she was on at home for about a month.
That was all a really, really hard time for all of us. It just felt like a living nightmare really, there's no glossing over it. Our older dd spent a lot of time at her grandparents, and dh and I took turns staying over at the hospital. It did affect us all, no doubt about that, but we did have a particularly bad time of it - most other babies were in and out within 10 days, and we'd practically moved in.
Anyway, she got better, we all regained our composure (although I had flashbacks for a long time). Dd2 was a very healthy baby and I breastfed her until she weaned herself at 15 months.
Unfortunately her health took a bit of a nosedive after that and she has had lots of problems with chest infections, once she had croup and bronchiolitis at the same time (she had to be greedy!) and had to be admitted to hospital for a week. Other than that, she's kept out of there really and we've kept good control of chest infections with antibiotics. This year has been much better than before and she's had only a couple of chest infections.
She does have a hearing impairment (due to her tiny ear canals & eustachian tubes) for which she wears a state-of-the-art hearing aid, which pretty much puts her hearing at the normal level. When she was a baby/young toddler she also had blocked tear ducts and it took a few minor surgeries to sort that out properly.
In terms of therapy, when dd was little she had something called Portage, where a home teacher came to our house once a week for an hour and did some structured developmental play with her (and me). She did have physio initially but I stopped very early on because the physiotherapist was a complete cow. Instead I did ordinary baby swimming with her and TumbleTots. She really excelled at baby swimming (it was the type where they do underwater swimming) and was nicknamed 'fish'. It was nice to do normal activities with her and felt more appropriate. The only special needs activity I carried on with was horse riding (v. popular!). She saw the speech therapist once a month.
Now she's at school she has speech therapy there and the school also gets support from an occupational therapist, to help dd's fine motor skills.
She is a real little sunshine. My eldest dd is a very caring, kind and considerate child, and I am sure having a sister with special needs has shaped her in this way. She often says that she wants dd2 to live with her and things like that, and wants to sit at her table during lunchtime at school etc.
Ds is only 2.75, and him and dd2 are best friends (and worst enemies at times it seems!) - they always play together and get up to all sorts of terrible mischief. Ds talks about her all the time and can't wait to pick her up from school.
She started crawling at 18 months, walked at 2.5 yrs and potty trained herself within a week when she'd just turned 4. Like most children with DS she is tiny, so never actually looked odd still being a bit of a baby, IYSWIM.
She has just started year 1 at our village school and is very happy there. she's got a 1-to-1 teaching assistant (an absolute gem and now one of my best friends) but usually just mucks in with everybody else.
Phew! I think that was my longest post ever. Anything else you want to know, just ask. If you like I can also CAT you my phone number, I'd be happy to chat (but understand if you don't feel up to it).